Updates, [insert ad], testing, publishing, repeat.

During the first week of February I worked on screenshots and promo graphics for Ultra Fortune Ball. Since the 4.0 update included new graphics I wanted to make sure to update the screenshots showing those new graphics. 

During the middle of the month I worked on an update for Quiz of Medicine that included higher resolution main text & graphics, and some cleaned up code which resulted in faster load times. This app didn’t have a lot of graphics so that part didn’t take too long, and neither did the causes of faster load times since I was very cerebral with the initial development of this app. So overall this update was somewhat quick & easy.

Since both of these apps I recently updated are free I thought this would also be a good time to look more into the companies I choose for advertisements. I kept iAd with the iOS versions because overall I’m satisfied with iAds. Some of their numbers could be better of course but their coverage is impressive and the ads themselves usually look clean. I also started using AdMob on my iOS versions for interstitial ads. I’m satisfied with AdMob because they have high quality full screen ads and they pay per impression & clicks. I decided to switch to video ads with Chartboost for my Android versions since they pay per impression unlike their static video ads that only pay if the customer clicks on the link AND installs the app that’s advertised. Impression pays on ad networks aren’t incredibly high or anything and it’s definitely a numbers game with quantity, but that’s better than nothing. Chartboost pays well for installs, but the large majority of people don’t click on an ad AND install the app advertised based on my previous history and different articles I’ve read about other apps and developers. I must say though that the static ads from Chartboost had good coverage and usually looked high quality, but not paying out for impressions doesn’t go well with me when I’m providing thousands and thousands of them without any kind of return. 

However, I did end up running into a hiccup with the video ads on Chartboost. While I was testing the video ads they seemed to not be that long but after more testing and publishing I realized that the video ads would be too long to a lot of people. The payout rates for viewed video ads were also very disappointing. Users being satisfied with my app overall is more important than the little change that’s made by them viewing an ad that may cause them to stop using the app. Also after working with AdMob on my iOS versions and looking at the numbers for them I came to the conclusion that I should switch to AdMob for my Android versions. So I did a final update for my Android versions of Ultra Fortune Ball & Quiz of Medicine to get rid of the long video ads and replace them with the nice quality full screen static and/or short video AdMob ads. This update situation happened during the last week of February into the beginning of March but I’m including it all in this month since it all blended together.

February involved a lot of ad updating and publishing but I’m glad because I’m now more informed about ads after working with a few different ad networks and looking into the numbers & charts in more detail. I like focusing on creativity more than monetization for my apps, but I do like being focused and somewhat satisfied when it comes to app monetization. A lot of work goes into my apps and I do believe that they should bring in revenue even if they’re free so I’m glad I took the time to do more ad network investigation. Ok, I’ll just wrap up this post by saying support good developers. There’s a lot of us out here. The creations we put out may seem cheap because the outside price shows free, 99 cents & etc, but the inside of these digital concoctions are filled with valuable hard work and dedication. Until next time ∞