Cross Forward Consulting, LLC

Apple is quick to advertise their new iAd platform for iOS devices as a way for App Store developers to get more exposure for their apps. In theory, it's a great way to set your app apart in a market saturated with more than 250,000 apps. In practice, the numbers tell a different story. David Smith, the founder and owner Cross Forward Consulting reported that the results of a recent ad campaign that they ran for their most popular app, Audiobooks Premium, were underwhelming and economically unsustainable. Cross Forward Consulting spent a total of $1251.75 ($0.25 cost per click) on iAds over the course of six days that displayed 2,052,929 ads, generated 5,007 clicks (a clickthrough rate of 0.24%) and a grand total of 84 in-ad sales. The cost per acquisition comes out to a staggering nearly $15; in other words, for a $0.99 app they paid around $14 for every sale. David speculates that customers buy apps based on direct and indirect recommendations, which is why Apple's New and Noteworthy, What's Hot and top seller lists are so important to the success of an app. David also comments that a more engaging ad experience -- ironically the very thing Apple launched iAds for -- would also help sales by drawing customers in rather than simply presenting them with a simulated App Store page. There are a few other possible factors at work here as well. First, with 1.6 million users of Audiobooks Premium, some ad viewers may already own the app or at least be familiar with it. The iAd platform may also need to mature more before all users begin to perceive iAds as quality-controlled advertisements they can trust not to jump them out of the apps they are using. It's also possible the people seeing iAds -- often in free, ad-supported versions of paid apps -- are the users who tend not to spend money on applications in the first place. Interestingly, David also ran a much more limited ad campaign using the same banner on AdMob and found that while the analytics are bit different (since AdMob can only track the clicks, not the actual purchases), the clickthrough rate was significantly higher (1.34%) for ads that only cost $0.04 per click. In the end, David ends on a positive note: "The expense of this experiment is at least cushioned by knowing that 60% of the price went Read More

Volgens een ontwikkelaar werkt het advertentieplatform iAd van Apple niet zo goed als AdMob. Ontwikkelaar David Smith van Cross Forward Consulting besteedde 1.251,75 dollar aan advertentiekosten bij iAd en dit leverde hem 84 downloads op: 14,90 dollar per download. En dat terwijl de applicatie Audiobooks nog geen dollar kost. Met een verlies van bijna veertien dollar per aankoop is dat geen goede investering. iAd is gebaseerd op CPC (prijs per klik). Als iemand een advertentie ziet en erop klikt, dan kost dit de adverteerder 25 dollarcent. In totaal klikten meer dan 5.000 mensen op de advertentie van de applicatie Audiobooks, maar slechts 84 mensen kochten de app. De prijs per conversie is dus torenhoog. Smith maakte een duidelijke advertentie met daarin alle informatie die de potentiële koper nodig had. “Geen grafische advertentie, aangezien we niet per impressie betaalden. We wilden dat enkel geïnteresseerden op de advertentie klikten.” Wanneer iemand op een iAd-advertentie klikt, dan krijgt diegene een gesimuleerde pagina van de App Store te zien. “Het zou mooier zijn als je als ontwikkelaar meer mogelijkheden hebt om de gebruiker te trekken, zoals met video’s, HTML5 mockups en demo’s.” Voor AdMob betaalde Smith 75 dollar voor 145.093 impressies en 1.944 kliks. De prijs per klik bedroeg vier dollarcent: zes keer lager dan de prijs per klik voor een iAd-advertentie. Met AdMob is niet te meten hoeveel mensen daadwerkelijk een applicatie kopen. Dat kan alleen met iAd. De conclusie van Smith: iAd is gestroomlijnder en makkelijker, maar AdMob is goedkoper en levert meer succes op. Is het echt vernieuwend wat de beste man beweert? Nee, maar ontwikkelaars die hun applicatie willen promoten hebben er zeker wat aan. Read More

Jul 22nd 2010 at 4:00PM This app sounds nice, but only if you aren't an Audible.com member. Speaking of audiobooks on iOS, every Audible.com member should get the official Audible app now. I was skeptical at first, thinking that the experience is adequate syncing audiobooks with the iPod app, but they did a great job of optimizing the listening experience specifically for audiobooks, which the iPod app is not. I don't think I'll listen to or even sync audiobooks with the iPod app again. It is that good. (Frankly, I'm surprised TUAW hasn't done a review yet.) iTunes doesn't "blob everything together like a big ol' playlist," they have their own source listing in iTunes and their own menu item on the iPod/iPhone. What's interesting to me is that on iTunes, the same source also includes eBooks. TUAW (or The Unofficial Apple Weblog) is a website devoted to tips, reviews, news, analysis and opinion on everything Apple. © 2011 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved. We value our readership, especially when we receive tips which help us write compelling content. Use this form to send us a tip. Note: Some fields are required. Read More

Audiobooks is, as the title states, an audiobook player from the Librivox foundation. With this app, you can listen to free audiobooks on your iPhone or iPod Touch. When you first open the app, you will be able to discover new books or play those that you already have downloaded. Under the "Discover" section is where you can browse books by Popularity, Authors, Titles, or have the app select a random audiobook for you. Tapping on any of these will present a list of books or authors for you to choose from. Once you have decided on a book you would like to listen to, tapping on the "play" button will begin the download of the first chapter. After a chapter has finished downloading, the app will continue to download the rest of the book, while giving you the option to listen to the downloaded chapters. The interface that is presented while playing a book is simple. It has a pause, rewind, and fast forward button under the progress bar. To the left of the progress bar is where you can view how much of a chapter has been downloaded, though it will not tell you which one it is downloading. When you return to the app after starting an audiobook, a button on the bottom of the main screen will ask if you would like to resume where you left off. Being that Librivox only creates audiobooks for novels under the public domain, you will not find current popular titles such as Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" or J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter"; instead you will find classical novels such as Bram Stoker's "Dracula" or Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". The interface could definitely be improved upon, but that is only a minor gripe. The voice actors are volunteers, and the quality could range from poor to excellent, depending on the speaker. One oddity that I noticed is that while playing the first chapter of "Dracula," at one point the audio stuttered and looped for a good 10 seconds or so. This hasn't happened again, and going back to the same chapter did not reproduce the same results. I assume it to be the fact that I was downloading the next chapter at the same time, and that the stutter was only a bug. This app is free, and I wholly recommend that you try this app today. With thousands of Read More