1. YOUR YOUR
AD AD
HERE HERE
Developer’s Guide to
Marketing and Monetization of
Windows Phone Apps
Alan Mendelevich | AdDuplex | ailon@ailon.org | @ailon

2. Fast forward to February, and now I am making around $380 a
day from ads from my 7 games.
…
Grand total revenue for 2011 - $61,321.58
-- Elbert Perez , occasionalgamer.com
I generally get about 1.5 hours a day for game development
…
Total marketplace/ad revenue for both Krashlander and Krashlander Free -
$23,215.68
-- Jeff Weber
Taptitude has been out for just over a year but in the first 4 months we
only made $500.
…
Despite being a slow start, we're now pulling in $10-15k per month in ad
revenue
-- 4Bros Studio

3. Will The Real App
Millionaire Please
Stand Up?
In 2012 your team of 3
developers in a garage has
minimal chances of making
70,000 Euro from a single
app on ANY platform.

4. Did you know …
Product
20%
Marketing
80%
Research shows that 20% of product’s
success is determined by the product itself
and the remaining 80% is marketing*
* I totally made this up

5. Developer’s Work Cycle
Employee/Contract developer
SALE
Task Deliverables Money
Entrepreneur developer
Task Deliverables SALE Money

6. What to build?

7. Scratch your own itch

8. Original vs. “Me too”

9. $23,000+ at 1.5h/day
Megahit vs. Smaller Hits
$10,000-$15,000/month $61,000+ in 2011

10. Release date is a feature
• Be the first to solve a problem
– René Schulte: “… this was quite important since it got
a lot of attention for being the first real picture
effects / photo filter app in the market. The big blogs
like Gizmodo, Engadget and MSNBC covered a few
of the must have WP7 apps and Pictures Lab got
featured in all. I guess that helped to jump start the
app.”
• With every SDK/OS release there’s a chance to
be the first to utilize some previously
unavailable capability

11. Getting ideas and inspiration
The Daily Practice
“Every day I write down ideas. I write down
so many ideas that it hurts my head to come
up with one more. Then I try to write down
five more.
…
The “idea muscle” atrophies within days if
you don’t use it. Just like walking. If you don’t
use your legs for a week, they atrophy. You
need to exercise the idea muscle. It takes
about 3-6 months to build up once it
atrophies. Trust me on this.”
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/02/how-to-be-the-luckiest-guy-on-the-planet-in-4-easy-steps/

12. Make Money

13. Front-end for your main service

14. Paid Apps
• Set a competitive price
• Consider psychology
• Consider who and where your customer is
• Set a price that makes business sense
– WP7 Developer ROI Calculator
http://www.wpdownunder.com/?p=2055

15. Trial
• Can’t try == won’t buy
• 70% more purchases than without trials
• Counter example: Cocktail Flow*

16. In-app purchases
• iOS: “Right now, 18 of the top 25 grossing of
all apps are Free To Play Games (72%).”
– http://www.treysmithblog.com/the-fall-of-angry-birds/
• Windows Phone 8+
• Windows Phone 7.x
– Roll out your own
– Use 3rd party services (MoVend, Linxter)

18. Free apps with ads
• Generally perform better than paid apps*
• Best suited for long/frequently running apps
(games)

19. Ad networks

20. AdDuplex as a Fallback Solution
“AdDuplex +
pubCenter is a
winning recipe”
JC Cimetiere
Director
Product Management
Windows Phone
Microsoft
Smaato: “Worldwide, the average ad network fill
rate was 10% in Q3 2011”

21. Fill rate
• Maximize ad space value by multiple network
fallbacks. Fallback to AdDuplex or in-house
ads.
– Silverlight/XNA: Windows Phone Ad Rotator
http://wp7adrotator.codeplex.com/
– Silverlight: Unified Ad Control For Windows
Phone
http://wpunifiedad.codeplex.com/

22. Lifetime user value

23. Promote your
app, promote
your app,
promote your
app, promote
your app…

24. Don’t monetize your app on day one

25. Don’t monetize on day one
• Giving your app away is the cheapest and
most effective marketing instrument you
have
– René Schulte: “Helium Voice was released in
November 2010 and has 18,773 downloads as of
today. Helium Voice Free was released in March
2011 and has 143,002 downloads as of today.”
– Jeff Weber: “Krashlander total downloads
(Includes both trials and purchases) - 23,500,
Krashlander Free total downloads - 327,000”

26. Case Study: Chicks'n'Vixens
• Released as absolutely free (while in beta)
• Went on to be #1 paid game for some time after switching to
paid
– Meds: “After being #1 for almost 2 weeks as a paid app I can say that
I'm very happy with the results. I won't give specific numbers but
suffice to say it would make many iOS and Android devs green with
envy.”
• New version released as free with ads

27. Case Study: gMaps
• Started as absolutely free
• Added ads and a “Pro”
version later

28. Before you
launch…

29. Marketplace “SEO”
• Name
• Keywords
• Tile

30. Release Betas
• Beta-testers are your first evangelists
• Recruit beta-testers:
– WindowsPhoneBeta.com
– Twitter #wp7 #wp8 #wpdev

31. Feedback loop
• Facilitate user
feedback and
ratings
• “Bad” feedback
should go directly
to you, good
feedback – to the Good feedback
Marketplace
• Consider
encouraging
rating/review after a
number of launches
Bad feedback

32. Localize
• Keep in mind that you will probably start getting
feedback/support requests in languages you don’t
know

33. Publication
• Have everything to get featured
• Don’t submit on Friday
– András Velvárt: “If you look at the charts from
WP7AppList, you can see that almost no applications
get verified and published during the weekends. …
You essentially have two more days to test and make
sure the app doesn’t fail digestion without impacting
the publishing date.”
– René Schulte: “48h difference in submission (Friday
night - Sunday night) -> 12h difference certification
email (Thursday morning - evening).”
• Don’t auto-publish

34. Online presence

35. Demo video
• Easier to watch than try your app
• Great asset for marketing activities

36. Online presence
• Web site or section
• Facebook Page
• Twitter account
• Blog

37. Free promotion

38. Tip specialized blogs
• WPCentral.com, WMPowerUser.com,
1800PocketPC.com, BestWP7Games.com,
WP7Rocks.com (Russian), etc.
– Filterable list at WindowsPhoneSites.com
• Make it personal
• Include short description
– maybe even something that looks like a review
• Link to your demo video. You made it, right?

40. Tweet and post to Facebook
• Decorate tweets with #wp8 #WindowsPhone
hashtags
• Tweet, retweet, post to Facebook from your
personal accounts
• Help fellow developers (retweet, like, etc.)
• Temporarily change your avatar to app’s tile
• Mention app in your personal profiles

41. Monitor and react to feedback
• Monitor mentions of your app on Twitter,
blogs, etc.
• Encourage transformation of positive
mentions into 5* ratings
• React and address negative feedback

42. Social media integration

44. Show off your app everywhere!
• Show your app to your friends
• Show your app to Windows Phone
enthusiasts
• Show your app to influential community and
Microsoft people

45. Case Study: Wordament

46. Empowering
developers to
help each other
 Cross-promote apps with
other developers
 Utilize full potential of your
ad space

47. Paid advertising

48. On the web
• Specialized blogs
• App catalog sites
• WP7AppList.com, appsfuze.com,
windowsphoneapplist.com, etc.
• BuySellAds.com (search wp7, windows
phone)

49. On the phone

50. In discovery apps

51. Summary

52. Summary
• Marketing is at least as important as the app
itself
• Starting with free is the cheapest and most
effective marketing instrument
• Be creative, be active, utilize all channels.

53. Thank you!
@ailon
blog.adduplex.com
alan@adduplex.com
AppBizDev.com