
Kill yr ads… the don’ts of iPhone app marketing - gaiusparx
http://taptaptap.com/blog/kill-yr-ads-the-donts-of-iphone-app-marketing/
======
siglesias
_We’ve accomplished this without spending a single dime on advertising._

Interesting, taptaptap, interesting. Let's see here:

1) Multi-thousand dollar, multi-day giveaways and promotions that require you
to follow and retweet.

<http://taptaptap.com/blog/win-the-ultimate-10000-canon-5d-> mark-ii-camera-
rig/

<http://taptaptap.com/blog/laser-engraved-ipads/>

2) Lisa Bettany making seven appearances on This Week in Tech, and in surely
all of which plugging Camera+, a channel not everybody has.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_This_WEEK_in_TECH_panel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_This_WEEK_in_TECH_panelists)

3) Getting pulled from the App Store and subsequent free publicity, again,
fairly risky and unreliable for getting covered.

That's some road to take not to require advertising to get the word out about
your app. It's technically TRUE that you didn't buy ads, per se, but it's not
like this success, especially in relation to point 1, was free, as your
opening seems to imply. Put another way, your marketing expenditures aren't
zero.

~~~
alanfalcon
The article is specifically about buying advertising such as Daring Fireball
RSS Feed Sponsorships and Google AdWords. They aren't saying "don't spend
money" and definitely not "don't do marketing", in fact they're saying the
opposite! They're just laying out that the ad market has changed and buying
ads is no longer the deal it previously was.

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kleinsch
How do you write an entire article about iOS app advertising and not include a
single word about mobile ad networks? I see discussion of banner ads on major
sites, AdWords, roadblocks on various ad networks, Daring Fireball RSS,
MacWorld banner ads, but nothing about AdMob or MobClix. Maybe they tried that
and it didn't work also, but it would have been nice to hear some specifics.
I've heard of multiple people having success using AdMob to drive downloads,
and that makes more sense to me than a Daring Fireball RSS sponsorship. The
channels they named seem more like places you'd use to market Mac software
(something they have experience with) than places you'd go to market an iOS
app. None of this is to say they don't know how to market iOS apps - they've
sure sold a lot more than me. ;)

~~~
andycroll
Slight OT as it's more about ad-supported apps but...

With "Today's News", we really struggled to make any reasonable revenue from
mobclix, despite huge numbers of requests.

We understand from contact with mobclix support that returns are incredibly
dependent on the ad format you use.

Our app used mobclix in it's initial version but we've since moved to iAds (as
an experiment as much as anything), which make more money. However the
inventory is pretty narrow so despite a high CPM we still aren't making much
money.

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swombat
I hate to be that guy, but am I wrong in thinking that the only point made in
this 2000 word article is "Don't spend money on advertising to get your iOS
app to be successful"?

Of so, I'd like a prize for managing to deliver 150x human-readable
compression :-)

~~~
michaelbuckbee
Here's the issue, I've read multiple other articles saying the exact opposite:
you should buy DF ads, you should buy ads on the iPhone review sites, etc.

In this article they are staking out a position somewhat against the
conventional wisdom and contrary to what they've previously recommended people
doing. Given that context, I think it's important that they back that up with
some data and a some description of their thought process.

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teye
That body text is borderline illegible, even rendered on a Mac. Horrible
choice.

~~~
mcantor
Readability toolbar shortcut to the rescue!

    
    
        javascript:(function(){readConvertLinksToFootnotes=false;readStyle='style-apertura';readSize='size-large';readMargin='margin-medium';_readability_script=document.createElement('script');_readability_script.type='text/javascript';_readability_script.src='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/js/readability.js?x='+(Math.random());document.documentElement.appendChild(_readability_script);_readability_css=document.createElement('link');_readability_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability.css';_readability_css.type='text/css';_readability_css.media='all';document.documentElement.appendChild(_readability_css);_readability_print_css=document.createElement('link');_readability_print_css.rel='stylesheet';_readability_print_css.href='http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability-print.css';_readability_print_css.media='print';_readability_print_css.type='text/css';document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(_readability_print_css);})();

~~~
DTrejo
I think it is sad that they got rid of the old page, which was so nice and
helpful (and obvious and free).

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idoh
I don't understand what's insightful or new with this article. Advertising is
basically an arbitrage operation. To do it right one needs to look at the
conversion funnel, figure out the ARPU for different advertising channels,
prune campaigns that are not effective and invest in ones that are.

If you are not doing that then of course you will get burned, everyone who is
thinking about making an ad spend knows this or should be able to figure it
out.

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kenjackson
This argument seems odd. Targeted advertising can be really cheap. For example
you write some program that can scan sheet music and convert it internally
into a music representation can be advertised on the top sheet music sites and
probably get a solid ROI as a result. A MacWorld ad or DaringFireball ad for
that probably doesn't make any sense though.

~~~
marklubi
I actually have two apps in the store at the $30 and $50 price points. They're
both in a very niche market and we do quite a bit of very targeted
advertising.

Based on the tests I've run and analytics that I have in place, we're getting
an approximately $20 (net) return for every $8-10 spent (if we spend too much,
the return drops off sharply).

It's a bit difficult to get exact numbers since there isn't complete tracking
all the way through the sales funnel. We do know that if we stop advertising,
sales start to drop off after about a week, and drop to our pre-advertisement
levels after about three weeks.

Advertising does work for the app store, but I would guess that it only works
if the goal of the advertising is to get targeted people for a particular
niche to know that your app exists.

*edit: clarification

~~~
nobody_nowhere
If the ad inventory is cheap enough, it works for just about anything... and
with the low fill rates in mobile ads, there's really, really cheap inventory
if you spend enough.

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leftnode
What about us who don't sell iPhone apps and are selling just normal
downloadable software? Is advertising still a viable outlet, and if not, what
do you recommend?

~~~
patio11
This depends on a lot of factors. I have not heard of offline advertising
being a big win in our space. Many developers, including me, do fairly well
with AdWords. My AdWords spending every month dwarfs my rent, healthcare, and
tax bill... combined. (Some of my shareware buddies are _much_ better than I
am at it, on larger spends.)

I have yet to discover a worthwhile online ad platform other than AdWords.

The bread and butter of my business is organic SEO.

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EGreg
I have a question. What's wrong with coming out with a paid app for, say $2.99
and then pay 51% to let's say TapJoy? If they don't drive someone to buy your
app, you don't pay. If they do, then you get 49% - 30% = 19% of the app. Isn't
this essentially risk free and improves your sales numbers?

~~~
namityadav
CPA is certainly lower risk than others. The only minor issue that I can think
of is that you (as an advertiser) essentially push the risk to the publisher.
So, the big publishers won't be interested in this model. They don't control
your conversion funnel, after all.

I'm saying this as someone who used Offerpal (which is now called Tapjoy) as a
publisher.

~~~
EGreg
Okay, but they do offer it, do they not? Or they simply won't show your ads?
Then why do they have CPA ads for paid apps?

~~~
nobody_nowhere
Might be good if you're cash-strapped.

There are absolutely legit CPA offers out there, and sometimes it's a good
deal. I don't know tapjoy personally, but I do some CPA deals online for
brands you're familiar with. If the customer isn't known/predicable they get
the absolute bottom of the barrel ad inventory until we know whether it
converts at all. If it doesn't convert at all, we cut you loose. If it does, I
squeeze every penny I can out of you, and hopefully everyone's happy.

If you can, it's worth investing time/money to learn the market yourself.

