

Ask HN: What is the best way to market an Android app for kids - Banzai10

What do you think is the best way to market android apps for kids?<p>I'm finishing an app for kids and want to boost my downloads from the beggining, spending some money in marketing.<p>What is the best suggestion you have?
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danibx
I'm also interested in this question. Any tips about marketing apps for kids?

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speeder
I am cofounder of Kidoteca (
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Kidoteca> )

We are yet to reach profitability, or have a awesome amount of downloads, but
our total downloads so far in Android are above 50k, so we are not completely
bad either.

First, if you have the money, throw money on marketing, really. Without money
it is very hard to get far.

Second, Android tracks the quality of your installs, not only absolute
downloads, so pay attention to the quality of the ad publisher you are
using... we used so far:

AdMob: Solid, works well, expensive. Facebook: kinda inefficient. StumbleUpon:
started only 2 days ago, so no data. AppBrain: Could get a guaranteed download
for 20 cents, and very fast, we could baloon the amount of downloads absurdly
fast. But we noticed that the uninstall rate was also balooning, in the end
after a while the active installs started to drop instead of increase, and our
ranking plunged (and took 2 months to fix), so stay away from it unless you
have boatloads of money to throw on it and use as initial download numbers
platform. Blogs: they don't do much on Android, on iOS it is better.

Long term: on Android all your apps tend to rise in downloads in long term if
they are good enough, first because most apps on android are found by search,
and android search is good (of course, this mean that if you have a crap SEO
you are screwed), and Google Play take the app current popularity on its
search ranking, as your app gets popular, it gets more popular. My apps
usually are getting a 10% increase per week in downloads (at least for the
first two months).

For launch, try to reach the "new free' or "new paid" in your category, it is
not hard in several countries, and helps a bit, but don't focus too much on
that, it is not a great thing like it is on iOS.

I have some friends that work in huge companies that make mobile games for
hire. They usually spend the same cost of the app in marketing (ie: if you
made the app alone in 3 months and paid yourself 3000 USD in monthly wages,
spend 9000 USD in marketing).

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Banzai10
Thank you very much to be so detailed in your explanations and advises. It
will really guide me when my app lauches soon! I'm very new to the Apps world
so all you said is kind of new to me and will help me a lot.

I have other questions if you don't mind to answer:

* What content is evaluated in google play search? I mean you are reffering to the SEO of my application web site, or the Google Play content?

* What is the approach you usually takes to enter in "new free" or "new paid" and how long an application may remain in the "new" category? (if your approach is to marketing as you mentioned, just sai ad's :D)

Thank you again for your help!! \o/

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orangethirty
What type of app is it?

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Banzai10
It is a game for kids, is just a game for them to spend some time playing
around.

