Facebook Cookbook - Jay Goldman [15]
When to monetize
In case you are not just out to make a quick buck, it is highly recommended that you refrain from showing a crazy amount of ads, even if you think they will not be intrusive. Go simple. It’s essential to retain users and provide them with excellent support. Spend more time reading discussion boards and walls than testing out the various ad networks.
Scalability
You have to be extremely cautious when it comes to making a scalable system. If your app is super cool but has high levels of downtime, users will soon lose interest in it. And once a user removes your app, getting him to add the app back is next to impossible.
Branding and appeal
Last, but definitely not least, make sure you have a powerful brand equity. Spend your spare time on weekends trying to think of the perfect name for your app. If you have a brand that users will love, they will talk about it and refer it to their friends as well. And make sure you book a domain of the same name. Having a strong identity might also help you secure financing more easily.
Where’s the Money?
Problem
I’m totally excited about building my app, but something keeps bugging me. Where’s the money in this game? How can I make mad cash through my apps?
Solution
If you’re in this app-building game to make a quick buck, you’re in the wrong game. There was a time when your app could attract a million users overnight, but those days are long gone (and probably for the better, since users hated being bombarded with constant app propaganda). Platform has evolved to become much more focused on keeping users happy, sometimes at the expense of app developers who had gotten used to attracting users through certain channels and are adverse to change.
That said, if you’re determined and ready to put in the work, you can definitely still make a really good living from Facebook apps. There are lots of examples of developers (some of whom have contributed recipes to this book) doing very well off the apps they’ve built. Try to stay away from the tempting world of quick, throwaway apps, in which you build hundreds of them, keep the ones that make a little cash, and hopefully end up on top of the world. Sadly, this often just leads to lots of apps that don’t make any money, and it upsets the small user base they attract when you stop supporting them, thereby guaranteeing that those users won’t install any more of your apps and would firebomb your house if they only knew where you lived.
Discussion
Generally speaking, people who make money from Facebook apps do it by running ads inside of their apps. You’re certainly not limited to doing this, and I encourage you to think up a completely new business model for making money on social networks (and then whisper it in my ear before you launch!). Most of the ad networks listed in Chapter 10, Marketing Your App, also provide developers with the ability to insert ads into their apps, so take a look at that list and check out their offerings. It’s tough to get any real answers out of these networks about what you can expect to earn in terms of effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM), so your best bet is to split up the available impressions you have between a few networks and monitor the amount they pay. Run that experiment for a week or two, and then start dropping the lowest paying networks until you’ve optimized your ad inventory sales to the highest margin buyers.
Here’s a sample of the ways people have been monetizing to date, which might inspire some ideas for your apps:
Banner/skyscraper/text ads
Any ad that you can