More than Just Lines on a Map: Best Practices for U.S Bike Routes
Marketing and Monetization of Windows Phone Applications
1. YOU YOU
R R
AD AD
HER HER
E E
Developer’s Guide to
Marketing and Monetization of
Windows Phone Apps
Alan Mendelevich | AdDuplex | ailon@ailon.org | @ailon
4. Richard Foster, once a DOS programmer and now working for the
family dry cleaning business and developing mobile applications part-
time for his company Edgeway Software, is ecstatic about the results
he is seeing developing for Windows Phone 7.
…
Richard has made $28,882 in four months with his suite of apps.
Fast forward to February, and now I am making around $380 a day
from ads from my 7 games.
…
I’d like to start chronicling my experiences as I start doing my Full Time
Indie Gig. I started going full time April 1st, 2011 …
-- Elbert Perez , occasionalgamer.com
I generally get about 1.5 hours a day for game development
…
Total marketplace/ad revenue for both Krashlander and Krashlander
Free - $23,215.68
-- Jeff Weber
5. Did you know …
Product
20%
Marketing
80%
Research shows that 20% of product’s
success is determined by the product
itself and the remaining 80% is
marketing*
* I totally made this up
11. “Kik Messenger Effect”
• 22% higher than anticipated Android and
iOS growth after launch on Windows
Phone
12. Paid Apps
• Set a competitive price
• Consider psychology
• Consider who and where your customer
is
• Set a price that makes business sense
– WP7 Developer ROI Calculator
http://www.wpdownunder.com/?p=2055
13. Trial
• Can’t try == won’t buy
• 70% more purchases than without trials
• Counter example: Cocktail Flow*
14. In-app purchases
• No built-in centralized mechanism
• Roll out your own
• Use 3rd party services (MoVend, Linxter)
15. Free apps with ads
• Generally perform better than paid apps*
• Best suited for long/frequently running
apps (games)
16. Ad networks
• Microsoft pubCenter
• Google AdMob
• Smaato
• Millennial Media
• Mobclix
• MobFox
• Inneractive
• AdDuplex*
17. Fill rate
• Smaato: “Worldwide, the average ad
network fill rate was 10% in Q3 2011”
• Maximize ad space value by multiple
network fallbacks. Fallback to AdDuplex or
in-house ads.
– Silverlight: Windows Phone 7 Ad Rotator
http://wp7adrotator.codeplex.com/
– XNA: ImproviSoft AdStreamer™
http://www.improvisoft.com
20. Don’t monetize on day one
• Giving your app away is the cheapest and
most effective marketing instrument you
have
– René Schulte: “Helium Voice was released in
November 2010 and has 18,773 downloads
as of today. Helium Voice Free was released
in March 2011 and has 143,002 downloads as
of today.”
– Jeff Weber: “Krashlander total downloads
(Includes both trials and purchases) - 23,500,
Krashlander Free total downloads - 327,000”
21. Case Study: Chicks'n'Vixens
• Released as absolutely free (while in beta)
• Went on to be #1 paid game for some time after switching to
paid
– Meds: “After being #1 for almost 2 weeks as a paid app I can say
that I'm very happy with the results. I won't give specific numbers
but suffice to say it would make many iOS and Android devs
green with envy.”
• New version released as free with ads
22. Case Study: gMaps
• Started as absolutely
free
• Added ads and a “Pro”
version later
23. Release date is a feature
• Be the first to solve a problem
– René Schulte: “… this was quite important since it
got a lot of attention for being the first real picture
effects / photo filter app in the market. The big
blogs like Gizmodo, Engadget and MSNBC
covered a few of the must have WP7 apps and
Pictures Lab got featured in all. I guess that
helped to jump start the app.”
• With every SDK/OS release there’s a chance
to be the first to utilize some previously
unavailable capability
26. Release Betas
• Beta-testers are your first evangelists
• Recruit beta-testers:
– WindowsPhoneBeta.com
– Twitter #wp7 #wpdev
27. Feedback loop
• Facilitate user
feedback and ratings
• “Bad” feedback
should go directly to
you, good feedback
– to the Marketplace
• Consider Good feedback
encouraging
rating/review after a
number of launches
Bad feedback
28. Publication
• Have everything to get featured
– background image is not required, but your chances
of being featured without it are low
• Don’t submit on Friday
– András Velvárt: “If you look at the charts from
WP7AppList, you can see that almost no applications
get verified and published during the weekends. …
You essentially have two more days to test and make
sure the app doesn’t fail digestion without impacting
the publishing date.”
– René Schulte: “48h difference in submission (Friday
night - Sunday night) -> 12h difference certification
email (Thursday morning - evening).”
• Don’t auto-publish
33. Tip specialized blogs
• WPCentral.com, WMPowerUser.com,
1800PocketPC.com,
BestWP7Games.com, WPCentras.lt
(Lithuanian), WindowsPhone.lv (Latvian),
WP7Rocks.com (Russian), etc.
• Make it personal
• Include short description
– maybe even something that looks like a
review
• Link to your demo video. You made it,
right?
34. Tweet and post to Facebook
• Decorate tweets with #wp7 hashtag
• Tweet, retweet, post to Facebook from
your personal accounts
• Help fellow developers (retweet, like, etc.)
• Temporarily change your avatar to app’s
tile
• Mention app in your personal profiles
35. Monitor and react to feedback
• Monitor mentions of your app on
Twitter, blogs, etc.
• Encourage transformation of positive
mentions into 5* ratings
• React and address negative feedback
38. Show off your app everywhere!
• Show your app to your friends
• Show your app to Windows Phone
enthusiasts
• Show your app to influential community
and Microsoft people
42. Paid advertising
• On the web
– Specialized blogs
– App catalog sites
• WP7AppList.com, appsfuze.com,
windowsphoneapplist.com, etc.
– BuySellAds.com (search wp7)
• Directly on Windows Phone
– AdDuplex, AdMob, etc.
44. Summary
• Marketing is at least as important as the
app itself
• Starting with free is the cheapest and most
effective marketing instrument
• Be creative, be active, utilize all channels.