6 App Optimization Tips To Maximize App Monetization and Profitability

The app economy is booming with devastating effect.

According to a recent 2013 Gartner report, the Global Mobile Advertising revenue is expected to increase 400% between 2011 and 2016, reaching a stagering $11.4 billion in 2013, up from $9.6 billion in 2011. Moreover, worldwide mobile advertising revenue is expected to reach $24.5 billion in 2016. It is therefore an established fact that this is a rapidly growing industry.

With thousands of apps in the Apple, Google Play and other independent app stores, maximizing the visibility of an app can be a major challenge, but monetizing the app itself is a completely different ball game. It goes, therefore, to suggest that by simply publishing an app on the app store and hoping for the best does not offer any assurance of success, let alone profitability.

There seems to be a common denominator with the successful apps in terms of revenue. However, even the most paid apps too have fundamental steps (ones they dare not ignore) to ensure profitability. Currently, there are three trending principles amongst developers looking to monetize their apps. These are the following:

1) Paid Downloads: Selling the App to consumers at a relatively cheap price, usually for a minimum of 0.99 cents

2) In-App Buying: Selling services inside the app

3) In-App advertising: Selling advertising inside the app in a away that doesn’t suck.

What’s the secret? It’s simple — Focus on providing a rich User Experience first, and then monetize along the way, not vice versa. The reason for this is because there are issues associated with paid apps.

Probably, the biggest problem with paid apps downloads is that, users are often cautious about buying apps without a proven track record, particularly on the apple app-store. Since Apple does not allow demo apps on their app-store and given the large number of free apps to compete with,   users are left with a gamble based purely on other users reviews and screen grabs. Yet if users feel the need to buy the app, the statistics indicate that users are not hesitant to spend their hard earned cash.

In conclusion, here’s another 3 (very basic) point–plans to help you optimize your app in case you are planning on monetizing or if you are thinking about maximizing the potential for profitability.

4) Experiment: push the envelope, introduce new features inside the app

5) Analyse & Evaluate: Analyse and evaluate what users like,

6) Iterate with what works while discarding what doesn’t.

In instances whereby the success of an app is measured by the gross margin, and not just by the number of downloads, these point plans can prove to be important to ensure the success of the app. Whether the app is a game, book, or a regular productivity app, if the basic monetization ingredients are missing then, it can be argued that there is no point in publishing the app in the first place?