App monetization is the way to make money with an application. Considering that people pass hours and hours per day using their smartphones, a lot of entrepreneurs see a great opportunity to invest in this giant market.
Thinking of developers who are still understanding how to create a revenue with an app, we brought some insights and suggestions regarding strategies that will help to make money without a big uptick in download numbers.
How to start?
First of all, you have to analyse who is your audience. Are they active on your app? Or they just use it sometimes? Another thing to pay attention to is what part of your app is most used and could be worth to make the users pay for it.
We have some examples, highlighting the pros and cons about all of them to help you zero down on the best option and the one that befits your app idea:
1- In-app purchase
In-app purchases is a great strategy depending on the category that your app is in and more than that, it’s possible to make different ways, always completing user experience. But the most important thing to know is that your app has to work and has to be functional without the purchase.
You can sell to the user the advantage of passing a level, buy items in the game, buy presets to edit photos with, or some premium feature improve app productivity or offer any related feature with the app and add something for the user.
The best part of it is that if you invest in some purchase, there is nothing to lose. The user probably will buy some feature and will like your app more because the experience will be better. The only thing to pay attention to is on how to monetize your app.
2- Paid download
You probably know how paid download works. Each user that downloads the app pays a stipulated price and the owner profits with this. It’s nice because you win according to the number of users you have and the ones that pay are usually more engaged.
Appears to be a good strategy, well, it is but is important to pay attention to some details. First of all, you have to put a price that the app is worth for and also makes sense for the user to pay for that. To decide it, it’s nice to study other apps of the same category and see how much the paid ones charge.
The Apple Store and Google Play Store collect some of the money, so the price that you charge will be different than you receive. Besides, you have the competition of apps that are free, a lot of people will choose free apps.
And you have to ensure that your app is updated, doesn’t have technical problems and has a good performance. Because there is nothing more frustrating than paying for something that is not good.
3- Advertising
In-app advertising is the most common strategy used by the apps. It’s a way to make money without depending on something, like somebody downloading your app or buying something inside it.
There are two sides of the coin: the user is conscious that you are delivering a good and free service for him but, at the same time, depending on advertising, it can distract the activity of the user and screw up his experience.
The second problem happens a lot, mainly in app games, that the user is engrossed playing and in comes a mobile ad from nothing. So, if you want to have this kind of monetization, is nice to not make it exaggerated, however, the user likes your app, he will probably give it up because of it.
A good strategy is to benefit the user with the ad. For example, if the person watches a 30 seconds video, he wins 30 points in your app. Probably the user will watch the video to get more points.
App monetization insights
As much apps are available in the app stores, the competition and options to download are higher. So to find alternative ways to make money with the application is extremely important. The advertisements tend to grow with the passage of time.
At the same time, it’s hard to find an option that doesn’t bother the user and still bring profits. The most important thing to do is always take care about the user experience, and if you feel that your approach is disturbing that, it’s time to jump to another strategy.
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