While developing your app from your innovative idea you need to consider how you are planning to get revenues from it if you want to make it grow. Developers must know about the mobile market characteristics in order to choose a business model that suites best to their app.
Mobile app users are currently downloading applications to watch videos, listen to music, take notes, chat with other people or play games for free. Even so, most users won’t have a problem with advertising as long as the app they downloaded for free remains that way.
That is why defining your target group is important, since obviously consumers with considerable more incomes behave differently from consumers who look almost exclusively for free apps. Besides, by studying your competition you get to know what similar apps you may offer, and it will help you put a price on yours.
Certainly, it’s not a good idea to charge for your app when there is already another one free and fairly similar in the market. But if yours has a distinctive feature or functionality which users may find valuable to pay for, your chances increase.
If you have defined that your product will be aimed to people willing to pay a fee for your app, then the direct paid app model might be your best option. However, applications that get the most out of this model in the android market are usually games from known studios or major franchises. Android has the largest amount of smartphones sales and users globally, although their consumers are also more willing to download free applications than paid ones.
For that reason, Android developers are more likely to apply freemium models to obtain revenues. In order to do so, they use app upgrades, app purchases or ad placement. You can charge for upgrades as you provide an enhanced experience or even an ad-free version of your app. In app purchases usually add features such as new levels for a game or special filters for a social app.
Ad types for freemium apps
Ad placement allows you to earn money by displaying three different types of ads: Banners ads, Interstitial ads and Native ads. Banners are shown at the top or bottom of the app and they must consume the full width of the device. Interstitial ads cover the entire interface, they require more bandwidth than traditional banners and are displayed between activities or during a pauses.
Native ads integrate on the app as they follow the natural form and function of the user experience; they are shown in a less obstructive way and in the exact same views you are building your app layouts. Think about them in the same way Facebook, Twitter or Instagram use in-feed ads.
AdMob by Google
To make your application more profitable, AdMob provides developers with a solution to generate attractive ads, connect you to networks all over the world and working along with Firebase to give you insights about your app. AdMob allows developers to use monetization strategies and automatically selects the ads that benefits you the most.
It also helps you to earn in app purchase revenues, by determining your more likely buyers and directing campaigns towards them.
As you can see, if you decide to go for a paid app model you have to take in consideration either your costs, the demand, your added value, and the competition or market features.
In a different perspective, in a freemium model it is important to be aware of the distinct types of ads, as they become native and adopt a natural mobile usage form, improving brand recall and, most importantly, user experience.
