Now the other big monetization strategy is of course through in-app advertisement. 1
And this is becoming more and more predominant in the monetization strategies of apps. As more and more 2
big companies are producing free apps which have great content and great usability 3
users are expecting free apps. 4
You can't really just make a great app and give it away. 5
So instead you have ads. And this is an app that was believe it or not made by Apple in the early days 6
of iAds which is their ad distribution system. And it's hilarious because all it does is it allows you to 7
scroll through all the ads that they're serving across the App Store. 8
And you can even like some of these ads and save them or search for them and look at the new ads. 9
Now of course this app was pulled very quickly because of how ridiculous it was and all those people 10
who say that Apple always makes great apps then this is a glaring counter-example. 11
But essentially this illustrates one of the type of ads that we're all very familiar with which is banner 12
ads and you'll see them at the bottom of the screen or at the top of the screen. 13
And the problem with banner ads is that we are virtually blind to them. 14
I can't remember the last time that I clicked on a banner ad, 15
not by accident. 16
And that's a great point actually. A lot of developers are being very cheeky and placing very very small 17
buttons right next to their banner ads in order to force users to accidentally click on them. 18
Now of course this tends to lead to a lot of user animosity which is reflected in the ratings or reviews 19
which means that you'll probably reduce the number of users you'll have. 20
So it's a bit of a balance and you have to think about how willing you are to annoy your users versus 21
how much revenue you want to get from advertisement. 22
Now with these kind of in app advertisements they usually managed by a distribution companies such as AdMob 23
or previously iAd which has been discontinued by Apple and they're the ones who are responsible for 24
serving up these ads in your app. 25
Now you can tell them the specifics of your app. 26
So for example if you have a cooking app that's aimed at people who are middle aged or if you have a 27
children's app and they will respect the age restrictions to advertisements. 28
So say if you have a children's app, they won't show adult content in the adverts but anything beyond 29
that it really is their prerogative 30
as to how related to your niche as to the kind of ads that they serve. 31
So just because you have a cooking app it doesn't mean that they won't show some advert about sports. 32
I think a lot of the advertising companies are getting a little bit better at tailoring the ads for 33
the audience. 34
But we're still seeing quite a lot of variability and most the time you're just going to get the big 35
budget advertisers like Clash of Clans. 36
So this is another reason why I don't like ads and traditionally I've not been a big fan of putting 37
in app ads into my iOS apps. And that's because if you've been on the design course if you've heard us talk 38
about you know how much thought goes into designing the apps and making the user experience delightful 39
then all of a sudden you know a fifth of the screen is taken up by clash of clans or mobile strike. 40
And it just hurts a little inside you know just to see how all of your beautiful designs get ruined 41
like that. 42
But as I say more and more so, it is becoming a necessity. 43
So let's look at some of the other options for advertisement. If not banner ads 44
then what? 45
Well one of the best performing ways of putting on advertisements especially in game advertisements 46
is what's called interstitial ads. And these ads take up the entire screen and prevent you from doing 47
any other action or interacting with the app for say five seconds. 48
You have like a five second countdown here before the cross shows up and you can dismiss them. 49
We've all seen those. 50
And the performance of these interstitial ads are as expected better than banner ads because they essentially 51
force you to look at it. 52
Now of course this can be a point of contention. 53
People do get annoyed by them. 54
But the key is the time point at which you serve interstitials that you have to really note. And of course 55
you being the app developer or you having contact with the app developer you can determine when these 56
interstitials will show. 57
And the ideal time is a point where the user is in a good mood. Just as you know when I was young and 58
I knew that in order to get a favorable answer from my parents I would have to ask that question at 59
a good time point, 60
this is essentially the same concept. If you present your user with an advertisement at a point where 61
they're pretty chuffed with themselves then you're far more likely to get click through and hence revenue. 62
So what are those time points? If you're a game that means for example beating a particularly hard level 63
or beating up hard boss and if you're an app that means when the user has completed a task within your 64
app. So don't interrupt somebody's flow by serving an ad while they're in the middle of something. That 65
never achieves good results. 66
Instead show those ads when they're at a point where they've completed something and they feel good 67
about themselves and you'll usually see that reflected in your revenue. 68
Now the type of ad that I'm even more fond of than interstitials is actually what's called in-content ads. 69
So advertisements that don't really look like advertisements so they have the same font the same typeface 70
same color scheme as the rest of your content and is essentially mixed in in there. 71
The thing with this is that you do have to declare to the user that these are adverts but it has far 72
higher conversion rates than either interstitials or banners and especially if you can advertise your 73
other apps you can start to distribute and cross-promote your various apps and it usually works quite 74
well. 75
So have a think about whether advertising is suitable for your particular app. So if it's a app that 76
has high repeat usage something that people use on a daily basis or something that people will spend 77
quite a bit of time in, then you have more chance of getting revenue from impressions of the ads or 78
clicks on the ads. 79
So this tends to apply to games or productivity apps etc. like that. And then think about which format 80
is best suited for your app and what is the best time point to present those ads.