The Crux of Monetizing Apps: To Charge Or Not To Charge?
The following is a guest post by Brian Tippy of LeadBolt
Let’s throw all the analysis and statistics out the window for a moment and focus on the psychological aspect of app monetization. As a developer, the ultimate question resides in how much brand equity, visibility, and differentiation your app holds in order to throw a price tag on it. Prior to launch, this is a subjective measurement to say the least (especially when you consider the ever-swelling marketplace).
Furthermore, there is one prediction that can be quite alarming to the common developer…
The demand for mobile apps is expected to peak less than two years from now, a result of more sophisticated programs that will feature applications as a small entity in a suite of goodies. Price-point will quickly become an archaic form of generating revenue and severely deplete your install numbers (bye-bye, market rank).
The Golden Ticket
This is where jumping on the in-app advertising bandwagon will serve useful in getting out of the financial red. Sure, some publishers have apprehension towards inserting an unfamiliar SDK or HTML code to serve advertisements. Or they are worried about a potential backlash from their user-base in response to ads impeding their usage.
However, the lack of a B2C financial transaction can be quite attractive to the user. Instead, giving them more autonomy in deciding whether to experience the ads, take advantage of a “freemium” ad-free option, purchasing brand-sponsored virtual currency, etc., may prove to be the ideal alternative. Not to mention, the ease of integrating a network’s ad solutions is becoming increasingly seamless.
This is also why advertisers are willing to allocate more bucks towards mobile visibility. The sale price of apps is already declining year-over-year in the dominant marketplaces, meaning advertising will be the golden ticket in successfully monetizing apps. With more consumer eyeballs expected on the mobile platform and interest from developers rising, advertisers are positioning themselves ahead of the predicted peak.
Developers – get creative and deploy some unique advertising into your app as the new age of app monetization has arrived. Advertisers – welcome to the future of product placement.
