Walterwhit
Supreme Member
- Jan 22, 2020
- 1,348
- 1,304
you will still need xcode for publishing it , you can use mac or use online service
[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire
- Thread starter nakamura
- Start date
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
Update
Profit: Still making around $90-150 per day. The earnings really vary and there are so many factors playing into it.
Apps: Added one new iOS app and two Android apps. Thinking about making another new Google Play developer account and reupload some apps, which got deleted in the past. Around 4-5 apps, which would maybe bring me an additional $20 per day.
Paid Traffic: Usually I didn't get use paid traffic in the past. The goal was always to rank an app on the store and to get organic traffic, which also works very well. However, in the past few weeks I tried five advertisers: Google Adwords, Apple Ads, Facebook Ads, Propeller Ads (Just trying) and TikTok ads.
Very short overview of my experiences with them:
...and before you ask: I am using AppsFlyer to track all the app installs, events, etc. for the different ad networks.
Google Adwords: For app installs, you don't have much choice of who to target. Besides targeting specific countries, languages, there is not much to do. Basically what you do is add a few ad sets, titles and descriptions and Google is doing all the work. And then there is something very odd that I noticed: I added two apps in the same niche, same ad sets, same countries targeted, but the cost per install was totally different. It seems like even tho the niche was the same, Google targeted completely different people and the CPI got higher. I made this experience several times with them. Seems like a hit and miss...the main problem I see is: You don't actually have power over who you target (for example age or adding specific keywords to target).
Propeller Ads: I only tried them for an iOS app and it didn't work out at all. Just got one install and spend like $10. Also there, you don't really know who they are actually showing your ads to. Could be possible the traffic is just bots. Anyway, I will try it with Android apps as well. Maybe the results will be much better.
Facebook Ads: Two things about them. First: From my experience,, the CPI was much lower in certain countries than on Adwords. Also, you can not only target specific groups of people, but they also give you the option to save those people and to use them later on for another audience. This is extremely helpful and additional to that you can also grow your Facebook page/IG.
Here is the negative aspect: It seems Facebook for app installs is full of bugs and this makes it painful and annoying to set up those ads. They will randomly give you errors and not publish your ads, they will tell you something is wrong about the image size, but in fact, everything is alright. Just an example: I add an image with 1000x1000px and they give me an error the image has to be wider than 320px. Stuff like this makes it really annoying. I had another bug: Their algorithm would automatically mark my posts as spam. So I make the ad, the ad gets approved and is active and a couple seconds later the posts get removed for spam. No matter what image I use (at some point I even used a blank background image just to check and it also got removed), no matter if I use additional titles/descriptions or not. URL can't be the reason, because it's the Google Play Store. So I contacted Facebook and these guys called me several times. Now they are investigating the issue. Btw. this bug had a really bad side effect: Because FB marked all those posts as spam, they removed the Facebook page! Now thats a fucked up thing to do.
Apple Ads: Really nice platform, lots of options who to target and where to target, you can also target people by keywords. However, the app installs are expensive. I paid like $0.50 per app install for the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Besides this, its a really good.
TikTok Ads: I just tried them a few days ago. Results were fine. I believe if you have a really good video that brings a great CTR and CR it is probably the best platform at the moment. I used the same video as I use for Facebook and the results were quite similar, but the CTR for Facebook was much higher. People on TikTok just tend to keep scrolling within seconds while on FB the attention span is higher. I will test more for TikTok ads and see how it goes. But so far: Great alternative for Facebook and Google.
What else? I would like to try other networks as well. Maybe Bing for example.
Oh, about the iOS 14.5 update:
Apple made it really difficult and it required so much work to update all the apps, add all the Skadnetwork IDs, etc. Of course it also had an big impact on the ad earnings. Neither the ad networks or the developer benefited from the situation: App installs got more expensive and ad revenue got less, simply because the ads are not targeted anymore but rather random.
Profit: Still making around $90-150 per day. The earnings really vary and there are so many factors playing into it.
Apps: Added one new iOS app and two Android apps. Thinking about making another new Google Play developer account and reupload some apps, which got deleted in the past. Around 4-5 apps, which would maybe bring me an additional $20 per day.
Paid Traffic: Usually I didn't get use paid traffic in the past. The goal was always to rank an app on the store and to get organic traffic, which also works very well. However, in the past few weeks I tried five advertisers: Google Adwords, Apple Ads, Facebook Ads, Propeller Ads (Just trying) and TikTok ads.
Very short overview of my experiences with them:
...and before you ask: I am using AppsFlyer to track all the app installs, events, etc. for the different ad networks.
Google Adwords: For app installs, you don't have much choice of who to target. Besides targeting specific countries, languages, there is not much to do. Basically what you do is add a few ad sets, titles and descriptions and Google is doing all the work. And then there is something very odd that I noticed: I added two apps in the same niche, same ad sets, same countries targeted, but the cost per install was totally different. It seems like even tho the niche was the same, Google targeted completely different people and the CPI got higher. I made this experience several times with them. Seems like a hit and miss...the main problem I see is: You don't actually have power over who you target (for example age or adding specific keywords to target).
Propeller Ads: I only tried them for an iOS app and it didn't work out at all. Just got one install and spend like $10. Also there, you don't really know who they are actually showing your ads to. Could be possible the traffic is just bots. Anyway, I will try it with Android apps as well. Maybe the results will be much better.
Facebook Ads: Two things about them. First: From my experience,, the CPI was much lower in certain countries than on Adwords. Also, you can not only target specific groups of people, but they also give you the option to save those people and to use them later on for another audience. This is extremely helpful and additional to that you can also grow your Facebook page/IG.
Here is the negative aspect: It seems Facebook for app installs is full of bugs and this makes it painful and annoying to set up those ads. They will randomly give you errors and not publish your ads, they will tell you something is wrong about the image size, but in fact, everything is alright. Just an example: I add an image with 1000x1000px and they give me an error the image has to be wider than 320px. Stuff like this makes it really annoying. I had another bug: Their algorithm would automatically mark my posts as spam. So I make the ad, the ad gets approved and is active and a couple seconds later the posts get removed for spam. No matter what image I use (at some point I even used a blank background image just to check and it also got removed), no matter if I use additional titles/descriptions or not. URL can't be the reason, because it's the Google Play Store. So I contacted Facebook and these guys called me several times. Now they are investigating the issue. Btw. this bug had a really bad side effect: Because FB marked all those posts as spam, they removed the Facebook page! Now thats a fucked up thing to do.
Apple Ads: Really nice platform, lots of options who to target and where to target, you can also target people by keywords. However, the app installs are expensive. I paid like $0.50 per app install for the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Besides this, its a really good.
TikTok Ads: I just tried them a few days ago. Results were fine. I believe if you have a really good video that brings a great CTR and CR it is probably the best platform at the moment. I used the same video as I use for Facebook and the results were quite similar, but the CTR for Facebook was much higher. People on TikTok just tend to keep scrolling within seconds while on FB the attention span is higher. I will test more for TikTok ads and see how it goes. But so far: Great alternative for Facebook and Google.
What else? I would like to try other networks as well. Maybe Bing for example.
Oh, about the iOS 14.5 update:
Apple made it really difficult and it required so much work to update all the apps, add all the Skadnetwork IDs, etc. Of course it also had an big impact on the ad earnings. Neither the ad networks or the developer benefited from the situation: App installs got more expensive and ad revenue got less, simply because the ads are not targeted anymore but rather random.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
Java/Kotlin, Flutter and a bit of Swift. Yes, it does pay off. But its complex, besides app development skills you also need to know how to make research, find niches, keywords, how to make a good converting app listing, how to integrate ads in the most profitable way, etc. Its a big task and I keep learning every day. Its really complex.
Castamir
BANNED
- Sep 4, 2019
- 1,200
- 1,058
I'm following your journey. I am working on my app so this is more like a blueprint of what to do.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
Btw. as I wrote before Google terminated the developer account of my company. It took them more than one month to reply to my appeal. Yes, really more than one month. And guess what? Of course, they didn't reinstate the account. They just wrote "We confirm there were associated accounts".
Also funny, I made several posts on several social media platforms which kinda went viral and people kept sending me messages with "oh this happened to me as well" until Google actually messaged me and a few days later someone from Google sent me an email and told me they will take a look into it.
Now guys can say: "What did you expect? You had accounts that got terminated before, so it's their right to terminate this one as well." The point is: This is not my personal/individual account. It was the account of my company. In my opinion, they don't have the right to terminate my company account "multiple accounts" or "prior violations" when the company never had any other account before.
Imagine you are running a company, you hire three Android developers and after a few weeks, your companies developer account got deleted for prior violations, even the company you just started never had any account before. However, one of the employees had an account a few years ago, but now your company gets punished for this. Is it fair? I don't think so. In this case, everyone is losing. The company is losing, the three employees are losing because they can find a new job and the guy who had the account is losing as well, because he has to be careful af whenever he works as an Android developer.
The main problem is this culture of "guilt by association" and "lifetime ban". Its so wrong on multiple levels, its unbelievable.
So here is the main reason they terminated the account:
It was probably because I used a VPS to access the account a few times.
Never ever use a VPS in connection with Google Play or Adwords. They exactly know whats going on. They can recognize it and boy they will do if they want to.
Also funny, I made several posts on several social media platforms which kinda went viral and people kept sending me messages with "oh this happened to me as well" until Google actually messaged me and a few days later someone from Google sent me an email and told me they will take a look into it.
Now guys can say: "What did you expect? You had accounts that got terminated before, so it's their right to terminate this one as well." The point is: This is not my personal/individual account. It was the account of my company. In my opinion, they don't have the right to terminate my company account "multiple accounts" or "prior violations" when the company never had any other account before.
Imagine you are running a company, you hire three Android developers and after a few weeks, your companies developer account got deleted for prior violations, even the company you just started never had any account before. However, one of the employees had an account a few years ago, but now your company gets punished for this. Is it fair? I don't think so. In this case, everyone is losing. The company is losing, the three employees are losing because they can find a new job and the guy who had the account is losing as well, because he has to be careful af whenever he works as an Android developer.
The main problem is this culture of "guilt by association" and "lifetime ban". Its so wrong on multiple levels, its unbelievable.
So here is the main reason they terminated the account:
It was probably because I used a VPS to access the account a few times.
Never ever use a VPS in connection with Google Play or Adwords. They exactly know whats going on. They can recognize it and boy they will do if they want to.
Witzalron
Banned - Multiple Rules Violations
- Jul 31, 2021
- 60
- 47
What programming languages are required for app development?
Castamir
BANNED
- Sep 4, 2019
- 1,200
- 1,058
Kotlin, Flutter and Xamarin
Instantsmmpanel
Regular Member
- Jun 15, 2021
- 387
- 38
Good luck.
uxx0utt
Registered Member
- Jan 17, 2020
- 74
- 40
So Google is acting like the North Korea, huh? 
If only there had been viable alternatives.
I was looking forward to developing games for Google App Store, but now the prospects seem pretty depressing!
That said, it's an invaluable journey.
Some notes to take:
1) Block certain tier 3 countries infamous for their bad actors.
2) If you have multiple accounts: try to be as discreet as possible. Avoid making any links between them, as you would during any blackhat activity.
3) Use ad modulators, use multiple ad networks.
4) Be always prepared for bans and suspensions when dealing with Google.
5) Apple's 100$/year fee is well worth it.
6) Be a resident of the EU, Google will be obliged to pay you even after banning your accounts.
There are more lessons to be taken here for sure, so feel free to add if you'd like.
If only there had been viable alternatives.I was looking forward to developing games for Google App Store, but now the prospects seem pretty depressing!
That said, it's an invaluable journey.
Some notes to take:
1) Block certain tier 3 countries infamous for their bad actors.
2) If you have multiple accounts: try to be as discreet as possible. Avoid making any links between them, as you would during any blackhat activity.
3) Use ad modulators, use multiple ad networks.
4) Be always prepared for bans and suspensions when dealing with Google.
5) Apple's 100$/year fee is well worth it.
6) Be a resident of the EU, Google will be obliged to pay you even after banning your accounts.
There are more lessons to be taken here for sure, so feel free to add if you'd like.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
Hi, thanks for reading through the thread.So Google is acting like the North Korea, huh?
I was looking forward to developing games for Google App Store, but now the prospects seem pretty depressing!
That said, it's an invaluable journey.
Some notes to take:
1) Block certain tier 3 countries infamous for their bad actors.
2) If you have multiple accounts: try to be as discreet as possible. Avoid making any links between them, as you would during any blackhat activity.
3) Use ad modulators, use multiple ad networks.
4) Be always prepared for bans and suspensions when dealing with Google.
5) Apple's 100$/year fee is well worth it.
6) Be a resident of the EU, Google will be obliged to pay you even after banning your accounts.
There are more lessons to be taken here for sure, so feel free to add if you'd like.
The most important is: Don't give Google a reason to ban you. Avoid it at all costs. Imagine you are being watched 24/7 in all situations in all kinda ways. I highly recommend you to get a completely new device (Laptop/PC), a 4G router and a sim card. Use it ONLY for your Google Play/Gmail account and for compiling and uploading the apps.
Yes, you can simply NOT IMAGINE how many people there are from certain countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Vietnam, etc. who are trying to find niches, apps and stealing your whole app and then mass report you and get you and your developer account banned for absolutely no reason. In countries like the US, Germany and so on you could sue the shit out of these people/companies for such practices. Another reason to ban these countries is the money you earn from them is incredibly low. The ecpm of countries like Brazil, Indonesia, India, Thailand, etc. is really low.
And here is another golden advice: If you are into games, use the Tier 3 countries to get cheap app installs and analyse their behavior with Firebase. Take notes and try to improve your app. After that block the Tier 3 countries and buy app installs for Tier 1 countries like the US, Germany, France, UK, Canada, etc. to earn money. Stats like ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) are very very important to make the app profitable. Firebase is giving you all of those information. Update your apps, check it the ARPU, update again, optimize it, update again, etc. what you want is to maximize revenue and to get the most of the money out of your users, while not showing the ads too aggressively otherwise they will uninstall your app right away. you have to find the perfect balance and firebase is helping you to find it.
Another thing: Depending on your game and its genre you should DEFINITELY download similar games from big gaming studios or at least those ones who are earning a shit ton of money. Download a couple of games and analyse their app. Check where they place ads, when they place ads, how many ads they are placing, what ad networks they are using, how their game is structured, if they got in-app-purchases, if they have virtual currencies, how important the virtual currencies are, etc. there are so many things to consider........and good news for you: These companies spent a shit ton of money to figure out how to maximize revenue and guess what? You can see the outcome right there...learn from them.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
Only for a very short time last year and just for like $50 because they suspended all accounts, etc. I found it a bit of a waste of a time then, because they would randomly suspend Adwords account. Then I just tried it with my real Adwords account.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
Update:
its been almost one month since my last update in this thread.
No app has been deleted or removed. I took some time off from Google Play and didn't create any account or publish a new app on there in this time. Also, from my experience Google Play (and this goes for Adsense, Admob, etc. as well) there is always a ban wave from June to September. In this time frame they are heavily banning accounts. And then it calms down a bit.
Earnings: Still earning around $80-120 per day. Earnings are always different every day.
Currently I am using three app networks mostly: Admob, Facebook Audience Network and Applovin. 40% of the revenue is coming from Admob. 40% from FAN and 20% from Applovin.
Ad spend: $10-20 per day using Adwords
In the next few days and weeks I will upload a few more iOS apps and will also try Google Play apps again.
its been almost one month since my last update in this thread.
No app has been deleted or removed. I took some time off from Google Play and didn't create any account or publish a new app on there in this time. Also, from my experience Google Play (and this goes for Adsense, Admob, etc. as well) there is always a ban wave from June to September. In this time frame they are heavily banning accounts. And then it calms down a bit.
Earnings: Still earning around $80-120 per day. Earnings are always different every day.
Currently I am using three app networks mostly: Admob, Facebook Audience Network and Applovin. 40% of the revenue is coming from Admob. 40% from FAN and 20% from Applovin.
Ad spend: $10-20 per day using Adwords
In the next few days and weeks I will upload a few more iOS apps and will also try Google Play apps again.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
For FAN I am using Google Admob Mediation. Can also use Iron Source or App Lovin MAX, but I haven't implement those into my apps yet.
I am using Appodeal (doesnt work with FAN recently) and Google Admob Mediation.
Btw. I checked some of my stats and found eCPM for iOS apps is higher on Applovin than on Admob. Thats quite interesting. I will make some A/B tests to check it further.
- Mar 22, 2013
- 6,272
- 10,985
I never used Ironsource, so no idea about this one.
About the Admob limit: It really depends. It can be anything from 2 weeks to 3 months. Sometimes they remove it and then after a few days they are adding the limit again. The best thing you can do is add mediation to your app. Use the Google Admob Mediation (if you implemented GooglePlayServices, etc. you only need to import the mediation SDKs of Applovin, Facebook, etc.) or use another mediation platform like Appodeal so you won't lose money. Admob mediation will work even your account is limited. In this case they will just show ads of the other networks.