Do Ads Really Pay Off for Free Games and Software?
June 26th, 2009 |
First and foremost I care about my readers! As you might have noticed I just released the two little games in the Alpha stage. I don’t really have any intentions on making either game commercial but I do want to try and make a little revenue. Obviously at any Alpha stage a product should be free but I’m talking about the two games once they are done. I’m really not one for ads that’s why I have nothing on my blog but a donate button I recently added. Since I didn’t want to place any ads directly on my BlackJack game or use a download service for my other game because most of those places make the users put up with a bunch of nonsense before they can download the game which in turn really doesn’t pay me much (about $2-$8 per 1000 downloads). So I decided to try the CPAlead survey gateway which makes the user fill in one of the surveys before they can access the page (for each survey filled out I would get about 50 cents). Well I think this wasn’t a good move because the only feedback I have gotten about it was negative and the number of people trying my games dropped to zero. Only 4 people out of all the people that got the message to fill in a survey clicked on one of the surveys listed and 0 people actually filled a survey out yesterday. I’m thinking about making the survey gateway optional (have an X at the top so people can exit it) but not sure how many people will care to take the survey if I do that. Anyways let’s crunch some numbers so we can all get a better understanding!
This table is based off the conversion rates I feel I would get on my site. Obviously this table is not set in stone but I feel it represents each given case realistically.
(Please note that this table represents revenue per 1,000 unique visitors)
Method
Conversion Rate
Revenue
No Ads 100% $0
PAID App @ $5 .01% $.50
Flat CPM Ads 100% $.30-$2
CPC Ads 4% $1-$3.50
Donations .2% $2-$4
Use DL Site 97% $2-5
Optional Surveys 2% $8-$15
Forced Surveys 10% $40-$75
More important than money is making sure my readers are happy with the blog and my projects, so please leave your input in the comment section below!
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Very epic information. I think im gonna stick around and read about 9 of your posts. Sincerely yours
The ad thing is something I’m always wondering about as well. All I’d like to do is cover costs but you don’t want to offend you regular readers by making assaulting their eyes with flashing gimmicks.
In my case it’s with a website, at the moment I’m looking in to getting the ads to only display for search traffic. I think that’s the best of both worlds for a website but obviously isn’t much use for your game!
I remember that there is an ad network (for sites) that works for just google search engine traffic, THINK it might be something like chikita… though it has been a long time since I have done anything with ads.