About how I went to the Android Market
There have already been several articles about the first steps on the market, and each is of interest. In any case, with me. And I thought that it would not be superfluous to share a banal, in general, story about another case. I’m not going to publicize my application in this article, but intend to talk about some aspects of the project’s life in the first month and how it can be promoted for everyone. Well, some lyrics, of course ...
It all started with the fact that my friends gave me the Nexus S Google Phone. I was very interested in this device - before that, I used the ASUS P500 wine brick mobile phone. Immediately I began to try everything. I liked how the market is organized. And he decided - we must certainly write something and shoot it there. The main doubt was the fact that most of the obvious and simple ideas have already been implemented. On the other hand, I was encouraged by the fact that on the market there is such a lot of rubbish and sludge that any more or less decent application can look at least at the level of it all.
Another factor that unexpectedly led me to the market was my passion for physical education. Not that I have achieved success in any sport, quite the opposite. But I study diligently. And, due to the fact that I am no longer 18 years old, I try to monitor my weight. Previously, about 7 years ago, I wrote in a notebook. Then he began to enter in Excel. After getting a google phone, I downloaded the program for this, the most popular. And she didn’t look at me for something — there was too much superfluous, and there wasn’t any sign of what she was used to. Eureka! I thought. I will write a program for myself. I was well aware that there were no such people on the same market, there was no talk about any innovative idea, and in general there were probably no prospects for the project’s popularity, I got down to business.
Writing for android turned out to be interesting and relatively simple - they have not yet invented cumbersome frameworks. This is for me, I'm used to programming in PL \ SQL, where everything is primitive, simple and affordable.
After the program began to work, it was time to think about its appearance. I hired a designer, and they made a pretty beautiful (in my opinion) design according to my interface concept. I even managed to pull it on the program. I tested it personally, and for quite some time. Therefore, as soon as the design appeared, he joyfully laid out his creation on the market, making a description in Russian and English.
I laid it out, but how do people find out about it? The first thing that came to mind was to write on the forums. What he did, in Russian and English. Since the ultimate goal of my existence is to transfer all petrodollars back from abroad to Russia, I initially focused on a foreign client. But they didn’t show much interest in my work on foreign forums - only one didn’t let us down: www.androidforums.com .
Of ours, the program aroused some interest on google-androids.ru, w3bsit3-dns.com, androidfan.ru. There I also laid out the application, not a pity.
I immediately connected to the application AirPush ads, which many hated. Perhaps especially zealous haters will now put a minus and close the article. But, analyzing the situation, I decided that I needed AirPush. Advertising in the application itself is especially nowhere to place, this will ruin the view, and people use it for three seconds a day - no one will poke into advertising. I put one advertising message a week, it’s not so scary, in my opinion.
As people downloaded the program, requests from users appeared: export / import from CSV was implemented, two bugs were fixed. Sometimes I wrote something in my topics on these forums, even exchanged emails with one foreign user - he sent me CSV from an old program with which he crawled to mine, and I made a bootloader based on this format. True, then he found out that I had Airpush, put 1 instead of 5 on the market and angrily wrote about it on the forum. Bourgeois damn.
Posting on forums and supporting topics at the top of the list has had some effect. As you can see from the diagram, Users from Russia were the most active - I think the matter is in the forums.
For several days, I ignored my project. As a result, the number of active users according to Google statistics began to grow much more slowly. A few days later I added the Chinese language in the market - at first I only translated the name, and went downloading from Taiwan, which can be seen in the diagram.
And then I realized - adding languages is important. But while the plan was different: it was decided to check the effect of the publication of paid reviews. On November 8, a review was published at www.androiddevelopmenttalk . I already realized in advance that this is garbage, and is unlikely to add the number of downloads to my project. The site sometimes just lay. Do not use his services, 25 dollars spent in vain.
November 11 review published at www.androidapplog.com. The results are none. Another 36 dollars in useless expenses. However, a negative result is also a result, and I can save some money to readers.
It became clear that we need to develop a theme with languages. I was made a translation into French, promised (still not done, ordered for money - will be soon) translations into Korean and German. For other languages, I filled in the information with an automatic translation. By the way, Koreans are super-active android users, in my application category they are second after the USA, keep in mind. After these manipulations, there has been an increase in the number of active users, which was to be proved. Taiwan is especially pleased, thanks to a friend for the translation. Apparently, the name was successful for the search.
In the last week of the experiment, it was decided to try the most common way to promote the application - paid advertising. We estimate the budget - 136 dollars. In this case, the costs of the entire project as a whole will become a tidy 10,000 rubles.
On the market in the developer section there is a link - advertise the application. There we go,
getting to adMob. We choose 4 days, from 2011-11-22 to 2011-11-25, at $ 34 per day. AdMob allows you to choose the geography of the service. In order not to embarrass the auto-translated text, I choose countries with languages for which there is currently an adequate translation: English, Chinese, French. We will not show ads to the Russians, we regret it.
We don’t set demographic filters, we show them to all age groups and genders.
Next, adMob offers to choose a bid. This is the cost per click. It turns out that if you put 9 cents, then there will be 400 clicks on advertising per day. Earn millions will not work, but you can evaluate the effect.
After going through all the stages of creating a campaign, we get to the adMob page where you can see the new campaign, the
ability to edit it, and a subtle inscription that we don’t have money.
Click "add funds" and pay via Google checkout - everything is simple and convenient.
True, on November 22 at 00:00 my campaign did not start - the status of pending for approval is calm
hung in a tablet on the site. I read it on the forums - people tend to complain about the long term confirmation of campaigns. Without hesitation, he wrote to support - all of a sudden this speeds up the process. After the second letter, support still started, four days later. I decided to spend all the money in one day, and not stretch them for several - it will be easier to evaluate the effect. They flew away in half an hour. Here is the picture:
The effect was, as can be seen on the schedule of active downloads. Surprisingly, the effect lasted two days, although the campaign went in half an hour. But it is small enough, out of 1,500 clicks - a maximum of 100 additional installations, or even less. It is unlikely that it will ever pay off. The conclusion is appropriate.
Here is a graph of active downloads from Google:
And country statistics
Summing up the results of this small experiment, I want to say that it’s also fascinating to follow the fate of your own, albeit microscopic, projection. He does not bring money yet ($ 10 a month is not money). Let's see what will happen next.
1. Even a simple application has a chance for someone to download and start using it. But make sure that someone needs it, do something that you yourself or someone from your friends would use.
2. Promotion of free applications - the task is not entirely clear. It makes no sense to invest in advertising and paid reviews. The forums remain.
3. The best way to increase the number of users is to translate descriptions in the market into different languages. It is desirable that the name be simple and clear, and suitable for the search conditions. If you make an alarm clock, and call it “Chamomile”, users looking for an alarm clock are unlikely to meet your creation. Well, auto-translation does not always steer. I was obviously lucky with Taiwan, but it is clear that France is slightly ahead of other European countries.
4. This article is not reflected, but I will say post-fatum: the project site is not very important if there is no need for a voluminous manual. The attendance of the blog page where I made a description and where I referred from the market was not significant.
That's it.
You can see the application here: market.android.com/details?id=Android.WeightLog
Two days have passed since the article was posted. It can be seen that the people became interested in the application, although, I repeat: I did not have a goal to promote it, a note about something else. I am glad that many were interested in the subject, this can be seen in the comments and messages in personal mail. Also, thanks to the guys who added positive ratings on the market - a trifle, but nice. Although, I repeat: the purpose of publishing this program on the market is to study the operation of the system, which I wrote a note about.
On the other hand, amazing people were found: perhaps, from those who were mined in kamenty, or maybe just dissatisfied in life. Or not from Habr (but then it is an amazing coincidence). So here, we instructed units - our people do not like the fact that there is AirPush. Although I warned that he is there. Reviews like "the program does not work" in general are beyond good and evil, because she does work.
In general - people’s craving to do disgust is amazing, I don’t understand.
Background
It all started with the fact that my friends gave me the Nexus S Google Phone. I was very interested in this device - before that, I used the ASUS P500 wine brick mobile phone. Immediately I began to try everything. I liked how the market is organized. And he decided - we must certainly write something and shoot it there. The main doubt was the fact that most of the obvious and simple ideas have already been implemented. On the other hand, I was encouraged by the fact that on the market there is such a lot of rubbish and sludge that any more or less decent application can look at least at the level of it all.
Another factor that unexpectedly led me to the market was my passion for physical education. Not that I have achieved success in any sport, quite the opposite. But I study diligently. And, due to the fact that I am no longer 18 years old, I try to monitor my weight. Previously, about 7 years ago, I wrote in a notebook. Then he began to enter in Excel. After getting a google phone, I downloaded the program for this, the most popular. And she didn’t look at me for something — there was too much superfluous, and there wasn’t any sign of what she was used to. Eureka! I thought. I will write a program for myself. I was well aware that there were no such people on the same market, there was no talk about any innovative idea, and in general there were probably no prospects for the project’s popularity, I got down to business.
Writing for android turned out to be interesting and relatively simple - they have not yet invented cumbersome frameworks. This is for me, I'm used to programming in PL \ SQL, where everything is primitive, simple and affordable.
After the program began to work, it was time to think about its appearance. I hired a designer, and they made a pretty beautiful (in my opinion) design according to my interface concept. I even managed to pull it on the program. I tested it personally, and for quite some time. Therefore, as soon as the design appeared, he joyfully laid out his creation on the market, making a description in Russian and English.
Week one
I laid it out, but how do people find out about it? The first thing that came to mind was to write on the forums. What he did, in Russian and English. Since the ultimate goal of my existence is to transfer all petrodollars back from abroad to Russia, I initially focused on a foreign client. But they didn’t show much interest in my work on foreign forums - only one didn’t let us down: www.androidforums.com .
Of ours, the program aroused some interest on google-androids.ru, w3bsit3-dns.com, androidfan.ru. There I also laid out the application, not a pity.
I immediately connected to the application AirPush ads, which many hated. Perhaps especially zealous haters will now put a minus and close the article. But, analyzing the situation, I decided that I needed AirPush. Advertising in the application itself is especially nowhere to place, this will ruin the view, and people use it for three seconds a day - no one will poke into advertising. I put one advertising message a week, it’s not so scary, in my opinion.
As people downloaded the program, requests from users appeared: export / import from CSV was implemented, two bugs were fixed. Sometimes I wrote something in my topics on these forums, even exchanged emails with one foreign user - he sent me CSV from an old program with which he crawled to mine, and I made a bootloader based on this format. True, then he found out that I had Airpush, put 1 instead of 5 on the market and angrily wrote about it on the forum. Bourgeois damn.
Posting on forums and supporting topics at the top of the list has had some effect. As you can see from the diagram, Users from Russia were the most active - I think the matter is in the forums.
Second week
For several days, I ignored my project. As a result, the number of active users according to Google statistics began to grow much more slowly. A few days later I added the Chinese language in the market - at first I only translated the name, and went downloading from Taiwan, which can be seen in the diagram.
And then I realized - adding languages is important. But while the plan was different: it was decided to check the effect of the publication of paid reviews. On November 8, a review was published at www.androiddevelopmenttalk . I already realized in advance that this is garbage, and is unlikely to add the number of downloads to my project. The site sometimes just lay. Do not use his services, 25 dollars spent in vain.
November 11 review published at www.androidapplog.com. The results are none. Another 36 dollars in useless expenses. However, a negative result is also a result, and I can save some money to readers.
Third week
It became clear that we need to develop a theme with languages. I was made a translation into French, promised (still not done, ordered for money - will be soon) translations into Korean and German. For other languages, I filled in the information with an automatic translation. By the way, Koreans are super-active android users, in my application category they are second after the USA, keep in mind. After these manipulations, there has been an increase in the number of active users, which was to be proved. Taiwan is especially pleased, thanks to a friend for the translation. Apparently, the name was successful for the search.
Fourth week last
In the last week of the experiment, it was decided to try the most common way to promote the application - paid advertising. We estimate the budget - 136 dollars. In this case, the costs of the entire project as a whole will become a tidy 10,000 rubles.
On the market in the developer section there is a link - advertise the application. There we go,
getting to adMob. We choose 4 days, from 2011-11-22 to 2011-11-25, at $ 34 per day. AdMob allows you to choose the geography of the service. In order not to embarrass the auto-translated text, I choose countries with languages for which there is currently an adequate translation: English, Chinese, French. We will not show ads to the Russians, we regret it.
We don’t set demographic filters, we show them to all age groups and genders.
Next, adMob offers to choose a bid. This is the cost per click. It turns out that if you put 9 cents, then there will be 400 clicks on advertising per day. Earn millions will not work, but you can evaluate the effect.
After going through all the stages of creating a campaign, we get to the adMob page where you can see the new campaign, the
ability to edit it, and a subtle inscription that we don’t have money.
Click "add funds" and pay via Google checkout - everything is simple and convenient.
True, on November 22 at 00:00 my campaign did not start - the status of pending for approval is calm
hung in a tablet on the site. I read it on the forums - people tend to complain about the long term confirmation of campaigns. Without hesitation, he wrote to support - all of a sudden this speeds up the process. After the second letter, support still started, four days later. I decided to spend all the money in one day, and not stretch them for several - it will be easier to evaluate the effect. They flew away in half an hour. Here is the picture:
The effect was, as can be seen on the schedule of active downloads. Surprisingly, the effect lasted two days, although the campaign went in half an hour. But it is small enough, out of 1,500 clicks - a maximum of 100 additional installations, or even less. It is unlikely that it will ever pay off. The conclusion is appropriate.
Here is a graph of active downloads from Google:
And country statistics
Summary
Summing up the results of this small experiment, I want to say that it’s also fascinating to follow the fate of your own, albeit microscopic, projection. He does not bring money yet ($ 10 a month is not money). Let's see what will happen next.
Conclusion
1. Even a simple application has a chance for someone to download and start using it. But make sure that someone needs it, do something that you yourself or someone from your friends would use.
2. Promotion of free applications - the task is not entirely clear. It makes no sense to invest in advertising and paid reviews. The forums remain.
3. The best way to increase the number of users is to translate descriptions in the market into different languages. It is desirable that the name be simple and clear, and suitable for the search conditions. If you make an alarm clock, and call it “Chamomile”, users looking for an alarm clock are unlikely to meet your creation. Well, auto-translation does not always steer. I was obviously lucky with Taiwan, but it is clear that France is slightly ahead of other European countries.
4. This article is not reflected, but I will say post-fatum: the project site is not very important if there is no need for a voluminous manual. The attendance of the blog page where I made a description and where I referred from the market was not significant.
That's it.
You can see the application here: market.android.com/details?id=Android.WeightLog
PS About unexpected effect of the publication on a geek magazine
Two days have passed since the article was posted. It can be seen that the people became interested in the application, although, I repeat: I did not have a goal to promote it, a note about something else. I am glad that many were interested in the subject, this can be seen in the comments and messages in personal mail. Also, thanks to the guys who added positive ratings on the market - a trifle, but nice. Although, I repeat: the purpose of publishing this program on the market is to study the operation of the system, which I wrote a note about.
On the other hand, amazing people were found: perhaps, from those who were mined in kamenty, or maybe just dissatisfied in life. Or not from Habr (but then it is an amazing coincidence). So here, we instructed units - our people do not like the fact that there is AirPush. Although I warned that he is there. Reviews like "the program does not work" in general are beyond good and evil, because she does work.
In general - people’s craving to do disgust is amazing, I don’t understand.