Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are your app monetisation strategies?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 108 posts

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

#31

Post by benologist »

alc90 wrote: post #19
benologist wrote: post #15

I've found the Amazon Underground App Store to be pretty cool - you get paid by the minute by Amazon for the people using your apps so all you need to focus on is engagement and retention. http://developer.amazon.com

What were your results with this type of monetisation? Do you know any "success stories" of any kind?

You can guesstimate what it will be worth by looking at your analytics. Amazon pay $0.002 per person per minute for US and a little less for a few other countries. I find they pay for about 2/3 of the usage time my apps record. I am netting a bit over $2k/week from it.

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

#32

Post by alc90 »

avaer wrote: post #27
alc90 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be my simplest way of thinking but I've found that having a high-quality, curated app network enables you as an advertiser to target a high-quality and a more relevant audience. Also it's simpler to find the apps you want to target since we've already vetted all the apps in the network to make sure we keep a high-quality standard. Also - I don't see the publisher's willingness a risk factor if the product, ser…

So are you vetting apps, or are you giving the publishers full control? You can't eat both sides of this cake. If you're curating for your idea of quality, you're controlling which ads publishers can display where. This isn't a bad thing; it's how virtually every ad network operates. But then what's different about this approach? The risk factor is that with a traditional ad network, I know I'm buying a certain numbe…

The app publishers that are going to be accepted in the network will have full control over what ads that will be displayed. It's their choosing if they which ad they display and where as long their app passes our quality-standards (eg. UI/UX, number of active users, regular updates etc)

I feel like the TinyAds network is more about buying influence and exposure and not a fixed number of impressions (that basically translates to the number of times an ad was loaded and that's it).

Also - I'm not sure why would you think your inventory is doled out since the app publisher accepted your ad and you have the guarantee of the ad being displayed on their app?

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

#33

Post by codr4life »

sidlls wrote: post #26
codr4life wrote: post #6

What happened to building great software, providing great service and letting the rest flow from there? Monetization strategy; what is that, really? How is that ever going to lead anywhere that matters? Not that I don't have the same issues, I too am trying hard to find a way to survive in this mess of a world; but I'm convinced it all starts with doing the right thing, which rules out advertisement bullshit for me.

The large quantity of very profitable and very poorly done software is a counter to your last sentiment. Here's the thing: most consumers don't know enough about what "great software" means to care much about it. They just want software that works to solve a problem they have. They don't care if it never crashes or is written in language X or written by a process with rigorous QA and design, etc.

I'm not arguing that it can't be done, I too have seen plenty of examples. I'm saying that it's not leading anywhere, individually or collectively; which is why I suggest focusing on substance instead and seeing where that leads us. I believe the problem is that the general public have no clue about what's possible, and we're not doing a very good job at showing them by producing more of the same crap.

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

#34

Post by alc90 »

jt2190 wrote: post #25
alc90 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> [D]o you think that having this... more human approach... when selling/buying ads is obsolete? My understanding is that larger companies with bigger ad spend don't have time to hand-pick each app or web page. (Using human labor to pick apps and pages can significantly raise the cost I presume.) Perhaps there is a marketplace for smaller advertisers here.

Big companies have big marketing budgets and are interested in big numbers (eg. huge number of impressions).

I was thinking in terms of a more human approach where advertisers are actually looking to connect with their potential users.

App publishers don't sell impressions - they sell influence by allowing the advertiser to get a spot from their app real-estate.

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

#36

Post by jliptzin »

As an advertiser that sounds like a nightmare to me. We want to be able to push our creatives out to a huge mass of users instantly, track whatever performance is relevant to us, then iterate on that to try to improve. Having to vet individual placements on apps would be a gigantic waste of time and I would not do it. Maybe for some niche markets it makes sense but I can't think of any.

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

#37

Post by codr4life »

no_wizard wrote: post #20
codr4life wrote: post #6

What happened to building great software, providing great service and letting the rest flow from there? Monetization strategy; what is that, really? How is that ever going to lead anywhere that matters? Not that I don't have the same issues, I too am trying hard to find a way to survive in this mess of a world; but I'm convinced it all starts with doing the right thing, which rules out advertisement bullshit for me.

I'll tell you what happened: The industry matured. In the 80s, 90s, hell even the mid 2000s, if you had a great product you could likely get business because simply, you had a great product! Tons of industries were being transformed, disrupted, and shaped by new firms all the time. Famously, Adobe was profitable within its first year of operation thanks to a nice deal with Apple to use postscript (bit of history here…

The way you're framing it sounds like we don't have any alternatives to continuing down this road; from my perspective; this is the future we are creating by not considering options. We didn't come up with these backward ideas, bullshit wears suits. We're the ones we've been waiting for; it's up to us to change this into something better, and that starts with considering options.

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

#38

Post by avaer »

alc90 wrote: post #32
avaer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you vetting apps, or are you giving the publishers full control? You can't eat both sides of this cake. If you're curating for your idea of quality, you're controlling which ads publishers can display where. This isn't a bad thing; it's how virtually every ad network operates. But then what's different about this approach? The risk factor is that with a traditional ad network, I know I'm buying a certain numbe…

The app publishers that are going to be accepted in the network will have full control over what ads that will be displayed. It's their choosing if they which ad they display and where as long their app passes our quality-standards (eg. UI/UX, number of active users, regular updates etc) I feel like the TinyAds network is more about buying influence and exposure and not a fixed number of impressions (that basically t…

So you're saying app publishers have full control, as long as you approve?

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

#39

Post by alc90 »

yupyup wrote: post #35

Ads. Mainly developing chat apps for Google Play and it's the simplest way to make money for these type of sw. It worked well until Google removed our main app from search results and it all went downhill from there.

Do you know why did Google removed your app?

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

#40

Post by w1ntermute »

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…

> And do you think that having this ...more human approach..when selling/buying ads is obsolete?

No, it can still be done, if you're in a niche for which it doesn't make sense to have a more automated approach (either because it's too small to justify the investment in building an ad network, or because it requires higher-touch interactions).

It sounds like what you want to build is a niche ad agency. It wouldn't be a software/technology business, but a sales business. Your first step should be to get high-quality apps to agree to place high-quality ads that you've sourced - that will be infinitely more difficult than building an ad network (if that's what you're doing). And if you can do that, you can probably run the business at first using Excel, without writing any code.

Post reply on HN