Hi! This is A Minute Of Overpass. My name is Eric and I make apps. Now, this week I wanna
ask "Are you serving enough ads in your app?"
Okay, so in a couple weeks from now I'm gonna go on holiday to...well, not holiday, I'm gonna go
back home to San Diego where I grew up for a week, and I'm really looking
forward to it. I have been... it's been 5 years since I've been back home to the
States. I have been living in the UK for last 18 years, and as much
as I say I wanna go home once a year it's usually like once every 5 years. However,
everytime I go back I'm surprised by how many ads are on TV, right?. So one thing in
the UK we have the BBC which has no ads and we pay a TV tax that helps pay the...
they pay for the TV, and then even the other networks they have far fewer ads than,
you know, the commercial networks that far fewer ads than US television.
Every time I go back I'm surprised by how many ads there actually are. Even when you
buy like a box set of TV shows, if you buy something from the, you know,
the 60's, 70's or 80's, the length of an
hour long TV shows like 52 minutes or something, but now they're like 43
because they're constantly putting more ads in. And the reason I bring this up is
to talk about whether or not you're actually serving enough ads in your app. So
the biggest... well it's not the biggest complaint, but what complaint I see a
lot in my reviews is "Oh there's just too many ads", right? and I think that's healthy, right?
I think if you're not getting, I guess like that
complaint every so often then you might not be serving enough ads.
Now, a few weeks ago I showed you... I briefly showed you the revenue that I get from
AdMob and advertising revenue that comes through and all that kind of stuff.
You know, but when I first started, my first app...I did just banner ads and
they partly made a thing, right?. So and then I started putting in
interstitial ads but interstitials are annoying, right? So interstitials, if you
don't know, they're the full page ads that pop up and they fill the whole
screen and you have to click on the X to close them. So I put those in the Ear Spy
and because I thought they're really annoying so let's just do
it once every 4 opens. So you use the app, you use the app, you use the app and the 4th time
you'll get that full page ad. I thought that was fair, right? and I still didn't see a lot
of revenue. And then a consultant from AdMob called me up just doing their... you
know sometimes if you could probably get this for yourself where you can
actually get like 20 minutes of consultant's time, and I'll still from
AdMob who actually works for Google, and he'll give you some tips and tricks of
like that. It was really helpful but the first thing he said was "I looked at your
app and you didn't have any interstitial ads." and I said "No, that's not true.
It happens once every 4 times, so if you open it 4 times.." and he said "Yeah
most people have that on every open, right?" So after that I started, you know, I did.
I put it to every every 2 opens. People didn't really complain then I did it to
every 4 opens, and people complain a bit and they do, they will complain, right?
but that's the way things work. The way I consider this is when you...
going back to the television example in the States, at one point if they
brought in too many ad breaks, it would have been worth watching, and even now
with box sets and HBO and everything...it is sometimes you
don't even bother watching commercial television because the ads are too much.
And so, but if they're not, if the quality of the television show is
good enough then people will endure those ads, and ADS of course is how
television makes money. And so with television you have something very
different than with us for the most part, because you have
a writer and a director and actors, and all those people are committed
to the story into the show, and then you have the people who need to make money
to pay those actors and they're interested in advertising revenue and
ratings and all that kind of stuff. So you know in my mind I don't know I
don't have a lot I don't have any experience with the television industry
but I imagine that there's constant clashes between the two of them. I mean
no writer would write a an hourlong drama and say you know "What this really
needs at this point is an ad break" right? I'm sure they would prefer not to
have any ads at all, right? and the people over here say they want to have more
ads. The agreement is show a little bit shorter so we have put more ads in and
it's a constant balance. If you've had too many ads then you have lower ratings,
and people pay less for the ads, and if you don't have enough
then you don't have enough quality programming. You don't have enough to
actually produce a quality product, right? And this is a very same thing with your
app. So the reason I bring this up is a lot of times when I meet with clients
the first thing I'll bring up is "Well you can use advertising to
generate revenue." and the first thing they say is "I don't really like ads".
right? and but they don't... they don't say anything else. They think that
people are just gonna buy like just on a window, and is gonna pay for the app, but a lot
of times you do need that free version to get people in, and I mean it's good every
single app that I had you can pay to remove ads, right? so but that's not really the
goal I don't have enough ads to force people to pay. I have ads in there
because they generate revenue, and the you know the reason that it's free
is because you're served ads. The same reason that television shows is
free is because they raise ad revenue. And it's... as an app developer if you're solo
or even work for a small company, you don't have the two sides like television
does where you know the story writers and the artist and the executives
you know conflicting. You have to kind of bring that in yourself. So
what I say is if you're not getting at least some reviews that say "It's good but
there's too many ads", like I got this one today for Korean Flash Quiz
just the day what I was thinking about talking about this. He said you know "Oh It's
really good but please remove the ads", but you know
that's not the way things work. If you're not getting some of those every so often
then you need to ask yourself whether or not you're serving enough ads, right?. You
don't want to serve so many that people don't use it and leave lots of bad reviews but
you don't want to serve so little that you're just missing out on
revenue opportunities that they might not even mind you know sitting through.
So that's it from my Minute Of Overpass this week, you know just asking you to
take a look
this week and see "Are you serving enough ads in your apps?" So that's it
I'll talk to next week. Hey! I really hope you like that video. Now I do this once a week so
if you... if you want to hear more. You want to hear more about our experiences with
the App Store, either Google Play or iTunes, please go ahead and subscribe to the
channel, and please like this video and leave a comment. I love reading the
comments. I love hearing what you have to say, even if it's just Hello or
whatever, and like I said before, if you if you're not sure what to say in a
comment, like I never know what to say in a comment. I'll make it easier for you, like
if you like it just go ahead and say "Gnarly" which is an 80's term, or if
you didn't like it just say "Bogus" and and if you don't think any of its just say
"Eh". So that would be a big big big help, and another thing you could do, which I'd
really appreciate it. If you're on the App Store and you want to try one of our
apps. Look up some of the Overpass apps. Applications either on iTunes or Google
Play, and leave a review, and let us know what you think about it, either good or
bad, but you know we're all trying to build up in the market so that would be
a big help. So that's it. I'll talk to you next week!