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Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

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Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#101

Post by Outpox »

I've made a CS:GO online tool which gets ~40k visitors/month. Since I use adblockers I decided not to put ads on my website, but I instead placed a Paypal donate button which didn't worked even once.

So instead I placed my steam trading link which allows visitors to make trade offers with me. I couln't say how much it does represent but I've got ~5 trade offers per week.

Most of the time the weapon skins aren't worth much but I'm still glad because I've got to receive messages thanking me for the tool which is what I've always wanted.

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#102

Post by andreasvourkos »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #45

while we're in this topic, does anyone know any ad(?) network that provides "pay per errands" (install app, watch video, fill out survey, anything that can be done on mobile)? i want to give my 30k users a way to earn a bit of extra money.

Pollfish surveys - http://www.pollfish.com/publisher

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#103

Post by Msurrow »

orasis wrote: post #86
ilugaslifg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind translating this into english? Even seeing the definition of LTV above, I still don't understand the story your comment is telling. What is "paid user acquisition"? How would a higher "lifetime value per user" enable you to do it? How is your app monetized to arrive at this LTV? What would it imply for you to have "designed it around monetization from day 1", what would be different? Why can't you chan…

Someone downvoted you, but thanks for asking this question - it made me realize I was communicating poorly. Paid user acquisition is spending money, usually on ads, to get people to install your app. The app business is now a ruthless winner-takes-all market and the game is all about spending $3.00 to make $3.05. When you see pervasive ads for Mobile Strike or Game of War it means that these games are doing a better…

Great answer and explaination.

Lets assume you decide that you want to either make the app profitable or kill it, and the assumption world is simple so there are no other concerns (like eg. you are having fun running a 5 star app): its profit or die.

Given that assumption what would prevent you from changing the app into a subscription based app ("service")? You could notify all your users that from date x/y there will be a monthly fee to use the app. You put it into effect and 99% of your users leave the app. The interesting question left is if remaining useres*monthly fee > monthly cost of app.

Why would that not be an option for you?

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#105

Post by [deleted] »

orasis wrote: post #47

Unless your app is a viral, monetization can't just be a strategy - it is the primary design criteria. I have a 5 ⭐️ app, 7 Second Meditation, that has fantastic retention numbers, but I didn't design it around monetization from day 1, so the LTV is too low to do paid user acquisition. So the app is doomed to putter along on organic installs. An app must nail both retention and monetization to succeed. (shameless plu…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#106

Post by htkibar »

charlesdm wrote: post #96
htkibar wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I believe it needs to be priced less, if possible via use of coupons. I believe ghostnoteapp needs ubiquity and integrations so people buy it to add it into their workflow, as opposed making it the workflow.

Why would it need to be priced less at this point? Based on my experiences, he'll most definitely will be making less money. I don't see it. If anything, he should test a higher price point.

Simple, to attract more people for now. It needs to be ubiquitous imho, and deeply integrated into people's workflow so that when he jacks prices up people have to pay it or break their workflow. (which creates an incentive to actually pay more, as a customer)

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#107

Post by st3v3r »

codr4life wrote: post #74
st3v3r wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kinda hard to do something that matters if you're struggling to pay rent or feed your family.

No one ever promised it was going to be easy, convenience is one of the drugs we've been hooked on. The truth is that we're not victims to circumstances; once we snap out of it, we can do whatever we feel like; create exactly the kind of life and world we want. So lack of power isn't really the problem, the problem is fear; fear of challenging the status quo, of stepping out of line, of taking risks; fear of living.

Yeah, that's easy for you to say. Are you going to pay to put my kids through college so I can make you happy by signing up for your experiment? I didn't think so

Re: Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

#108

Post by abhishekdesai »

alc90 wrote: post #18
w1ntermute wrote: post #4

Do contract work and let others deal with monetization. The problem with creating a mobile ad network is that you're competing with Facebook and Google[0,1]: > • Facebook and Google have the most inventory and are still growing in terms of both users and ad-load; there is no temporal limitation that works to the benefit of other properties (and Facebook in particular is ramping up efforts to advertise using Facebook…

And do you think that having this ...more human approach..when selling/buying ads is obsolete? I think that high-quality apps have a loyal and passionate audiences - a smaller one for sure - but advertisers can rest assured they have access to the best audience money can buy. I've never thought in terms of Facebook or Google's scale and I actually want to take a more anti-Facebook/Google approach where the amount of…

I completely agree with this point of view. If you have a niche audience with high engagement, brands get a better visibility.

The audience will be more open to ads as well if delivered right. For e.g. A sports app with a limited audience will be interested in knowing more about a particular sport equipment or a sports drink.

But let's not just throw banners here and take them to new links / apps; show them meaningful info in the app itself, when users click on the banner.

I am planning to implement this approach in my app cricheroes.in - will update on how that is working.

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