To figure out why start-up developers are so upbeat about their well-doing, you only have to take a look at the figures being mentioned by the main iPhone ad networks. A year ago, for example, Admob cited $30 CPM brand ads suggesting it being the minimum CPM. Likewise, Medialets were proudly introducing their Dockers ads which brought in around $20-30 CPM. And now with pretty tough competition on the advertising market Admob still talks about amazingly high average CPM figures ranging from $12 to $14.

Let’s turn to more realistic figures. The truth is that average ads networks presently pay about 50 cents CPM for the ads. It means that if a thousand of people have seen the ad it will bring you as much as $0.50. Where are those mythical $30 CPM ads that will make you rich? There’re but marketing ploys to attract app developers.

To get an unbiased view ask experienced developers who have been in business for a while. Bo Wang’s Galaxy Impact – a highly popular ad supported application with an army of more than 160,000 fans brought in $0.23 CMP profit. Other app developers cite $0.50-$2 CPM maximum. Average add supported app will scarcely make its developer stinking rich.

Actually, it’s not only about marketing tricks. The fill rate is another main contributor to the misleading statistics. Even if there’s that notorious $30 CPM ad, it’s not likely to be displayed on your app permanently. Quite the opposite, as remnant ad inventory will be shown most of the time.

Moreover, it’s no wonder that any ad network is interested in the great amount of app developers. Now you can understand why they pitch editors and journalists with success stories and real-life examples of developers becoming millionaires by means of high CPM ads. The info they mention in their interviews is mostly abnormal cases rather than regular stuff. Once again, pure marketing fluff.

I don’t intend to accuse ad networks of being deceitful or dishonest, no way. I just want to call all would-be app developers to be wise, empirical, and savvy. Always do your calculations basing on real figures and statistics. Lack of circumspection will leave you with nothing.

Now if you have solid downloads on the iPhone App and want to earn some launch money there we would recommend you sign up with www.adwhirl.com – this ad solution allows you to add the biggest ad networks on the fly and it displays the most high-paying ads automatically. What’s more important is that you can upload your own ads which might be very useful if you want to cross-promote your other apps.

The smart move for those who had keyword-rich descriptions was not to add ‘keywords’ at all. The ‘description’ would continue being indexed and show up in searches thus driving additional sales.

Today, 3rd of Sept, one month later, we see that Apple removed ‘description’ from search for ALL apps, either having ‘keywords’ or not. It was expected and was only a matter of time. Should you notice other AppStore behavior do let us know in comments. Our take it will soon be confirmed by the official news. Add the keywords to the app asap! Keywords in the description don’t work any more.

P.S. If you are still not aware – don’t add competitor app names as the keywords. Apple will not let those in, you will spend 15-25 days waiting for approval only to discover this.

http://games.venturebeat.com/2009/07/13/resistor-products-unites-facebook-and-web-site-gamers-in-disciple-online-game/ Disciple role-playing game debuts Facebook version

http://www.pcworld.com/article/167415/sexy_iphone_app_funds_a_startup.html Sexy iPhone App Funds a Startup

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2009%2F07%2F04%2FBUM618ID57.DTL&type=business SFGate interviews Toby Batton

http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2009-07-14-free-online-games_N.htm USAToday covers Disciple

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0907/gallery.dumbest_iphone_apps.fortune/8.html Drunk Sniper iPhone app made it to the TOP10 dumbest apps according to CNNMoney

I might publish the feedback on other iPhone app marketing methods in future if I see an interest among readership.

An iPhone app start ranking in category as long as it has enough daily downloads. Once the app is ranking in specific category or in overall rank (wow you lucky!) you start getting natural AppStore downloads. If the app is good – downloads will increase and thus the rankings will increase as well.

The topic I cover in this post is getting initial downloads needed for the app to start actually ranking in the relevant category of AppStore. If you don’t follow at least one of those steps below (the more the better for sure) your app will end up nowhere in AppStore and be lost among 45.000 apps available.

1. Change the release date of the app as soon as it’s approved for sale!

By default, your app is released with the date of submission. Change that to the date of approve (during 24 hours since approval). The date will be changed and the app will pup up in Recently Released list of Desktop and Mobile AppStore 2-4 hours after that. Presence on the list gives immediate downloads! As long as you go down the list number of downloads decrease. Once the app is on the page 3-4 the number of downloads from it are minimal. The only way to get back on top of that list is to submit an update to the app (can be very minor) and do the same change of date again.

2. Have a marketing strategy behind the app or hire a PR company

You need to get immediate downloads in order for the app to show app in TOP100 of category – remember?

Here is the overview of marketing methods that are generally used for the promotion of iPhone apps in order to get that initial traffic.

Important
1. iPhone app review sites (there are about ~300 of those with ~10 big ones)
2. Mainstream and tech, mobile review media
3. Social media (digg, bookmarking, commenting, twittering)
4. Press Release distribution sites
5. AppStore optimization strategy
Optional (extra cost incurred)
6. Facebook ads
7. Google Adwords ads
8. Admob ads
9. Banners on iPhone review sites
10. Other custom and sometime guerrilla marketing methods

Applications published on Ovi have the potential to reach 50 MLN of devices right now and 300 MLN of devices by 2012 according to Nokia. This is why you might want to become the publisher ASAP. It looks like there is only 536 applications on AppStore and some of the phone models have a few apps only. This might be a gold rush for early publishers.

Nokia believes that Ovi Store is the best opportunity for Flash developers to reach Nokia users globally, targeting 50 million users at launch in May and up to 300 million by 2012.

Revenue split between publisher and Nokia? Home page says 70% of revenue goes to developer but digging further in terms you find out that it’s true as long as user pays by credit card, once it’s operator billing you end up with 50% extracted for tax and operator fees and the resulting amount is multiplied by 0.7 which leaves the publisher with much lower payout.

Credit Card Transactions
Developer will receive 70% of end user price, less applicable taxes, returns, refunds, and bad debt.

Example Calculation
Purchase Price: 5€
Tax Deduction: 5€ – 10% tax = 4,50€
Publisher Revenue: 4,50€ x 70% = 3,15€*

Operating Billing Transactions
Developer will receive 70% of end user price, less applicable taxes, returns, refunds, bad debt, and operator billing charges ranging from 40% – 50%.

Example Calculation
Purchase Price: 5€
Tax Deduction: 5€ – 10% tax = 4,50€
Operator Billing Deduction: 4,50€ – 40% = 2,70€
Publisher Revenue: 2,70€ x 70% = 1,89€*

Technologies/programming languages supported?

Symbian Applications, Java Applications, Web RunTime (WRT) Widgets, Flash Lite Appications

Useful process start-up links:

Ovi Developer Discussion Forums

Documents: Publisher Guide, Billing Matrix, Supported Device List as well as FAQ section

Developer Wiki

Actual Ovi Store where you can browse published apps.

Signing application issue explained

Good luck with development and see your content on Ovi soon!

P.S. We were lucky to register www.ovidevelopment.com and www.oviappreviews.com domain names a while ago, if you have a partnership or purchase offers for those please feel free to email to peter (at) moveyourweb.net

Apalon, our game development and animation arm is definitely having a busy week launching several projects at a time. There were more then 100 online news and review publications about those projects during this week so I’m going to list major news here:

It started on Monday with the release of Drunk Sniper iPhone Application which was released last weekend and immediately started generating buzz online:

http://www.venturebeat.com/2009/05/11/drunk-sniper-an-unofficial-sequel-to-those-iphone-beer-apps/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/may/13/ifart-iphone-applications-apps-apple

http://www.digg.com/apple/iPhone_App_Turns_iPhone_into_a_Penis

http://www.appleiphoneapps.com/2009/05/drunk-sniper-realistic-beer-relieving-experience-on-your-iphone/

http://www.iphonesavior.com/2009/05/drunk-sniper-the-ultimate-iphone-pissing-game.html

Tuesday – browser based animated MMORPG Disciple released together with Resistor Productions LLC and MMORPG.COM. Disciple had 12.000 preregistered users and during 4 days it raised to 15.000+ :

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/12/disciple-is-a-real-time-player-to-player-fantasy-battlefield-for-adults/

http://www.venturebeat.com/2009/05/12/resistor-productions-launches-a-bloody-browser-based-game-for-adults/

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/405/feature/3030

http://www.digg.com/playable_web_games/New_MMO_lets_gamers_hack_people_s_heads_off

Wednesday – Sparta – iPhone Game developed for Pockey Monkey Games is released and becomes popular the same day. I see it in TOP50 Games USA and TOP100 overall while writing this post.

Looks like half of Apalon folks was working day and night this week – me for sure. Luckily the weekend is here and we can take some rest now.

Developers has already started it, but it’s still hard to find the best sample. Folks from WebDesignerDepot has come up with the collection of 40 best-looking iPhone Application Websites up to date.

Also I would be interested to hear other developer’s thoughts on traffic that AppStore is bringing to the web site and other useful stats on the subject.

Customer Rating are introduced. Instead of posting a review a customer can leave a rating in the special menu which is quick and easy and see how much reviews are already left.

Customer Reviews are broken down into ‘current’ version and all versions of the app. Review date and version number shown with particular reviews. Apps that are submitted as 1.0 versions have limited functionality and users generate a lot of feedback (not always positive). Based on how well developer reacts by releasing updates users tend to improve there ratings. New review system is encouraging developers to come up with better products and is generally more fair to developers.

Thanks Apple for making steps towards organizing 27,000 apps on AppStore better. Kill the “rate when you delete” issue next Await for official news.

Update: AppStore mobile version is being updated as well. I dropped on time while all Reviews were turned off.