With the below app revenue boosting strategies, you can easily increase your profits in the coming year. Here’s how:
Leverage Rewarded Video Ads
Monetization is nothing new for earning app revenue. However, the types of ads you choose to use can increase profits and offer a better user experience. This is where rewarded video ads play an essential role. Rewarded video ads serve up ads in an engaging way, and users are more inclined to watch them to get an in-app reward. And they are just as valuable for non-gaming apps as they are gaming apps. For instance, if you have a premium feature your users need to pay to use, you can offer a limited time use via a rewarded video ad. This not only nets immediate profit, but can also lead to a paying user as well.
Place Paywalls in Your App
Let’s circle back to premium features your users need to pay to use. Most likely, your app is free to download, but do you have paywalls in place to take a user from freemium to premium? Paywalls are in nature nothing new when it comes to generating app revenue, but using paywalls in a creative way is where many app developers and publishers come up a bit short. What features, present and future, can you make into an irresistible premium?
Push Notifications
If you are not using push notifications for your app, you should start today. By having a push notification strategy in place, you automatically set up a direct line of communication between you and your users. This has big profit potential. If your app is an extension of your brand or business, you can turn your abandoned carts in revenue via push notification discounts on said products. In fact, push notifications can increase purchases by nearly 10 times. Timing is everything, however, when it comes to push notifications. Research has found that Saturdays between three and six in the afternoon are the peak purchase hours using push notifications.
Set up Referral Program
Referral programs are a great way to churn out more app revenue. The best part about app referral programs is that you already have a built in user base to help you. That’s right, by rewarding your most valued users to recommend your app to friends and family, you extend your reach, downloads, and future in-app purchases.
This strategy is also very easy to plan. First, think about the reward offer per referral. This could be a premium feature for a year or free shipping on products. Next, target your most influential users. If a user has a decent social media following, they would be highly valuable.
Segment Your App’s Ads
Running in-app ads are great to increase revenue, but setting ads and forgetting about them is not a good long-term strategy. To get the most out of your ads, you need to segment them based on unique user groups. First, you want to ensure your app’s ads are non-intrusive and offer the best user experience possible. These ad formats include rewarded video ads (as discussed previously), interactive ads, and native ads. Once you have these ad formats running, use your user data and demographics to tailor your ads to specific groups. For example, you can make ads more unique to age, gender, location, parental status, and motivations. By tailoring your app ads to user groups, you will see an increase in revenue.
App Localization Is Essential
To cash in on your app’s true potential, take it to the global marketplace. Expanding your online reach is a numbers game that will pay off. The worldwide app revenue for gaming and non-gaming apps is estimated to reach $139 billion by 2021. The U.S. leads in app usage per day, right? Not even close. In fact, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, and India all out app the U.S. in minutes per day. By localizing your app to global markets you are opening up another valuable revenue stream.
Get Social with Users
Social media is a powerful asset to increase app revenue. However, using social media to do this can often be challenging for app developers and publishers. You definitely need the typical social networks for your app, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but use them to engage. By engaging with your app audience on social media, you are making your app, brand, company, products, and services more personal. Social media also serves as a place to gather valuable feedback about how users interact and like your app.
For example, you can make yourself available for Q&A sessions once a week via social media. You can launch new levels or features of your app on YouTube and ask for user critique. There is also an opportunity to combine your referral program with social as well.
Make Updates a Regular Thing
Updates are not just something developers need to do to ensure their apps are working well. Doing updates to your app also play an essential role in increasing your app revenue. Remember the gathering feedback from your users on social media part? Well, this is where you will take that valuable feedback and turn it into profits. By listening to your users and implementing their comments in updates, you are showing them you care about their experience. Updates also increase app interaction. App use can often go dormant after awhile, but by sending an update notification, you are reminding your audience that your app has something new to try out. How often should you update your app? As often as possible if you want to increase revenue.
Go Premium to Freemium
A lot of these strategies for increasing app revenue are geared toward free to download apps. What about those app developers and publishers that want an up front payment for their investment? Well, there are options for them too. Everyone is familiar with freemium to premium, but let’s turn that concept on its head and take premium to freemium. This may seem like an odd option, but if you have an app that is worth an install, you can net long-term profit when offering for free for a limited time.
Always Be Measuring Strategy Success
Optimizing your app for maximum profit is an aim of most app developers, but don’t forget to track and measure the above strategies. It is important to have a very detailed plan in place before trying a new strategy, which includes measuring and meeting KPIs. For example, how many rewarded video ad clicks do you want to see in a month? How will you compare that number with your other ads? These app metrics will allow you to decide what is working and double down for even more revenue. Make the New Year a profitable one for your app. The above strategies serve as a guide to increased app revenue, installs, and extending customer lifetime value. To get the most out of any strategy, ensure you tailor them to work best for your app and audience. How will you boost profits for your app in 2018? Read more about mobile apps on TechCo
