Pillar Apps Review & Detailed Case Study

Free Case Study

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How I made $343.95 in 3 months
on auto-pilot with 30 minutes of
one-time work
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by Nick Golden
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Copyright © Nick Golden 2013. All rights reserved.
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Thank you for downloading this short case study.

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My name is Nick Golden and I’ll be your guide for the next hour.

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It was a beautiful summer afternoon.

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I sat in my home office, checking stats and thinking that my online profits
sank the last month.

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A half of my niche sites were penalized by Google. My CPA campaigns made
me minus $300 or so, because of decreased payouts and higher bid prices.

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I decided that I urgently need to diversify.

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I looked around, and found that my friend making boatloads of money with
mobile apps banner advertising. Making iPhone and Android apps and
monetizing them with Google Admob and other advertising networks.

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But there was a problem.

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I didn’t have a dedicated team of programmers and designers, nor the funds
to hire one.

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His team made really nice games and I had no chance with my modest tech
skills.

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Also I don’t like programming. I can’t focus on things for a long periods of time
and it’s no fun to me.

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Mobile Apps Case Study

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© 2013 by Nick Golden

After researching for a day I found that I can make simple apps with almost
no tech skills.

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Without further waffling, here is an app that I made that earned the mentioned
$343.95 in 3 months:

The app was created in 30 minutes with a special app builder and no
programming at all!

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You can download this app here, if you have an Android device: 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rubicon21.freestuffbymail

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Now let’s check the Admob ad network stats:

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As you can see this app made $343.95 from Jun, 1st to Aug, 31th.
It also made about $130 in September, but I don’t know exactly, because I
switched to Admob 2.0 in September and too lazy to combine stats from 2
interfaces :-)

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This month (October 2013) there was a dip in profits, probably because of the
new Admob haven’t fully adapted by advertisers:

The app made just $87.52 as of October, 24

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But anyway, it’s free money!

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And a nice passive income without any maintenance.

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I know
what pain in the ass the maintenance is.

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Sites constantly drop out of top spots in Google and require new backlinks,
social signals and etc.

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Mobile apps almost don’t require any maintenance and promotion.

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Maybe 10 minutes a month. And that’s all.

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You can see other apps in my Google Play Market account.

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I programmed almost all those apps myself, but that’s another story. And they
make me money too!

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So, you’re probably wondering how I made this app and how you can too?

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Easy.

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I used a Pillar Apps online app builder: http://goo.gl/0XvnPE

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It isn’t free, but I don’t know a free builder that allows you to insert your own
banners in apps and do it in a minute or less.

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The price is $35 a month for unlimited apps and unlimited push notifications.

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I like to mention another thing. The content in my app is from an RSS feed.

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This feed is from a site that my friend owns, and he allowed me to use it.

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You can always find a feed to use. And you can always mashup feeds in
Yahoo Pipes or other RSS service. I’ll show you some cool tricks later.

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Think unlimited content here :-)
And no problems with duplicate content.

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Now I like to show you the builder and how easy is to create apps.

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First, I selected a suitable app template (Pillar Apps has about 50 of them):

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Second, I customized app tabs:

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Everything is customizable. The style and look of tabs, number of tabs, show
ads or not. I played with customizations for 15 minutes.

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Third, I inserted an URL of the RSS feed:

As you can see there is a live preview. Also you can paste feeds from
Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and others.

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Fourth, I added the app to Admob, got an adblock id and pasted it into the
builder:


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Fifth, I created the app icon. I use Pixelmator with templates on Mac, but you
can use any other software, or free icon maker from Google:
http://android-ui-utils.googlecode.com/hg/asset-studio/dist/icons-launcher.html

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Don’t overthink it too much, make an icon in 5-10 minutes.
You can always replace it later.

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I uploaded the icon to builder and created a support ticket to approve my app.

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Generally they approve apps once a day. It doesn’t matter if you created an 1
app or 10. But to approve your app faster just submit a ticket to Pillar Apps
support: http://goo.gl/0XvnPE

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Sixth, I created app screenshots.

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As I showed earlier Pillar Apps has a live app preview.
Just use any screen capturing tool to make a screenshot, or read this:
http://www.wikihow.com/Take-a-Screenshot-in-Microsoft-Windows

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Seventh, after the app was approved, I downloaded an .apk file (by clicking
Publish and following instructions) and uploaded it to my Google Play
account.

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To signup for a Google Play Developer account visit this link:
https://play.google.com/apps/publish/
There is a $25 one-time fee for unlimited apps submission.

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Eighth, I wrote a short app description and submitted it to Google Play. Also I
uploaded the app icon and screenshots.

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And that’s it!

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It can take a few hours before your app will be visible and searchable in
Google Play Market.

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For app promotion I purchased 2 gigs from Fiverr. Social bookmarks and app
ratings. It was enough to see increasing app installs and money started
coming in.

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You can skip social bookmarks, but don’t skip app ratings!

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It’s very important.

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In the same niche, if the first app has a beautiful icon, and the second app
has a 20 five-star ratings, but a so-so icon, people will download the second
app.

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Because of a social proof thingy. My own behavior is exactly the same.
And I think yours is the same too.

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Now I’ll show you a few cool tricks to get fresh ideas for your apps.

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You can build your apps around popular products.

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For example let’s take a product niche: coffee makers

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Name you app Coffee Maker Deals and use Amazon to generate an RSS
feed for your app.

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Amazon official RSS page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/tagging/rss-help.html

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And our feed will be: http://www.amazon.com/rss/tag/coffeemaker/popular/

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I don’t sure if Amazon allows to use their feeds in apps, but you can use a
feed converter from Skimlinks (http://skimlinks.me/Hh0ahL) and not only earn
money from Admob ads, but also get paid if someone will buy products from
your app.

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Amazon looks great on mobile devices and people trust them.

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For example my other app: Ray Ban Fanatic, provides a list of Ray Ban
sunglasses and I’ve got 2 sales in 90 days ($26 in commissions).

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Register for Skimlinks (http://skimlinks.me/Hh0ahL) and to convert your RSS
feed visit: https://hub.skimlinks.com/settings/tools/skim-rss
paste your feed and click Generate.

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You’ll get a feed to use in your app.

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And finally I like to discuss trends.

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For example I found that Chili’s is gaining steam the last 30 days (using
google trends).

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You can find a Chili’s coupon feed, for example:
http://dealspl.us/coupon-rss/chilis.com

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and use Skimlinks (http://skimlinks.me/Hh0ahL) RSS converter to make a
feed for your app.

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People always look for deals and coupons, so you can name your app Chili’s
Coupons, or The Latest Chili’s Coupons. Use your imagination!

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I like this profit source and plan to make at least 50 apps before the next year.
Do you? 

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You’ll receive more cool tips and tricks in the next few days if you subscribed
to my list here: https://nickgolden.leadpages.net/mobile-profits/

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Signup for Pillar Apps today and earn some money!
http://goo.gl/0XvnPE

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If you have any questions, shoot me a message:
support@rubicontwentyone.com


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Pillar Apps Review & Detailed Case Study

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