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.
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.
I'd even argue that now there is greater brand recognition for the app that they SHOULD be advertising for it. There's still plenty of arbitrage in app advertising, trust me - otherwise, selling ads on iphone app review sites would not be a significant portion of our revenue (http://buysellads.com/buy/channel/id/22)
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. ;)
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.
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 :-)
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.
I'd revise it to "Don't spend money on advertising for you iOS - even if you wanted to, the price has multiplied many times over for the last couple of years".
I found it very meagre on stats and arguments, and I think what was most interesting to me: whether there's a difference to companies and apps with traction and those without.
I would never pay for ads on a product that hasn't gained any traction, users nor fans, but I wouldn't mind paying for some reddit ads later on.
As long as you consider buying ads to be noticed instead of buying ads to get people to like you, I think it's still open for discussion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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.