
Fastest Way to Lose $50 - Our Failed Admob Experiment - iamclovin
http://blog.fotobookapp.com/59958087
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unreal37
$50 is not really a marketing budget. You'll get more downloads from this
being on Hacker News... oh, wait... clever.

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programminggeek
You paid WAY too much.

Let's look at theoretical numbers. Say you have a mediocre conversion rate of
1%. At 30c per click it will cost you $30 to make a $2 sale. Thus, the most
you could have expected from this venture is like $3, but even worse, you
managed to not figure on Apple taking 30%, so your'e back to $2 in potential
money on a $50 spend.

Ouch.

Next time bid a penny and see what happens. At a penny you could profitably
sell your app at a 1% conversion rate. That's $1 cost to make $1.40. Not great
money, but it's at least got potential and if you got enough volume of sales
you could become a top app and make some sick money.

Also, never listen to Ad Networks on what to bid. Bid based on YOUR
profitability, not THEIRS. If you can't afford more than a penny a click, then
fine, move on.

~~~
ajhit406
In retrospect, yeah, I feel like an idiot for bidding the suggested bid. I've
run pretty substantial campaigns on both facebook and google adwords though,
and always had good experience bidding somewhere within 20% of the bid.

I also maybe was slightly duped by this statement after setting moderately
restricted targeting:

"You have selected market area or demographic targeting options. As a result,
you will receive significantly fewer impressions."

But thanks, and for anyone reading this, don't advertise paid apps on Admob,
and don't bid anything higher than $0.10 if you have a small campaign.

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nikcub
I don't think this reflects poorly on Admob at all - more that paying 30c per
click lead for a $2 app doesn't work, and $50 isn't a sample size.

even at a 5% conversion rate from click to purchase (highly unlikely - for
this type of app you are talking about less than 1%) your customer cost of
acquisition would be $6. do the math.

with these apps you have to be looking at review sites, social media, blogs
(like you have now), link exchange with other apps, making it free and putting
ads in it, etc. the hit rate is very very low.

~~~
ry0ohki
I think you're missing his main point, which was he set it to spend "evenly
throughout the day" and it was all gone in one minute.

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ctdonath
Emotionally shocking, yes, but what is really expected? Why _should_ the ads
be spread "evenly throughout the day"? esp. for such a pittance? The spread
has no advantage. Google is handling a deluge of data, and he wants a
controlled long-term distribution of a few miniscule tidbits. Yes, expecting
Google to behave an obvious way makes emotional sense; methinks it's all just
happening on such a vast scale he/we don't grok that blowing $50 on ads in
seconds does, in fact, make sense.

~~~
ajhit406
I just thought they should be spread throughout the day because I selected the
little radio button that read:

"Spread ads evenly throughout the day"

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n9com
Mobile ads are largely a money drain. Most clicks are accidental and will not
lead to a sale. I'd only recommend using AdMob if you are promoting a free app
and are doing a burst campaign to break into the Top 25 chart of a particular
category.

Secondly, a $50 budget is peanuts and paying $0.25/click for relatively un-
targeted admob clicks is crazy. We normally pay $0.05/click for such crappy
traffic.

We've spent 1000's on mobile ads and it's only an effective strategy for
pushing your downloads a bit higher so that you have a better chance of
hitting a 'gold spot' in the charts. E.g. when you are 26th and you want to
get into top 25.

~~~
ajhit406
I agree. The ~$0.25 CPC bid was suggested, we actually only decided to go with
the suggested bid because they had warned us that demographic targeting would
limit exposure.

We actually ran a similar campaign a few days previous where we had over 1,000
clicks at a .04 CPC and didn't see any increase in downloads.

~~~
n9com
From a 1000 clicks i wouldn't expect more than 50 downloads of a FREE app, for
a paid app, you'd be lucky to get even 2 or 3 downloads.

~~~
ajhit406
Fair point. I think the lesson learned was that the targeting that we thought
we were employing was not nearly as effective as we had anticipated (25-44,
limited geographic area, iphone 3GS, iPhone4, iPad2).

We also were just amazed at the clicks registered in just seconds. The stat
reports were already in and email alerts received in less than 2 minutes time.
(Daily Budget and "Spread throughout the day" notwithstanding)

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dpcan
I ran a $50 Admob campaign over the weekend for a new FREE app we have on the
Android Market. It did exactly what I needed it to, it got me about a hundred
downloads. Today, that app has a little over 400 active users.

The ball has started rolling, and it only took $50.

THAT BEING SAID, the first time I ran an Admob campaign, I had just about the
same experience as this writer.

Admob works great for getting lite-version, free, download apps a little
traction. I will never again run it for a paid app.

IN-FACT, in the Android Dev Console, you'll notice that only your free apps
have the "Advertise this App" link next to them. I assume that Google probably
is very aware that Admob campaigns can work great for free apps, but it's a
different ball game when it comes to paid apps.

Lastly, I'd like to add that I took the time to create a graphical banner for
my free app ad that made a BIG call to action - Download my new puzzle game
for free.

~~~
ajhit406
Thanks for sharing. Your conclusion for the majority of app developers is spot
on-- for small-medium market paid apps, Admob isn't worth the money.

We're probably much better off spending it all on our Free version with limits
to prove the value to free users and hope they upgrade.

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ajhit406
In retrospect (and maybe this should be a follow-up experiment), we should
have advertised ONLY our free, limited version and focused on getting the
cheapest CPC possible.

$50 at a $0.02 CPC would yield 2500 clicks. For a free app, if we saw a 10%
download (a very healthy assumption I know) that would be 250 downloads of the
free app.

Maybe after proving the value of the app with limits, we get approximately 10%
to convert to paying of the 250 downloads.

That's 25 paid, or ~50 pre apple tax. Still losing money with very healthy
assumptions, but I think we'll try this as well...even after the negative
experiment and will post our results.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
I just want to say thanks for posting your experiences. Everyone here is
ragging on you for "too small sample size" and "u did it wrong" but I
appreciate that you came forward and shared.

For the people who scoff at a $50 ad budget, that just tells me they've never
done this with their own money. It's easy to brag about campaign size when
you're spending out of someone else's wallet.

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SeoxyS
If you want guaranteed results, use a cost-per-install campaign. I work at an
ad network that specializes in these kinds of campaigns.[1] You'll have to pay
a lot per-install, considering how poor conversions are going to be. Our
network automatically calculates your eCPM on the fly and will rank campaigns
according to that—and so too it works with most competitors' network.

To be honest, with your tiny budget and a two dollar app, there's no effective
way to spend your money with a positive return on investment.

[1]: <http://chartboost.com>

~~~
stuti90
Doesn't Apple's policy not allow Pay-per-install Ads or something? I remember
Tapjoy ran into issues because of that.

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SeoxyS
They don't allow incentivized downloads. (Ie. we'll give you in-game credits
if you download the app that this ad advertises.)

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shii
The only ad platform I have ever had any success with is Reddit's cheap $20
self serve ads. I haven't tried any Facebook ads though so there's that giant
I have yet to try out. Reddit's great though mainly for the feedback and
people who are actually interested in what you're selling and willing to
critique/x post your ad.

~~~
iamclovin
Interesting. We did think of Reddit but maybe thought that an iPhone app which
is a Facebook utility is probably not a Redditor's cup of tea.

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hboon
I experimented with AdMob and JumpTap over a few months with budgets ranging
between low tens to low thousands for each campaign and even for an app that
was $5, it basically didn't work.

I didn't get good results with Facebook either, but maybe due to the nature of
your app, it'd be better.

Ditto for Adwords.

I only dabbled slightly with Reddit and it seemed that it would show some
promise if I invested more time in it.

You might also consider paid downloads promotions. Something like
<http://tapzilla.com/> (YC S10). The co-founders Edmond and Francis are both
helpful and responsive when I run a campaign. It wasn't the right avenue for
my app, but Fotobook sounds like a better fit, as a utility and at lower price
point. I'm not sure if Apple's recent foray against paid downloads affects
them.

~~~
ajhit406
Thanks, we'll check out TapZilla.

Amazed that people will spend so much time and energy trying to save $1 but
won't spend time trying to make $1...

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mcobrien
To help capitalize on all the HN traffic, you might want to include a more
prominent link to fotobookapp.com (probably in the first sentence when you
introduce the app). It took me a while to see the link at the end of the
article.

Also, the "App Store" link in your posterous profile doesn't actually link
anywhere.

~~~
iamclovin
Thanks Michael - fixed the broken link.

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legec
How much does news.ycombinator.com charge per click ? What is the conversion
ratio of news.ycombinator.com users who clicked on the link ? ;-)

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ajhit406
Yeah...maybe we'll make our money back.

But this comment stream has taught me a alot, we want to run a considerably
larger experiment with our free application and will report back.

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ericflo
FWIW, $50 is a very small amount to spend on advertising like this. So small
that I don't think you can draw too many conclusions from it.

~~~
ajhit406
That's very fair, we're just submitting this as a benchmark.

We also (mistakenly) also spent $50 on Admob a few days before this. We didn't
even realize we had spent it, that's how fast it happened.

I just can't conceptualize technically how these stats could be real.

~~~
ctdonath
A year ago, Google was doling out results at a rate of 34,000 searches per
SECOND. In your case, that's filtering and spreading your ad across some 3.4
million searches. Not unreasonable to assume your demographic restrictions fit
about 1% of those searches; the limits sound narrow, yet seem candidates for
the largest group of Google power users (whom I would independently assume are
dominated by 25-45yo upper-economic-half US state residents owning camera-
laden iOS devices).

You're trying to take a drink from Niagara Falls and wondering why you're
soaked. (Been there, done that. Memorable, but not productive.)

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yhlasx
I guess that is normal. 150 clicks and 0 downloads for 1.99$ app.

I think around 50+ clicks were accidental, and immediately back key was
pressed before loading the content.

And with other 100, i guess your assumption was wrong that there is big enough
market for this.

But something else is interesting here, you really can make money on ads from
free apps --

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mikeknoop
In the past, Facebook Canvas applications and Website applications have
received C&Ds for the "save photo" functionality.

See: <http://www.vincentcheung.ca/blog/facedown/cease-and-desist/>

~~~
martey
I do not know how the author's application retrieves Facebook photos, but I
believe that Facedown (which was a desktop application, not a web app) was
shut down because not because it was saving photo albums, but because it
required users to input their Facebook credentials into it and tried to
download photos by scraping album information (by pretending to be a web
browser).

I have operated a reasonably popular Facebook application that has similar
photo saving functionality (using their API), and not have not run into any
issues. It has transformed from a desktop application using the REST API to a
Graph API using web application at <http://socialphotodownload.com> . Unlike
Facedown, I try to follow Facebook's Platform Policies.

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JoshTriplett
It seems ridiculous to me that Admob ignored the $15/day budget and spent $50
in two minutes.

~~~
corin_
How does it make a difference at all? Unless what you are promoting can't take
the traffic, it's irrelevant. When you're paying CPC you have no reason to
care when the clicks come in, 10 clicks a day for three days isn't any worse
or better than 30 clicks in five minutes.

~~~
antidaily
It makes a difference because it's an explicit setting. $15/day. And who knows
how that scales? What if going through $500 only takes 45 min?

~~~
corin_
As long as it doesn't spend more than the customer wanted to spend, it's
irrelevant.

Let's say I want to spend. If I have $500 to spend, and I want to pay CPC, how
is getting $500 worth of clicks in 45 minutes worse than getting $500 worth of
clicks over three days?

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a3camero
I think it is relevant because it's _wrong_. Unless it says somewhere that
it's a suggestion or it probably won't work like that.

If you tell AdMob to not spend more than $15 a day and then it immediately
spends triple that amount I wouldn't say that's giving you a fair shake on
what they promised.

~~~
jraines
AdMob sucks. IMO they do this on purpose to discourage small publishers. I've
also heard, from a reliable source, that they also send you worse traffic
until your account is more "established", and if your early CTR sucks, you may
never get the bump. I've heard of people having to start new accounts after
their first few campaigns do poorly.

I suggest you try InMobi and AdModa. (Not affiliated with either except that
I've been happy with the traffic I bought there)

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giladvdn
I liked the first comment (in the post) by Andrew Maine. Basically, it's
simple math. If you expect a 5% conversion on a $1.99 app (which will earn you
$1.39 after Apple's cut), the most you can spend for a viable business model
is 6 or 7 cents per click.

Less if you want to make an actual profit on the app and not just get more
users. But then, if you want more users, maybe the app should be free?

~~~
chopsueyar
But once you make a conversion, do you have any way to subsequently contact
that same user to make them aware of your other app/service/product offerings?

Also, if the app is recurring billing, the formula changes completely.

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cantbecool
I know I'm not the only one who feels really sorry for the fellow. I'm
imagining him sitting by his laptop and scrupulously making sure his target
demographics are correct for his ad campaign, and this nonsense happens.
Google should make it clear in the FAQ that your campaign will be short lived
if you ad funds under a certain amount.

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hobo5
maybe the stats are fake. i think thet want you to buy 5k minimum to get some
start of a result

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ajhit406
We actually got a clarification from Admob that I should include in the blog
post:

"[P]lease note that budgets under $200 per day can still be spent in a matter
of minutes."

I was just frustrated that they didn't include this anywhere in their campaign
or ad group setup or their FAQ. I had to write them to get this answer.

And then, why even allow for daily budgets below 200?

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jamescoops
You can try things like getjar.com which offer a cost per download model. Or
list your app on my directory @ mjelly.com!

