Apple Squash – Realistic Ad Revenue (part 2)

Observations and Recommendations

First off, let’s get straight to the numbers. I’ve only included PubCenter revenue this time around because its fill rate has been fairly high and MobFox hasn’t been serving much of the leftovers. Ad Duplex has been picking up roughly an additional 200 impressions a day. On the 29th of Feb (highlighted below) I released a content update that appeared to have a minimal impact on impressions.

If you’d like to try the game these revenue numbers come from you can download Apple Squash from the Windows Phone marketplace here.

So what are my observations based on these numbers and the numbers from my previous 2 games?

Impressions not filled by your primary network are unlikely to be filled by any network
In this experiment my secondary network (MobFox) filled around 5% of the impressions PubCenter didn’t take. I’ve seen similar results with other combinations of providers. My assumption is that these unfilled ad requests are likely to be coming from a country that no provider cares much about. This is why Ad Duplex is the perfect secondary network since it doesn’t care about region at all.

1 (paid) ad provider is enough
If your app is extremely popular then maybe the small percentage a secondary network will give you will be worthwhile, but for most I don’t think it would generate the minimum $50 most networks require before paying you. So just pick your favourite since they’re all very similar. I have personally tried MobFox, PubCenter and AdMob and for me the best was PubCenter.

Use Ad Duplex as your fall-back
It’s silly to waste impressions your paid network can’t fill, but chances are other paid networks can’t fill them either. Ad Duplex fills almost all requests and will convert them into free advertising for you.

Ad networks need volume
This one might just be my experience but it would seem that to get a decent ecpm (and therefore decent revenue) your app needs to be generating enough volume for your ad provider to care. Without volume you will likely get a poor ecpm and this is one of the reasons I recommend 1 ad network is enough. The 2nd ad network is unlikely to get enough volume to make the impressions worth anything.

ECPM is crazy volatile
My ecpm started at 0.12c and reached as high as $4.37. That’s 36 times higher than my starting point! This makes it very hard to predict revenue with an ecpm that can fluctuate so wildly and is really just something you’ll have to accept. If your ecpm stays consistently low it might be time to consider switching networks. I actually think the recent ecpm numbers I’ve been getting with PubCenter are abnormally high and I’m just waiting for the bubble to burst…

Keeping users engaged is the key to Ad-based revenue
Apps that keep users coming back for more are the ones that make money. Games like Apple Squash that are don’t have a lot of lasting content will eventually fade away into obscurity. The numbers above show this is already starting to happen. So if you don’t plan to follow the path of lots of new content and updates, then the only way to prevent the inevitable decline is through good marketing and getting your app featured in enough places to keep a steady stream of new users coming in… If anyone has tips for me on this I’d love to hear them!