I guess it’s about time I shared my ad revenue data. Overall I have been very pleased with the Microsoft AD api for Windows Phone 7. They’ve delivered timely reports, good eCPMs, as well as a very healthy ad fill rate. I would have to admit that when I started putting ads into my games I was not sure where it would lead me to and how fast that would be. I started serving ads with Impossible Shoota in mid-December. The first day the ads went live I raked in a whopping .85 cents from around 1418 impressions! But that was due to the update coming out late in the day and people have to update the game to get the ads. The following day I was able to get $7.82 from 13,222 impressions. A very positive and promising increase. Fast forward 1 week impressions kept creeping up to around 20k, with estimated revenue of 30 dollars a day.
Not bad for a start, but it was not a serious contender yet. At this point all my ads were confined in the menu of the game. None of them were actually in the gameplay. But I wondered what the difference would be if I had ads during the game. I wanted to do this experiment on Fishing Girl because I did not want to risk the number of people playing the game to drop on Impossible Shoota if the experiment went horribly wrong. So I did an update on Fishing Girl and put the ads in the game, surprisingly most people did not complain about the ads, and the game started making almost as much money as Impossible Shoota. From this point on I had to make a choice if the risk of angering a few people was worth the increased revenue, and it was definitely worth it. I did have angry reviews from people saying that ads during gameplay was no-no, and that they will never play again, but that was around 5-6 reviews of the hundreds of reviews I get (you can’t please everyone).
Fast forward to February, and no I am making around $380 a day from ads from my 7 games. The bulk of the ad revenue comes from Quadra and Impossible Shoota, my two highest ranked games. Blackboard Gems, Fishing Girl, and Nom Nom Worm make about half what Quadra and Impossible Shoota Make. While Scribble Defense and Zombidemix are probably 1/10th of the top two earners (due to the fact these games don’t have ads during gameplay)
Revenue graph December - February
So far I have released 7 free games and 3 paid games with a 8th free game in certification. The amount of money I earned from the 3 paid games pale compared to money from the free games. So expect to see more free games from me 
Here’s a quick list of things I learned along the way.
- Build a quality product first and foremost. You won’t be making any kind of money from a quick and dirty game. I spent countless hours polishing and developing my games to become what they are now. Your hardwork will definitely payoff.
- Tell the world about your game, if nobody knows about your game nobody will play it. Guess what if nobody plays it? You don’t get paid.
- Keep your running costs low. I do almost all the work in the game. Design, Art and Programming. The only thing I don’t make are sounds, which I get from the incredibly talented Soundrangers.
- Have a reason for the players to come back and play your game on a daily basis. If you are depending on ad revenue, your game better be darn addicting.
- Don’t be afraid to take risks, especially if you have nothing to lose. I took a big leap of faith when I went ad based revenue, and see where I am at now
- Ad Revenue is based on many factors, so don’t be worried if numbers suddenly plummet on a day to day basis as long as you are trending upwards over the long run
- Listen to community feedback, the more you engage your customers the more likely they will stick around and play your game, especially when an update comes out that had a feature they really wanted.
- Lastly, you have to be patient. Ad revenue will start really slow but slowly pick up the pace especially if your product is gaining popularity. If you are adding to a existing application remember that people have to update to get the ads, so until most of your user base updates, it will be a slow start as well.
To close things off, I would like to reiterate that you absolutely must have a product that people enjoy playing over and over again. Unlike paid for apps which make all the money upfront, ad supported games need to continually engage the player with regular updates and communication to keep ad revenue going.
Remember: Ad supported games are a service and not a product.
Thanks for reading,
Elbert
Good read, now I just need to release a handful of more games so I make more than $3 a day.
Keep making em! I think when Verizon gets the WP7 phones we will have even more impressions than we have right now. User base can only go up from where we are right now
Thanks for sharing this information. I have a game that has been 1/2 done for a couple of months. I stopped working on it due to lack of time and wondering if it would be worth it in the end. It’s good to see that you’ve found success on the platform.
Shipped game > unfinished game
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Great post. I have been going back and forth on if I should port my Android game over to WP7. I am hardly making a $1 a day but I am cretin that my game isn’t that much fun and Android market is a total mess. So instead of dump more time into it by porting over to C# I am going back to the drawing board for a new game. I’ll have to check your games out and again thanks for sharing.
Really nice post, I’m glad some people are transparent about their finances, it helps curious developers out a lot!
I’m seriously considering adding Ad’s to my upcoming game still in development, what do you think about creating a paid version as well as a free version? Free version with Ad’s and paid without? Does it seem a little pointless as people will just go for the free one over the paid?
Yeah, I don’t have to take orders from anyone else and I think sharing is a good way to start discussions and connect with more people. It’s really a win win
Anyways I think you should experiment a bit with that, some people might like your game without ads and opt for the paid version instead. There is very little effort to get both versions out, so I don’t see why you should not try to experiment. The reason I got to where I am at is because I experimented
Thanks for the stats. Here are mine.
Im making about $30 a day from “Speed” the card game with microsoft ads. Speed is 8th on the Games->Card Games and like 68th in the Games catergoy. I have 2 other apps that bring in $3-$5 a day ( Nose Picker, and Pirate Browser). I made $68 one day when the eCPM where up and impression jumped up 2x. Not sure why the impression jumped up, but they have stayed up. And a few more on the way. I can’t stop looking at what I made every few hours. Even the ones that make 3-5 a day excite me.
You listed 10 things you need to do for success…
#2Tell the world about your game… How do you go about doing this?
I have put in ad exchange for the non US views to maximize coverage. I use http://adduplex.com, they have a simple/easy to use website and control, very similar to microsoft ads. They give a 10:8 ratio for ad exchange. I put code in my app to show those if not in the US.
I put a tweet out there.
Any other ideas?
#7 Listen to community feedback… How do you do this other than ratings and comments?
Hi Jimmy!
Thanks for sharing your numbers! Those are pretty good considering where you are in the rankings
Impressions can go up if there are more ads displayed/available. Yeah, I tend to look at my numbers every few hours too.
In regards to your question: Tell the press! They need to be know what you are up to so that they can write reviews about your game, people won’t just magically do a review about your game, they have to be informed about it. Also send out press releases every time you come out with a new game. Feedback I get from ratings/comments as well as people trying it out and videos I post on social networks.
Can you comment on what your average CTR is for something like Impossible Shoota?
Sorry I cannot share CTR and eCPM numbers.
Hi Elbert,
First off, congrats on your numbers and thanks for sharing
I’ve played pretty much all your games (love Impossible Shoota!) and I have ads served. However, I’m in Canada, I thought Microsoft Ads only worked in the US? Any ideas?
Cheers,
Onome
Hi Onome,
First of all, thanks for playing my games! I hope you liked them
I’m not sure how those ads are being served in Canada. Maybe you are close to the border and your phone geography is reporting it that way?
Perhaps it’s something like that. However, I don’t get any ads from Krashlander or my own apps using the MS ad sdk. It’s definitely interesting.
Anyway, keep up the great work!
Hi Elbert,
I read that free apps has been separated from paid apps, driving the downloads (and advertising) numbers downhill.
Have you noticed it?
I have not noticed any big drops. There could be many reasons for my apps to go down in download. My numbers are still increasing like normal
good to know, thanks!
Hi Elbert,
Love the games. Who do you send press releases to when you launch a game? I’m finishing up one now and could use a heads up on who to notify. Are you sending out lots of emails to different WP7 sites?
I send it to the various WP7 Sites, gaming sites, etc .. as well as game press release sites.
Thanks for sharing…I recently released Spitballer and Spitballer FREE…The free version is ranked #24 in the action/adeventure category, yet I’m only making around $1 a day. I’m curious how many ads and for how long they display in order to get such good numbers in your games?
It actually takes a few weeks for a game to get $30 a day. You need to get enough users playing your game to make the money viable. So do your best to keep growing your user base
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Could you please list a few WP7 sites that are worth sending a press release?
My game (Coin Addiction) was listed as a ‘must have’ game by mobiletechworld.com, got a press release from http://www.bestwp7games.com. It also got reviewed by gizunk.co.uk.
In the Marketplace reviews it currently has 4/5 stars and gets a lot of praise.
Yet the download numbers (about 40/day) and the impressions (600/day) are abysmal. Since people who tried it seem to like the game, I guess I need to work on getting the word out.
Any help is appreciated
It takes a while to get to critical mass where you can get good impressions. You have to be patient with ads as you have to build up your installed base. You can submit your press release to gamepress, that is the list I use. Also try the other WP7 sites, there are a few of them out there. Pocketgamer.uk is a big one too
Thanks for the tips, I sent a press release to pocketgamer.
Hi,
A question from a curious gamer.
How does ad revenue work – do you get revenue when the ad displayed and then greater revenue if the end user clicks on the ad?
Keep up the good work.
Cheers,
For Microsoft Ad Center, I make money on impressions and clicks. But of course clicks make more money
Do you know if the installed user base automatically gets an update message when submitting an update for a game? I have about 3500 downloads on Spitballer FREE and recently updated. I was hoping to see some kind of impression spike, but I actually saw a small drop over the next few days. This was really confusing because I normally see a steady impression number just from the new downloads. But to see a drop in impression really has me guessing on what happened. For example, you mentioned a very nice spike on Impossible shoota and Fishing Girl after updates. Have you or anyone else experienced a non impression spike after an update?
Thanks for posting, you give me hope to keep pushing forward.
Yes they get the update message. Also impressions are not just based on the user, it also depends on the ad inventory, so even if you are doing a great day with more users playing but there are no ads to serve then the users wont see them.
Interesting…Is there a method to display a different ad if Microsoft ads are not available?
you have to manually check if an ad is served and from there switch ad providers
Thanks for the awesome information!
I was wondering if you find it worth your while to try to switch ad categories often in an attempt to find the higher paying categories?
Also, when you release an update to one of your games with new content/levels, how many more impressions do you tend to see compared to your daily average (2x, 3x, 4x)
I do switch the ad categories every so often, especially when the performance drops to a certain level. I think my updates keep my impressions to how it is and does not radically impact it in any meaningful way to me.
Thanks!