This document provides tips for marketing and monetizing Windows Phone apps. It recommends starting apps as free to gain downloads, then later adding paid or ad-supported monetization. Marketing is emphasized as at least as important as the app itself. Developers should promote their apps through blogs, social media, videos, and paid advertising channels. Starting free allows developers to gain an audience for later monetization strategies like paid apps, in-app purchases, or ads.

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

2. Developer’s Work Cycle
Employee/Contract developer
Task Deliverables Money
Entrepreneur developer
Task Deliverables Money

3. Money
Employee Entrepreneur
Get Make
Paid Money

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

6. Publish an App

7. 38 countries can submit directly,
102 - indirectly

8. Submitting an app
• App Hub
http://create.msdn.com
Available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United
States.
• Global Publishing Partners
– APPA Market
http://www.appamarket.com/
– Yalla Apps
http://www.yallaapps.com/
• App Hub – Free Apps Only*

9. Make Money

10. Front-end for your main service

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

18. Promote your
app, promote
your app,
promote your
app, promote
your app…

19. Don’t monetize your app on day one

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

24. Before you
launch…

25. Marketplace “SEO”
• Name
• Keywords
• Tile

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

29. Online presence

30. Demo video
• Easier to watch than try your app
• Great asset for marketing activities

31. Online presence
• Web site or section
• Facebook Page
• Twitter account
• Google+ Page
• Blog

32. Free promotion

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

36. Social media integration

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

39. Case Study: Wordament

40.  Cross-promote apps
with other developers
 Utilize full potential of
your ad space

41. Paid advertising

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.

43. Summary

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.

45. Thank you!
@ailon
blog.adduplex.com
ailon@ailon.org