Is anyone making money on the Android platform? I’ve yet to hear “great news” from developers, but maybe they are keeping quiet because they don’t want competition. I doubt it.

I found this Venture Beat article Gameloft ditches Android interesting.

The Gameloft finance guy was brutally honest:

“We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others,” Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference. “It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue.”

Did you see the bus run over the little Android icon?!?

This brings up the following questions in my mind:

#1 Should you count Google out?

Guess in 5 years we’ll know the answer to that one.

#2 Who will be the first real alternative to the iPhone app store?

The iPhone is a great app platform. But there is always room for a few more. Someone step up!!!

#3 How many iPhone app developers are making real money?

There is so much competition and so many poorly created and marketed apps; I bet the % of starving app developers is quite high. All the more reason we need another app store.

I’m hoping in 2010 Google, Blackberry, or somebody steps up to the plate and creates yet another great app store.

In this post I’m going to go step by step through the process of setting up a mobile ad campaign.  In a previous post, I mentioned that my top 3 mobile ad networks are Admob, Decktrade, and Quattro Wireless.  Today, I’m going to walk you through setting up an Admob campaign.

Here are the steps you’ll need to take:

1. Set up the account
2. Create an ad
3. Add funds
4. Turn ads on
5. Watch them closely!

Set up the Account

First, go to Admob’s website and click on “register” in the top right hand corner of the homepage.  You’ll see this.

You’ll walk through a simple process of entering name, email address, and other account information and then be asked to confirm your email address.  Once you’ve confirmed your email address, you can log in to continue. This step is so easy, that’s all I’ll say.  Let me know if you have questions.

Create an Ad

Creating an ad takes a little more thought.  In this example, we’ll be creating an ad for an iPhone app and sending traffic to the iTunes app store. Once you’ve logged in using the email address and the password you created, you’ll want to click on the Ads tab.  Then click on “Create iPhone Ad” which is the 3rd sub tab.  It is circled below.

See the iPhone Ad screen shot below. First, you pick where you want visitors to go when they click on your ad.  In our case we want to link to the iPhone app store, so we click on the App Store icon.

You’ll need to:

• Name your ad
• Create your ad text (35 characters max)
• Add a tile or an icon of your own
• Enter the URL for the landing page
• Target your ad (Carrier, Country, Device, etc)
• Set your bid amount

 Here is how the screen looks as you scroll down:

Once you’ve filled in all the information, simply click “Create Ad” at the bottom of the page.  You can then go back to the My Ads sub tab to view this ad.  Admob reviews the ad before approving it, so you should see that status as “pending approval”.

Tips

1. When naming your ad, choose something that will scale if you have 10-20 varations of that ad.  Something like “Widget – Test #1a”.  That way if you want to try more variations, you can call them “Widget – Test #1b”, “Widget – Test #1c” and so on.
2. Run at least 3-5 different text ads at launch of a campaign to determine which will have the best click through rate.
3. Although Admob gives you tiles that you can use in your ad, your logo or app icon will probably generate a better click through rate. But test it yourself!

Add Funds

If you are on the Ads Tab you’ll see a pinkish bar that tells you that your account balance is empty like this:
 

Simply click on that link to fill out the form that looks like this:

Enter your info, press submit, and your account is ready to start displaying ads.

Turn Ads On

 In order to turn ads on, go to the My Ads sub tab, click the box next to the ad name you want to run, and click on the “run” button.

Tips

1. If you’re in no hurry to drive traffic, start with the minimum bid.
2. On WAP ads you can insert variables like %phn% in your ad and Admob will insert the device name into the ad.

Watch Them Closely

Now that you have an ad running, you’ll want to know how it is performing.  The reporting tab will give you the ability to see your activity summarized or by ad.

Tips

1. If you are monitoring your spend closely use the Daily Budget tab to watch your spend.  That seems to update much more quickly that the My Ads page or the Reporting section.
2. Try Admob conversion tracking, if you have an iPhone app.
3. Don’t just stick with Admob, test on Quattro, Decktrade, Jumptap, and others.

Any questions?  Anything I can help with?

Let me know and good luck!

At Pinger we launched our first iPhone app, Pinger Phone, in December.  We’ve gathered tons of data from this free app (download, conversion, retention, usage rates, and more).  But when you’re just looking at data from 1 app, you wonder if you’re getting the whole picture.

That’s why I was thrilled to find these slides today from Pinch Media.

Here are some of the key data points:

• Being in a top 100 list, increases daily users by 2.3x
• Average app has a prety short shelf life (like 30-60 days)
• Average revenue per paid app: $.70
• Need to have a CPM of $8.75 to make as much with a free ad supported app
• Estimates that < 5% of apps are suitable to be ad supported

Lots of Graphs:

• Number of downloads needed to hit Top 25 or Top 100 list
• Impact of price cuts on revenue
• Free app usage over time
• Paid app usage over time
• App usage over time by category
• Engagement over time for free, paid, & by category

Great Quote:

“Unless there is something inherent about the app that screams free, sell it.”

You can view all 33 slides below or learn more about Pinch Media at their Blog.