App designers all have one goal in common, to make money from their work. There are many ways to do this, such as using annoying banners on freemium apps, or making your apps paid in an app store. However, there are many other ways that you may not have heard of. These are three ways to make money from your apps that may put you ahead of the competition.
A few months ago, Amazon announced that their program will now extend to the app store. Maybe you have never heard of this program, but you definitely have seen it. The program makes advertisements in your app with a photo of a product on Amazon and a unique URL that takes the audience straight to the product. It has now been named Mobile Associates and is connected to the Android GooglePlay Appstore. Mobile associates has 3 different variations:
-selling a single item from within an app or game
-showcasing a category of goods
-bundling the purchase of physical goods with the purchase of digital goods
These advertisements are displayed in the app, and if a user clicks on the link and buys the product, the mobile associate gets paid 6% of the purchase price. This is really a big advancement in the monetization of apps, because now smaller apps have the possibility of making bigger money than using annoying banners.
This newly launched tool has come up with a new way to monetize apps in a really interesting way. It works on the premise that app developers have access to many users, and marketing agencies need to conduct polls to understand customer bases for large companies. PollToPay allows developers to include a “Poll” option onto their app next to the “Buy” option for in app purchases, as an alternative to paying cash. PollToPay:
-allows the user to take a poll instead of paying for the in app product or service
-generates valuable data for marketing agencies from the data collected from polls
-pays the developer for the respondents’ answers (about 20 times more than ad clicks)
This is an interesting way to monetize apps because it creates happy customers that don’t have to part with their money. It also can help developers gain and retain more users as customers are much more willing to answer a short poll than to pay for some online content. This interesting service is still relatively unknown, so it is a good idea to check it out while the competition still hasn’t implemented this tool.
Tabatoo** **
This company has come up with an interesting way to monetize apps and keep your customers on the app longer than before. It is an “out-of-the-box” tool that integrates with your app which slides over your app when the user swipes. It is called the Tabatoo Bar which comprises of:
a monetized search bar for web searching
a widget that slides out from the side
links to other popular apps and social networks
customizable options in the widget to fit your audience
Tabatoo has connections with many apps and companies, such as Paypal. For example, you can put PayPal on your widget and from there a customer can complete an in app purchase, which generates revenue for you as well. The user can also update social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, without leaving your app. This is a good solution because it isn’t an annoying banner ad, but it reaches the same goals. It is still a relatively new app, being launched a few months ago, so more features are still being added but it is already a very useable option.
These three new ways to monetize apps are really interesting because we are seeing new ways to combat a problem that every developer faces. These solutions all came to fruition since this summer and it allows you to get a head start on monetizing in ways that your competition hasn’t heard of. If you have another way of monetizing your app, let us know!
