Facebook Developers

Brad, the people who pay 50c per user don't actually end up earning that amount from that user. The user invites. Here is a little math.

If you have a viral featured app, say an app which invites friends in bulk. Say something like FunWall or MindJolt games or your app in which user ACTUALLY want friends to have the app, following can be a good example.

EXAMPLE:

Amount to be spent = $100 (Considering a nominal price given per install)
Average Invite (Accept) Rate : 3 (I know its high, but in case of an app in which the USER want friend to add it, its something that is often seen).
Average Invite Cycles : 3 (Nominal)

Now, those $100 will give you = 16,000 users. That is, 6 cents per user for first 16,000 installs.

This data is worst condition, if the app is good, you may have higher numbers. See carefully, if average invite rate is 4 instead of three, installs you get are 34,000 for $100. If its 5, you get 62,400 for $100.

Now see the worst condition. 16000 users in your case = 16000x130 pageviews = 2080000 pageviews. Consider a very low 0.3%CTR. It will give you 6240 clicks. Consider 4 cents per click will give you $249.6 for $100 spent.

This was just an example how advertising metrics work and how business plans are laid.

Last edited by aritude (2008-04-14 07:12:31)

So if I have tracked my total number of invitations sent and my total number of invitations accepted,

Average Invite (Accept) Rate = [ (Total Invites Accepted) / (Total Invites Sent) ] * [ (Total Invites Sent) / (Total Users) ]
Average Invite Cycles = ? (Not sure what this represents)

Really? You get .125 guaranteed CPM with lookery and they dont care if one user gives u 20 page views or 100 page views. They still pay.

Of course if you can fit 2 ads above the fold you can get .25 cpm ... which is really good, i doubt you are making more than that with adblade now I know you did before, but that was because your game played differently. Thats why i never recommend u them back then.

Last edited by saintseiya (2008-04-14 07:24:48)

mikep wrote:

With ever decreasing eCPMs, I think a business model based purely on pageviews and ad clicks is never going to make much cash. It's the perfect solution whilst you're building your userbase and expanding your functionality initially, because it takes literally 2 minutes to stick ads on your pages. But long-term, a different monetization strategy is needed.

If you've built an app which gets users coming back time and again, you need to be able to monetize them exponentially more than casual one-time visitors. This won't happen by just placing generic ad network ads on your page - regulars will quickly become blind to them.

I agree; this is the conundrum Facebook itself faces.  I've been watching what they're doing trying to get some ideas; deep integration seems like it's going to be the next big thing as soon as someone figures out how to create a marketplace for it.  I would love to integrate brands into my app (sponsored eggs, mascot pets, ads in the activity scroller, etc) but I have no way to get in contact with major brands.

ParadiseP01 wrote:

mikep wrote:

This won't happen by just placing generic ad network ads on your page - regulars will quickly become blind to them.

Very Interesting! Any suggestions as to a better alternative to generic?

I've been rotating colors, networks, and positions on the page and it seems to work pretty well.

As people have said in the past, apps that just have ads to other apps, which have ads to other apps... just go around in circles. The real money is if you manage to make money from other sources, commissions, selling things, those pay per action thingies...