Marketing and Monetizing - Beginning Android Games - page 644

In this scenario, the third-party app publisher pays a fee to a service for that
install, and the service, in turn, pays you, the game developer, a portion of
that fee. These are usually called “discovery� services, because a publisher
is paying to have their app discovered by new users.

ï?® Direct sales : The user pays directly for the game and installs it. This was the
first monetization method before ads and virtual currency.

ï?® Licensing : A broad range of options through which the game developer
licenses the game to other companies for bundles, preinstalls, or other mass
deployment.

There are, of course, more ways to make money through your games, but these are definitely the
most common methods. They are discussed in more depth next.

Advertising
Advertising was one of the first “big� ways that Android games were monetized. Anecdotally,
we can tell you that advertising is best regarded as a supplementary rather than a primary
monetization method because of its volatility. Mobile ad space has been very unreliable in terms
of revenue generation, and there is a significant amount of competition. Basically, there are a lot
of mobile apps advertising and not as much money behind those ads, so naturally that money
is spread thin throughout the ecosystem. Does this mean putting some ads in your free Android
game isn't a good idea? Surely not. It's still possible to make a lot of money through ad revenue
alone, but be prepared to test a number of different advertising solutions to find the one that fits
your market niche the best.

Ad Providers
Ad providers deliver the ads directly from advertisers and pay you for clicks. You are paid only a
portion of the amount that the advertiser pays for the click, with the rest going to the ad provider,
which is how the ad provider makes money. Ad content can range anywhere from automotive
parts to dietary supplements. Often times you will need to configure keywords for your app so
the content can be more relative for your users. Ad providers use a variety of formats, but the
most common are banner ads and full-screen ads. The target is moving fast, but here are a few
examples of major ad providers:

www.admob.com )

ï?® AdMob, owned by Google (

www.millenialmedia.com )

ï?® Millenial Media (

www.greystripe.com )

ï?® Greystripe (

Ad Aggregation Services
With mobile ads, it isn't just a matter of implementing banners or full-screen ads. You may
also want to consider an ad aggregation service. An aggregation service serves up ads from a
number of providers for your game. In this way, you can set up a single ad placement (such as
“banner top�) and rely on an aggregator to search different ad providers for the most valuable
ad for your ad space, allowing you to get the highest paying advertisement in that spot. Many