[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[magic_button]

hi nakamura, I agree with you that they are very annoying, I beleive there are bots trained on their data to make these decisions. How's about your journey with iOS so far?

 

[nakamura]

Okay, here are the first insights into Admob vs. FAN.

Maybe its too early to make conclusions since its only been a few days since the apps have been live with FAN, however, I can definitely see a huge difference already.

First of all: The earnings are completely out of context. One app which would make $10 per day, makes $0,60 per day now. Wtf? Another app that made $15 per day now makes $1.50.

Ad placements are exactly the same. I simply switched from Admob to FAN.

I knew the drop in earnings would be lower because the fill rate for most of the apps (especially iOS!) is low. One of my iOS apps gets a 70% fill rate, which means there is not only a lower ecpm, but already 30% fewer earnings. Another Android app is doing quite well with an 85-90% fill rate per day.

Somehow the impressions seem lower too. Like one app on Admob got 1200 impressions per day (and it was increasing day per day!) and now it gets 130 and it seems to be stuck there with a 72% fill rate.

Here is just an example of one app:

Before on Admob:







Now FAN:



The extremely low eCPM is a mix of banner and interstitial.
Average Banner Ecpm: $0,61
Average Interstitial Ecpm: $4,10

 

[nakamura]

Personally, I find it very frustrating to get half of the earnings I usually could get. Simply by changing the ad network. It shows that Google Admob/Adsense has a monopoly. They have the most advertiser - that why the fill rate is always 100% and the ECPM is the highest. The number one reason why the fill rate on FAN is so low is "no relevant ads".

What makes it even more frustrating is the reason why the apps get banned and moreover, the reason why the Admob account suddenly gets limited (the reason is probably the competition which is click bombing my ads - but that are just assumptions even tho it is very highly likely the case).

But this Admob scam is absolutely taking the piss when they are wrongfully removing my apps and using it to justify suspending my Admob account.

Today is the 18th. Usually, Admob is paying me until the 23rd of every month. Now let's see how this turns out. My bet is: In the next few days they are going to suspend my Admob account because one of my apps violated their policies (which is not true, but they don't care).

 

[LegendAndroidX]

i've made with admob my entire life over +250k dollars , from 2016 till 2018 , now admob is getting worst and stupid with thier stupid algorithm they keep limiting ads time to time which makes you wonder wtf is happened to their service it used to be amazing and great option for mobile advertising .

i've tried so many companies they are bad comapred with the OLD admob ecpm.

i gave up with admob as there is no solution at the moment for the limitation problem, im using bunch of companies like unityads, FAN ... etc

 

[nakamura]

i've made with admob my entire life over +250k dollars , from 2016 till 2018 , now admob is getting worst and stupid with thier stupid algorithm they keep limiting ads time to time which makes you wonder wtf is happened to their service it used to be amazing and great option for mobile advertising .

i've tried so many companies they are bad comapred with the OLD admob ecpm.

i gave up with admob as there is no solution at the moment for the limitation problem, im using bunch of companies like unityads, FAN ... etc

Same experience here. I had my Adsense/Admob account since 2012. Never had any problem, got paid always without any issues. And from last year July, it went to shit. I am just wondering what is their strategy? Is it because of covid?

Its like fucking tyranny...and I am not exaggerating. They are limiting and suspending accounts for whatever reason, any time, like oh boy you better hope not to see an email from Adsense or Admob in your Gmail account because it means you are fucked.

But what pisses me off the most: There is no fair trial. You can not contact any real person. No one to call. No one to visit. No one to chat with. All you can do is making an appeal and BEG for forgiveness...until you get an automated reply...this is like in the middle ages, a fucking witch hunt. They get you for whatever reason, take everything you worked for and then they burn you down

And everyone who is like: "Oh mimimi. Stop crying. Stop whining" - I would like to see you guys if you make $100 per day and just a moment before payout they are suspending your account and keep the money, without giving any reason..just the standard: we have the right to determine who we want to work with blablabla"

 

[BillyRusso]

I have no time to read the whole thread. Is this happening on your first and only GP and Admob account? Or you have been banned before, and these are new accounts?

 

[Deleted member 923340]

Have you thought about in-app purchases?

 

[nakamura]

Have you thought about in-app purchases?

I do in-app purchases with iOS. Already earned me around $100 in total, but I didn't really scale it yet. Too busy to deal with fucking Google over and over again. You can't imagine how long it takes to deal with them. Today I reskinned two of my apps which got removed before. Took me 5 hours (including implementing FAN etc.)

 

[WhiteTiger69]

How much have you invested so far on your journey?

 

[C45HC0W]

hey @nakamura great journey you have there!
Could you please spelled out FAN for me what does it stand for F... AdNetwork?
How many AdMob accounts do you have? do you have one app per account?
What exactly did the Thai screenshot? An order for clicks on ads in your app? I think it is weird because google should be aware of self-directed activity generation to harm/sabotage another.

Right now I am working on my first mobile game. Do you have any tipps for a noob like me besides "get ready to get f by google"?

 

[nakamura]

How much have you invested so far on your journey?

Roughly around $350 in total. Most of the costs were for Google Play accounts (4x$25).
Some money for Adwords (not much, mabe $2-3 per day to drive a steady amount of installs), some keyword installs (mostly used it when they had promotions) and once I used Upwork twice (2x$20) to implement Appodeal and FAN to my iOS app.

I do the coding myself, I write the descriptions (and translations) for the apps myself, I make the screenshots myself and I do most of the marketing by myself.

hey @nakamura great journey you have there!
Could you please spelled out FAN for me what does it stand for F... AdNetwork?
How many AdMob accounts do you have? do you have one app per account?
What exactly did the Thai screenshot? An order for clicks on ads in your app? I think it is weird because google should be aware of self-directed activity generation to harm/sabotage another.

Right now I am working on my first mobile game. Do you have any tipps for a noob like me besides "get ready to get f by google"?

FAN = FACEBOOK Audience Network

I had one Adsense/Admob account for many years (I guess I registered it in 2011), never had any problem, until they decided to suspend it for a ridiculous reason in July 2020. I made a new one afterwards, which also got banned. At the same time I remembered I made another account in 2017 and still got the account. Right now this account is limited...and guess what? They should send me a payout of $1.5k in the next few days. Lets see if this is going to happen. My guess is no.

About the Thai screenshot: There are guys taking advantage of the ridiciulous Google policies by mass reporting apps. They know Google employees are a bunch of morons and don't know their own policies, so everytime Google just suspends an app, even if its absurd. Probably the same people also clicked on my ads over and over again and then Google limited my account. This is my guess. I strongly believe so.

Normally you are right. Google should be aware, but they are not. You can really sabotage another person by clicking on his ads over and over again. If you are "lucky" Google will limit his account. I never did something like this and will never do. I focus on myself instead. And if this people think they could "destroy" me, nope, I simply implement other networks and upload three more apps.

 

[nakamura]

Btw. just saw one of my other accounts got terminated. Which makes it very weird: Two apps got removed before (like I wrote above...) and I sent an appeal and asked them to explain why...and guess what? They didn't address any problem. It was just an automated reply. Two days later I get the email: Your account has been terminated for multiple violations. Seriously...two apps got removed...for a total absurd reason. It can't get any more ridiculous.

I mean, just imagine this: They suspend the app for a shit reason, I ask them why, they send me an automated reply and then they are suspending my whole account. Wtf? No joke guys, if this shit wouldn't repeat over and over again, I would already make $10k per month from this journey. But you can see how it goes: Earnings go up, apps get removed, reupload apps, earnings go up, apps get removed, reupload apps and they get removed again.

So, I will make another account tomorrow and reskin/reupload the apps a few days later. And thats that. After this I won't make another account anymore. Its a waste of time, seriously. From that point on I will focus more on mobile games. I don't think Google Play is going to remove mobile games for such reasons.

Also thinking if I should just move on and focus on other platforms and markets (Huawei App Gallery, Amazon App Store, Samsung Store etc.)...even tho I think the traffic must be quite low over there. Would be nice for a case study maybe.

 

[ferg2]

It's not 2015 anymore. Google play is a stagnating market.

 

[nakamura]

It's not 2015 anymore. Google play is a stagnating market.

Still got most of the users. Uncomparable to the other Android markets...unfortunately. I wish there would be a serious competitior.

 

[wizeman]

Told you to quit this journey OP. It is a waste of time and your right Google has a monopoly and there is NOTHING you can do about them banning your accounts and not paying you (besides sue them which i did). Also $8-9 ECPM is extremely high. If you were getting that on admob its most likely why they banned you. $2-3 ECPM max or you will get banned. The low earning make it almost impossible to make $ off of ads alone unless you have a viral app with very low user acquisition cost. ASO/Reskinning has been dead for years. You are at the mercy of the app stores and the ad networks. Good luck if you continue this journey it will be extremely frustrating waste of time and most likely lose $

 

[Black Adam]

Very Interesting. Good luck on your Journey.

 

[nakamura]

Told you to quit this journey OP. It is a waste of time and your right Google has a monopoly and there is NOTHING you can do about them banning your accounts and not paying you (besides sue them which i did). Also $8-9 ECPM is extremely high. If you were getting that on admob its most likely why they banned you. $2-3 ECPM max or you will get banned. The low earning make it almost impossible to make $ off of ads alone unless you have a viral app with very low user acquisition cost. ASO/Reskinning has been dead for years. You are at the mercy of the app stores and the ad networks. Good luck if you continue this journey it will be extremely frustrating waste of time and most likely lose $

Whats the result of the lawsuit?

$2-3ECPM is normal, are you kidding me? Who the heck were you targeting?

I get your point of being at the mercy, but this happens with every niche. You are at mercy of Amazon (when you sell something), Google (if youes and do SEO), the App Stores (if you develop apps), Ad networks (if you do CPA), Paid Ads (for example Facebook ads etc.) so I don't think this is a valid point.

My earnings are not low. I make around $100-120 per day and after they limited the account I make $50-70 per day. I invested rougly $350, so think about the ROI yourself. Even if Admob won't pay me, Facebook already paid me several times and the total earnings are more than $2k from Facebook. Appodeal paid me another $2k and Unity ads also paid me.

Number one reason why the apps got deleted were competition from 3rd world countries, which I will ban now. It should solve the problem temporarily. I don't think Google Play Staff is randomly download and checking apps, it is the skillless competition which is mass reporting, because someone has a better app than they do.

And you are right, it can be really frustrating, but unlike you I won't give up. Whole fucking IM is about adjusting. If Admob keeps blocking me, I will just not use Admob. Lesson learned. If Google Play keeps deleting me, I better find ways to stay under the radar. Lesson learned. If Google Play keeps doing shit, I will focus more on iOS (which got no problem by the way, never removed any of my apps) and other stores like Huawei Gallery, Samsung Store, etc.

 

[nakamura]

Update: I made two more Google Play accounts and just uploaded three more apps on one another account. All of the apps are monetized with FAN.

What is the goal? To generate a passive income of $40 or more per day and then move on to other projects (mobile games and start a legitimate gaming website/company)

 

[magic_button]

hey nakamura, do you experience very long time review from google these days (7-10 days)?

 

[nakamura]

hey nakamura, do you experience very long time review from google these days (7-10 days)?

Review for new apps? Yes. They take a week. For updates they became faster these days.