[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[nakamura]

Update:

Something magical happened. Google actually approved the appeal. In my appeal, I asked them what is wrong since they only sent a screenshot of the main menu of the app and called it "deceptive behavior". Their answer was I should add a specific word into my app title to make the purpose of the app more understandable (even tho I wrote it in the description, subtitle and in screenshots).

Also funny: I just uploaded a reskinned version of the app on the same account and now I have two versions of the apps, which almost look the same just with different pictures and colors. Lol. Might end up with both of them will get removed, who knows.

Anyway, thank you very much Kate, I appreciate it. If you read this, you know my email and phone number, hit me up, dont mind the privacy policy

 

[cernat10]

Yes, I prefer Google ads. I will try Facebook ads once again soon. Didn't have many good results with Facebook ads before. Additionally I am doing ASO (store optimization to rank for keywords) and getting organic traffic through Facebook pages/groups and also websites.




Yes, mediation is a great way to get a high fill rate. Also, you have the bonus once Admob removes the limit you can just add them to the mediation within a couple of minutes. Total flexibility.

At the moment I am using Appodeal, but I am thinking about switching to the Admob mediation soon. Through the mediation I am running Unity ads (which are quite good if you are in the gaming niche!), Facebook Audience Network and Applovin (I use them only for high paying interstitials and for Banner ads)

thank you so much. ı will try to integrate appodeal sdk

 

[nakamura]

Update and some insights:

Earnings: Still average around $100 per day. And that's great because I don't spend much time on it and can focus on new projects and new apps to make even more money.

Ad networks in use: Mostly Facebook Audience Network, Unity ads for video ads and Applovin for Banner ads (they got a high international fill rate for banner ads)

Apps: Uploaded two more apps and one of them already got approved (Android). No app got removed so far.

Something about FAN (Facebook Audience Network):
As I wrote above one of my apps got removed on the Play Store, I sent an appeal and they reinstated the app. Because the app got removed on the Play Store before, FAN deactivated/rejected the app and said its against their policies.

However, after the app went live again, I sent an appeal and within ONE HOUR they accepted and approved the appeal. They are incredibly fast and considerable, unlike Google.

About paid ads:

Google Adwords is working fine for me for Android apps on the Google Play Store. For iOS apps, it is not working at all. Here are two screenshots for 2nd - 3rd March.

The iOS app:



One Android app (only Tier 1 countries. If I would choose worldwide the cost/install would be 0.06€ with much more installs.)



The ad setup is exactly the same. Just the platform is different. Seems like Adwords doesn't know how to handle iOS apps? Spent around 14€ and just 200 clicks with 0 installs. I integrated Firebase to measure the app installs and other actions.

Next, I will try Facebook ads for the iOS app. But for this, I will need to integrate the Facebook SDK into the iOS app and these days I don't really have much time to and test it these days. Without integrating the Facebook SDK into the app it is not possible to measure whether people who saw the ad actually installed the app or not, therefore it is required in order to show FB ads.

 

[Deleted member 1207404]

One Android app (only Tier 1 countries. If I would choose worldwide the cost/install would be

View attachment 165122

On average how much do you spend before the app ranks on the play store and you stop the campaign.I have a limited marketing budget and I wouldn't want to endlessly spend on an app that wouldn't rank.

 

[knoffs]

good to hear that!

may i ask a question about boosting rankings?

how do you find what keywords are the best to boost? how important are reviews? do you do review exchanges?

do you change your title often? if so, how often? for me it is quite difficult to get to higher rankings for more competitive keywords.

would be interesting to hear your opinion

Update:

Something magical happened. Google actually approved the appeal. In my appeal, I asked them what is wrong since they only sent a screenshot of the main menu of the app and called it "deceptive behavior". Their answer was I should add a specific word into my app title to make the purpose of the app more understandable (even tho I wrote it in the description, subtitle and in screenshots).

Also funny: I just uploaded a reskinned version of the app on the same account and now I have two versions of the apps, which almost look the same just with different pictures and colors. Lol. Might end up with both of them will get removed, who knows.

Anyway, thank you very much Kate, I appreciate it. If you read this, you know my email and phone number, hit me up, dont mind the privacy policy

 

[knoffs]

aa mentioned before check our installing an app measurement sdk so you can track app installs for all adnetworks wirhout the need to install each ad network‘s own sdks.

regarding paid ads, wanted to ask if you have any special tactic how to optimize googleads for your android campaigns? do you track the quality of the installs/uninstalls and further actions? would be interesting to hear more about your approach here.

wish you all the best,
mark

Update and some insights:

Earnings: Still average around $100 per day. And that's great because I don't spend much time on it and can focus on new projects and new apps to make even more money.

Ad networks in use: Mostly Facebook Audience Network, Unity ads for video ads and Applovin for Banner ads (they got a high international fill rate for banner ads)

Apps: Uploaded two more apps and one of them already got approved (Android). No app got removed so far.

Something about FAN (Facebook Audience Network):
As I wrote above one of my apps got removed on the Play Store, I sent an appeal and they reinstated the app. Because the app got removed on the Play Store before, FAN deactivated/rejected the app and said its against their policies.

However, after the app went live again, I sent an appeal and within ONE HOUR they accepted and approved the appeal. They are incredibly fast and considerable, unlike Google.

About paid ads:

Google Adwords is working fine for me for Android apps on the Google Play Store. For iOS apps, it is not working at all. Here are two screenshots for 2nd - 3rd March.

The iOS app:

View attachment 165121

One Android app (only Tier 1 countries. If I would choose worldwide the cost/install would be 0.06€ with much more installs.)

View attachment 165122

The ad setup is exactly the same. Just the platform is different. Seems like Adwords doesn't know how to handle iOS apps? Spent around 14€ and just 200 clicks with 0 installs. I integrated Firebase to measure the app installs and other actions.

Next, I will try Facebook ads for the iOS app. But for this, I will need to integrate the Facebook SDK into the iOS app and these days I don't really have much time to and test it these days. Without integrating the Facebook SDK into the app it is not possible to measure whether people who saw the ad actually installed the app or not, therefore it is required in order to show FB ads.

 

[nakamura]

On average how much do you spend before the app ranks on the play store and you stop the campaign.I have a limited marketing budget and I wouldn't want to endlessly spend on an app that wouldn't rank.

Really depends. I also get a lot of organic traffic from my websites and Facebook group. Lots of ways to get traffic

good to hear that!

may i ask a question about boosting rankings?

how do you find what keywords are the best to boost? how important are reviews? do you do review exchanges?

do you change your title often? if so, how often? for me it is quite difficult to get to higher rankings for more competitive keywords.

would be interesting to hear your opinion

keyword research is important. I use ubersuggest (and sometimes ahrefs) to check keywords. So far I didn't come across a tool to check monthly searches only on the App and Play Store. Do you know any?

Reviews are mostly important for social proof. They help to make a decision. CTR will be higher if an app has a shit ton of great reviews, same as CTR will be super low if the app has a very low rating. And the better the CTR, the better the rankings. So what you want to do is keep the best possible rating, the more ratings the better. If your app only has 5 reviews and average 3 stars, get yourself like 20 reviews with 5 stars to get it average to 4.5 or more. Problem with the Apple App Store is: It shows different ratings for different countries. So if one guy in Singapore gives your app 1 star, it shows 1 star for Singapore devices. If the same app gets 5x 5 star reviews in Germany, it shows an average 5 star review for everyone with a German Apple ID.

I don't really check the title often. If I would change the title, then only for split testing purposes...and maybe later a total change. Unfortunately the iOS App Store doesn't have the option for split testing. The Google Play store does. Its a great way to see whether you can optimize your listing to a better or not without directly jumping into conclusions. So Split testing / A B testing is a great option.

I would focus on rankings low to medium keywords first to get downloads. The more competitive keywords will increase automatically if you have a good CTR etc.

 

[nakamura]

Surprise surprise! Google Admob removed the limit once again.

I will send some traffic to it right away. Does anyone want to make a bet on how many days until they will limit it again? Anyone?! I give it 9 days.

 

[liquardo]

For someone who's just now starting out building an Android app, would your recommend making an AdMob account linked to an existing (aged) AdSense account or would it be safer to just make a fresh account for PlayStore/AdMob?
Not quite sure how AdSense / AdMob linking works in general.

Also would you think it's the smartest play to block the few Tier 3 countries you mentioned from the get-go or would it be better to just mediate traffic from those countries to other ad-networks for reduced risk of a ban?
I guess the main reason was not only ads but to prevent your apps from getting tons of false flags.

Anyways, inspiring journey man, thanks for all the effort and updates!

 

[James flood]

Guys! I have a question. I am searching for a niche in the games category. But the issue is How I can distinguish between an app is ranking by using ads and another one is only using organic traffic(using SEO). If someone can tell me how that would be more than appreciated and thank you so much.

 

[nakamura]

For someone who's just now starting out building an Android app, would your recommend making an AdMob account linked to an existing (aged) AdSense account or would it be safer to just make a fresh account for PlayStore/AdMob?
Not quite sure how AdSense / AdMob linking works in general.

Also would you think it's the smartest play to block the few Tier 3 countries you mentioned from the get-go or would it be better to just mediate traffic from those countries to other ad-networks for reduced risk of a ban?
I guess the main reason was not only ads but to prevent your apps from getting tons of false flags.

Anyways, inspiring journey man, thanks for all the effort and updates!

Depends on the age of your Adsense account. Account age definitely plays an important role on how Google evaluates your account.

Example:
In July 2020 I made a 2nd Admob account. It got limited just one month later. It was limited for more than 3 months. In October I started sending traffic to this Admob account again because the limit got removed. In November one app got removed. In December, just before payout, Google suspended the Admob account and didn't pay. Reason? One app got removed.

In September I got a bit frustrated because the Admob account above was already limited for 3 months. Suddenly it came into my mind I still had an existing Adsense account I created in January 2017. I used it to create an Admob account and linked them to each other. So, I got myself a new sim card, started using an old phone (to not leave any footprints, otherwise -> ban) and since then I handle this Admob account without any problems. It got limited a few times, but the limit is much shorter. They always send the payout, even tho a few apps already got removed.

So yes, it definitely seems Google "trusts" aged accounts way more. The tolerance level is way higher.

The problem I have with Tier 3 countries, especially a few specific of them (I won't call names) is: They use not-so-nice tactics like mass reporting apps and click bombing ads (you will get limited for this), meanwhile their ECPM is incredibly low. So basically, you have to decide for yourself whether it is actually worth it. But it depends on your niche. If you are making games, I wouldn't block them. If you make other kinda apps and it happens they are the main competitor you better block the fuck out of them. Since I blocked them I have less trouble. Fewer apps get removed or suspended. It definitely had a huge positive impact I blocked them.

Guys! I have a question. I am searching for a niche in the games category. But the issue is How I can distinguish between an app is ranking by using ads and another one is only using organic traffic(using SEO). If someone can tell me how that would be more than appreciated and thank you so much.

That kinda difficult to say. Maybe there are tools out there that can distinguish between paid traffic and organic traffic, just like in SEO, but I haven't found a tool like this yet.

 

[James flood]

That kinda difficult to say. Maybe there are tools out there that can distinguish between paid traffic and organic traffic, just like in SEO, but I haven't found a tool like this yet.

It is good to know which app is using paid traffic. because that gives you the ability to know if an app is successful or not. because organic traffic proves that the app is on-demand but when they use paid traffic that means once the campaign stops the app with stop. thank you for replying

 

[sly1977]

@nakamura How many apps in total have you published since the start of your journey?

 

[Cubanpete]

Posting in an epic thread, I'll monitor this thread with great interest.

A tip you might interesting in - a lot of freelancer React Native devs are looking for work right now and on the cheap. You can use the finished product on both Android and Apple phones.

 

[Deleted member 1456969]

I wish you success mate

 

[suvomoy]

I didn't quite get it...

 

[KilluaZolduyk]

Depends on the age of your Adsense account. Account age definitely plays an important role on how Google evaluates your account.

Example:
In July 2020 I made a 2nd Admob account. It got limited just one month later. It was limited for more than 3 months. In October I started sending traffic to this Admob account again because the limit got removed. In November one app got removed. In December, just before payout, Google suspended the Admob account and didn't pay. Reason? One app got removed.

In September I got a bit frustrated because the Admob account above was already limited for 3 months. Suddenly it came into my mind I still had an existing Adsense account I created in January 2017. I used it to create an Admob account and linked them to each other. So, I got myself a new sim card, started using an old phone (to not leave any footprints, otherwise -> ban) and since then I handle this Admob account without any problems. It got limited a few times, but the limit is much shorter. They always send the payout, even tho a few apps already got removed.

So yes, it definitely seems Google "trusts" aged accounts way more. The tolerance level is way higher.

The problem I have with Tier 3 countries, especially a few specific of them (I won't call names) is: They use not-so-nice tactics like mass reporting apps and click bombing ads (you will get limited for this), meanwhile their ECPM is incredibly low. So basically, you have to decide for yourself whether it is actually worth it. But it depends on your niche. If you are making games, I wouldn't block them. If you make other kinda apps and it happens they are the main competitor you better block the fuck out of them. Since I blocked them I have less trouble. Fewer apps get removed or suspended. It definitely had a huge positive impact I blocked them.



That kinda difficult to say. Maybe there are tools out there that can distinguish between paid traffic and organic traffic, just like in SEO, but I haven't found a tool like this yet.

Hey man nice journey
how do you do keyword research & market research?
do you use any ASO tools like : appradar & appannie any ASO tool ?

 

[HelpingOthers]

This is going to be a long run, you must have free time, money, and other resources to back you up. I believe this is not for someone who is getting started to make money online

 

[SpaceDragonX]

@nakamura hey man, can u pm me, please? I want to ask you something

 

[James flood]

@nakamura hey man, can u pm me, please? I want to ask you something

I think it is better to ask here so if anybody comes around and needs help. she or he will find the question is already been answered and thank you