Ads, Update. What's happened Leadbolt?

I had a create last month last month from ads, using mainly leadbolt, and a bit of admob.  During the second half of the month I was making between 40-80$ (30-65 Euros) a day.   This was mainly from Spain using my The Penalty of Ramos or (el Penalti de ramos) joke game.

But this month (even though it started well), I have only been making between 2-6$ a day and it looks like Leadbolt don't have many advertisers anymore, sometimes there aren't even any ads available in the country (at most there is just one)
As shown here, I'm not the only one to experience this.

I have enjoyed making money with Leadbolt and they are a business with a focus on making money, they have seemed to be a respectable one.   However, as well as moving to the 'easy to learn' and multi-platform monkey programming language, I'll probably be phasing out Leadbolt ads from current and future games.

 Any suggestions for good advertising networks?

Ads: Targeting other countries works!

I recently released a joke football game called El Penalti de Ramos (or The Penalty of Ramos) which is available here.  To be honest it's a very bad game, and I released it more as a joke about Sergio Ramos's Champions League Semi-final penalty miss against Bayern Munich where he kicked the ball high over the cross-bar.

In Spain the media were full of jokes about how Ramos missed the penalty, but in other countries this wasn't the case.  So, this app is targeted at Spain.

As usual I put ads from Leadbolt in the game and released it for free.  Now, I was disappointed by amount of downloads and lack of money from advertising in the first few days. But I don't know whether it was because of my Spanish blog post or something else, but for three days the amount of downloads has been between 200 and 700 a day, and I'm very pleased with the amount I have made so far from Leadbolt from this game.

It has meant that for 7 days, the main source of income from Leadbolt ads has been from Spain (before this it has been 80% from the USA).  While, I hope the this continues, this does prove that it is possible to have country specific apps that make money.

I can't recommend Leadbolt enough for your Android apps.  If you do sign up, please support me by signing up using this referral link:

http://leadboltapps.com/web/publishers/signup.php?ref=10031484

March Advert Update

I released updates to both of my games on the 1st March, and I must have released them at the correct time, because my earnings have increased a lot!  Between $3 and $8 in the first week, and now on average $2.   I must have got them onto the updated list on slideme.org at the right time.

This has meant that I made more than the whole of February in the first six days of March.  And now, I'm very very close to the $100 mark.

The only changes that I have made, have been to remove the notification ad, as it wasn't really earning anything, and replace it with an icon ad, which has so far worked better.

This month my pixelstrip as made double the amount of the hangman game.  With the content locker between levels making 50%, followed by the icon ad, and small banner ( about 25% each) of the revenue from pixelstrip.

Possible questions from this could be: Does this mean sex sells? (Well extrememly pixelated (on purpose) female bodies?  Is it better to try something a bit different, than trying to come up with a different version of the same old classic games?

So very pleased.

Leadbolt Ad Report after 1.5 months

Ok, It´s been about 1 and a half months since I released hangman into the world. Which, was followed up by parody game, Pixel Strip

With leadbolt, the earnings have been very mixed and random.    For example two weeks ago, the two small games were making from $1.5 to $3.6 a day for 5 days (after an update) and then last week, the revenue went down (between 0.07 to 1.20 a day).  Now, for the last 6 days the revenue has been on average $1.6 a day (except for one day of $0.04).

So, this means the average income a day is about $1 dollar. So, in total that is $41.51 (in 1 month an a half).  Because, they are my first games and quite small, I´m quite pleased with this.  This number of downloads is just over 10,000 for the two games.

Admob

I'm disappointed with the amount of advertising money from leadbolt my second game, Pixel Strip has brought in.

The biggest winner from my hangman game ads, was the ad wall shown in between games of hangman, which has brought in $12.74 of the $18.55 dollars that I've reached so far (in nearly a month).

The Pixel Strip has about 2000 less users, but it still does have over 2000 downloads, so in theory should be making half the amount. I know the free version of Hangman has reached over 4500 downloads, from various app-stores.

So, I've decided to do two things, I've signed up to admob (which I believe offers a smaller amount, but it pays on clicks - leadbolt pays for completed actions; such as downloading the game advertised, but pays more., and placed a banner ad on the level select screen, depending on how much it makes, I will see if I'll replace the leadbolt banner ads with the admob banner ads. I've also put a content unlocker (a big banner of offers that covers the screen - as my hangman free version has) between games on Pixel Strip, however, I've included an optional close button to it.

I've also updated the advert banner positions in the hangman free version.

Hangman stats

Ok here goes

Downloads
Ad-Supported Version
Total: 3000+
Android Market: 1,032
Slideme.org: 1775
mobango.com: 395
The slideme.org version started great after being on the first page for 2 days, but version in the Android Market is catching-up. The mobango version was added later, however it does now appear first when the user searches for 'hangman'.

Paid Version
Total: 7
slideme.org: 5
Android Market: 2


Leadbolt Ads:
Now, I think I could improve the placement of ads in the game. As for money from the ads,(I have one banner ad on the title screen and then a wall ad that appears in between each game) it's certainly slowed down from the initial 2 or 3 dollars a day. It's been 12 days, and I'm earning between 0.06 to 0.60 $ a day.

Ad-revenue: $12.04
Paid: less than $3 (although I can only take the money from the android market sales at the moment ($1+), because slideme.org requires you to make $100 before you can take it out)

Hangman for English Learners - Free Version

I've also released a free version of my hangman game.

This version has only ten subjects (compared to the 18 in the full version), and I probably won't update them (I might change my mind depending on what I make from the ads).
And also, it's add supported. It contains a small add that shows on the main screen, and one that shows after you finish a round of hangman.

I was considering push adds, that appear in the notification area, but after reading negative comments about them, and having experienced one myself (from which I promptly uninstalled the game which had it), I decided just to have the in game ads that show in a box, I'm using leadbolt's service, I'll update the blog with my experiences, but I've heard a couple of good words from other people who've used them.

Hopefully, what I wish for is that these adds can help with the food shopping.

Hangman Full Version

Hangman Free Basic Version