Mobile App Monetization – How I’m Pulling In $125 eCPM

“It’s money that matters.” – Randy Newman

The secret’s out – it’s not easy to make money with apps.

Everyone who’s on this blog at some point has watched, read or purchased content from someone talking about how you can make millions of dollars with apps. They talk about how every download you can get is going to make you AT LEAST $1…all you need to do is get apps in the store.

I hate to break it to you, but that’s bullshit.

If you think that you’re just going to sit back, relax, and watch the money pour in, you’re in for a rude awakening. App monetization is not about being in the game, it’s about winning. It’s not about downloads, it’s about dollars.

In fact, if it wasn’t for a few key app monetization networks, I’d be in a lot of trouble. Up until now, making money on apps required a LOT of downloads, much the same way websites require a lot of traffic. Strategies like in-app purchases, Lite -> Paid up-sells, and CPM advertisting (Admob/iAds) are DYING, yo. Straight up. I know this from first hand experience.

Fun fact – last week the in-app purchases from 3 of my apps made me about $70. The new monetization I’m doing made me $800.

In-app purchases took me 2 days to program in and $300 in development work. The new services take 10 mins and involve 2 lines of code.

Some people have different results, no question. This can vary from category to category and depend on download volume. I will say, however, that every single person I’ve talked to has absolutely buried their previous best revenue days with these new networks. The world is changing.

The Glory of Inequality – Why It Pays To Love Rich People

Yeah, you heard me. When it comes to making money with apps, the best thing you can do (at least for a while) is to make rich developers even richer. Instead of trying to sell your own apps, sell theirs. Here’s why.

Now – please understand that I’m all about following your dreams and staying the course. To create a brand that’s as strong as iron and as cool as Triumph Motorcycles is the ultimate dream for anyone getting into apps. But this article isn’t for you – this is for the thousands of you out there that just want to make money. You want to build an app and have it spit out $80/day and then repeat that process.

So here’s a quick and dirty breakdown about the app market that maybe you don’t know (if you haven’t opted in to my email list and read the $0.51 article, I highly recommend you do so before reading this):

Take a look at the apps on the Top Grossing lists, specifically the top 25. You’ll notice that most of them are Free. Top Grossing AND Free?? wtf.

These apps have enormous monetization pathways within their apps and can pull in upwards of $5 PER DOWNLOAD. That means every time anyone downloads their app, they can expect to make an average of $5 off that person over the lifetime. That’s insane.

Like any business person, these apps get to the point where they can prove these numbers and the developers say to themselves “Wow – we just need to get more downloads and we’ll make way more money!” The Apple charts and regular marketing helps, but they want to DRIVE users to their game. They want to purchase downloads. And at $5 per user, they can definitely afford to do that.

Now, most (99%) of the developers out there who use ad networks to buy traffic are looking to spend $0.05 per click or $0.50 for an install. After fees, the publisher (the person who’s showing the ad) makes a whopping $0.02 – $0.30. Not horrible, but that’s not going to help you retire.

Enter the Goliath who can make $5 per download. He says “Hell, I can pay out $3.50 per install!” A publisher like you or me delivers them an install and, after fees, makes $3!!! Simple as that. The best part? These huge app companies have an insatiable appetite for downloads – their instructions are pretty much “We’ll take everything ya got, buddy.”

Glory, glory, hallelujah. I’ll sell you downloads for $3 a pop allllll day.

Leveraging a Winning Model – The Birth of an Empire

Enter Guilherme Schvartsman, the creator of a few little games called Ant Smasher and Bunny Shooter. They’ve combined for over 80M downloads. No big deal.

The problem, however, is that those 80M downloads were not translating into big dollars. Gui knew he could deliver a ton of installs, but the ad solutions out there were only paying peanuts. Like a true marketer, he realized the above opportunity with top grossing companies and inked a deal that he would try out on his own apps.

The result? A waterfall of money. Millions of dollars. The kind of money that changes lives permanently.

And just like that – the birth of RevMob.

RevMob – Mobile Monetization That Will Make You Rich

What Gui did was essentially create an entire ad network with premium advertisers in order to maximize the eCPM (earnings per thousand) for developers and publishers that promoted the advertisers. The beauty of this model is that with only a few clients who want unlimited downloads, everyone’s happy.

I was skeptical, per usual, but figured I’d give it a whirl. I had some success with Chartboost and wanted to see if these eCPM claims held up.

I installed the SDK in about 8 minutes and released a few apps with the new code.

Boom.

The first week I had my apps pulling in anywhere from $18 eCPM up to $125 eCPM. My app revenue went up 10X. I all of a sudden realized that everything in my world had changed – this powerful system was working….and changing my life.

The Future of iPhone App Monetization Is Affiliate Marketing

Because that’s basically what this is. There are going to be some people who make it work with their own apps and strike it big with in-app purchases and various traditional monetization models, but mark my words – the next year will be the year where everyone realizes that the fastest and most effective way to make money is to sell the downloads you get to the big dogs.

App traffic will quickly become seen as an asset that can be sold, not captured. I’m already starting to see it – I’ve developed a few apps (Check out Baby Tiger Run) where the entire premise of the game is to get people to download my Free app so that they can get MORE free apps. I turned the RevMob pop up into a part of the selling process.

It’s my #1 performing eCPM so far.

Do Yourself a Favor

Sign up for RevMob today (for free). If you have an app, you definitely should. If you’re thinking about it, you definitely should. I am putting my full support behind these guys BECAUSE IT WORKS.

Download any of my apps and you’ll see the exact same pop ups that you can be using. I only promote stuff I use and believe in, and this is one of them.

Click the link below to check it out:

RevMob – Ads That Make You Rich

 

See ya!

Carter