Tips to Make Money From Free Mobile Apps

Have you ever thought, how to make money from free apps? No, you should be.  Nowadays, a lot of free apps are available in the market place. Therefore,  you should know that how to build and monetize an app or make money with these free apps to earn the consistent income by publishing free apps in the mobile application market. The best mobile development companies in India can help you to make an attractive apps.

 Introduction

Free apps are more in number as compared to the paid ones in terms of profits and download.  Thus, people often ask how much money does apps make. Ever thought how to make money from apps?

Thus, before proceeding to this question, you must know the app boom hasn’t ended yet.  Even though, the percentage  of paid app revenues have diminished to 37.8% from 75.9%, the mobile application market is still worth up to billions of dollars.

Difference Between Free Apps and Paid Apps

Hence, you can clearly see the difference between free and paid ads.  There are various ways to make money with free mobile app development.  Further, you must know that which are the main options available and  hoe can people make money from these apps.

Plus, free apps make money  with the help of some app monetization strategy beacause These strategies are highly useful and free app makers had earned a lot of  money by using these strategies. Let’s discuss them one by one:

Proven Strategies to Make Money From Free Apps

1. Advertising

Advertising is the most common and easiest way  to deploy to make the money from free apps. Hence,It can also be done with the help of third-par network.

Accordingly,  to the latest survey, it is estimated that in 2019, 190 billion U.S. dollars are earned and  280 billion dollars are expected in 2020.

Therefore,to monetize apps and make money with the help of ads is quite easy and simple. An app owner just needs to display commercials inside their mobile application or opt for affiliate marketing and get paid from the third-party ad networks.

Moreover, you can get payment everytime  when an ad is displayed, per click on the ad, and when a user installs the advertised app Being a free version app,  you can also run ad campaigns to make more revenue  for the specific period of the time.

Besides, there are 4 types of display ads that can be displayed by the app providers for the monetization.  So, As an app owner, you need to monitor  whether the targeted  users are finding these ads useful or these ads just blocking them.

Interstitial ads

This type of the advertisement is full-screen pop-ups  that are displayed at the specific time frames. Thus, the user can close this ad any time by a button at the upper left or right corner.  For instance, an ad can be displayed when a user finishes editing  photo and save it in the  photo gallery. It is the great example of the app monetization, which is used by the Ganna.

Thus, This method is used by Gaana, which is a great example of app monetization. So, this app by integrating such ad tactic without any advertising fees has managed to enhance its app experience.

Banner ads

These displayed ads are of different size and at the top or bottom parts of the app screen. Therefore, they are less disturbing which make user comfortable to use these apps freely.

In-app video ads

These are automatically apps and generally used as a reward video in-place of some in-app rewards.  For example, by watching the ad video,  the app user will get some currency,  which is highly useful for either unlocking levels in the game or to get some extra features. Hence, This is the most popular revenue model between users.

Native ads

Native ads are integrated  to be appeared as the natural element in the app. Therefore,  it is used to promote a product or a mobile app. In this case, affiliate marketing will help in the user engagement for your app without any cost.

Somehow,this method is getting more and more popular these days because the users are less irritated and intrusive with such ads.

However, the most important point that you need to know about the native ads is that their revenue can be  less as compared to other methods. Although, mobile app developers think that, it is the best strategy, still it is most hated by the users.

Moreover, the one point that you need to know about native ads is that their revenue can be pretty low compared to other methods. And, despite the mobile app developers think of native ads as the best strategy, it is the most hated by users.

 Pros  of the advertising

1. It enhances your app’s primary income  with the help of CTR
2. In-app ads have a more probability to reach to the target audience.
3. Ads helps to measure the user interaction.
4. Video ads create higher traffic than social media networking, audio ads, and the web browsing.

Cons of Advertising

1. This model is useful for those apps only who have a wide range of the audience

2. Irrelevant ads- sometimes ads are totally different from the category where they are displayed

3.  Non-appealing ads are easily ignored by the users.

4.  Sometimes,these ads  create interruption,when the user  navigates your the apps.

2. Subscriptions

Subscriptions can be quite useful monetization strategy. App publishers can choose free content in their apps  for some time and they charge some amount of the money from the users. Thus, this fee allows them to access full content without any obstacles.

The popular and common method used by the most of free app publishers is to offer a free trial period and then charge the subscription fee let us suppose after one month who wish to continue to access the app content. As a result, this kind of the strategy is used for the loud services, online news services, and video streaming apps like Netflix.

Furthermore, Apple is paying full-attention to integrate with this revenue model  and making major changes in how app subscriptions models are working. However, Apple will maintain its current 70/30 revenue split for the first year of subscription. So, after one year, the new 85/15 revenue share will automatically be implemented.

This new format was made to encourage the app publisher to sell their apps for applying a fee instead of a one-time cost. Furthermore, only 5% of the most successful apps are using this method of subscription revenue model or developing subscription-based mobile apps according to the sweet pricing.

Thus, Before concluding this business model, let’s have a look at this strategy’s pros and cons.

Pros of subscription method

1. It is the best model for e cloud services  so that offer audio-video content providers like Spotify.
2. More engaged and serious to use the full functionality of the app.
3. It results in a more reliable income.
4. Apple store rewards the app to hold the customers for a longer period of time.

Cons of the Subscription method

1.  Try to make new  and innovative content continuously for the users

2.  Translating you free app customer to the monthly subscribed because customer will create huge backlash in the customer list.

3. And, The free –trial period is must and also demand some tweaking.

3. Selling Merchandise

Furthermore, the other approach is to sell merchandise from your free mobile app. So, Many e-commerce  business build free versions to sell their goods such as shirts, toys, shoes, etc. Hence, these physical products can be sold  directly to the app or via mail marketing. Another innovative approach is to sell merchandise in your free mobile apps.

In addition, to motivate app publishers to use this strategy, Amazon has started a service known Merch  by Amazon that allows publishers to create their artwork, upload it to their platform and sell their products. So, It is a win-win strategy for the owners and app users.

Therefore,to make the things easier, Amazon takes more care of the payments and delivery of the items.Now, have a look at these pros and cons that will help you in deciding whether to select this monetization model for your free app idea.

Pros of Selling Merchandise

1. Online Selling  help you to reach more people anytime, anywhere.
2. It is an additional convenience feature, enabling users to browse their inventory & order accordingly.
3. The endless aisle where shoppers never have to leave empty-handed

Cons of Selling Merchandise

1. Poor inventory visibility

2.  Poor m-commerce experience. You need to have a user-friendly smartphone version of your business.

3, Output is not so good.

4. Sponsorship for making money

Sponsorship is one of the less commonly used monetization methods, but still it is an interesting strategy.

Moreover,  Sponsorship in your mobile applications  could be a powerful app monetization strategy  if the app publisher builds the right nice app for the targeted audience  and launch it on behalf of another company.

Meanwhile to the website, app publisher need to consider sponsor  whose target audience is the same as the app audience.  Therefore, it is a good point to make a list of the brands and organizations who are getting benefits from your app.

Well, a good example of it, while you are watching video of the latest home model, the stylish faucet  will help you to get the latest model in your home.

Thus, have a look at these pros and cons that will help you in deciding whether to select this app monetization model for your free app idea.

Pros of Sponsorship

1. It involves providing an advertising space within your app to brands with exclusive content or discounts.
2. Brands can promote their presence in the app, so that users also get some offers and discounts.
3. Minimal disruption to user-experience

 Cons of Sponsorship

           1. Your app must have strong brand recognition, so that people can follow you.

            2. So, Need to develop a tracking tool for the measurement criteria.

5. Referral Marketing

Referral Marketing means to promote third-party products or service to get some revenue. Thus, app publishers can sell or promote products or services  based on the number of clicks and installs.  So, here you can use pop-up ads to promote someone else’s app or advertise products.

Therefore, There are different types of referral marketing models that publishers use in their development.

Cost per click

Further, This type of the revenue model is mainly based upon the number of clicks on and ad displayed on the screen.  You can join the popular network such as AdMob for this model. Hence, they both provide display and text advertisements which will help you to earn money for the app.

Cost per view

Thus, this model applies some charges based on the number of ad interactions or video views.  Moreover, Any gaming company can easily use this model to increase the revenue by 130% through cost per view networks.

Hence, they used video as well as interstitial ads in their smartphone game to create natural breaks in between game sessions.

Cost per install

Cost per install is a relatively new,marketing mechanism and it is equivalent to the CPA in the market place.

Hence, cost per install is exactly what it sounds like. So, You will get paid for each install of the advertised app  in your free app.

Therefore, There are various platforms that provide software to install it into your app. As a result, Chartboost is the best example of this model. So, Both are third-party networks that have software that you install into your app.

Pros of  Referral Marketing

• It is the best way to promote the most demanding products in the app.
• It is the most trusted and influenced monetization model
• Lastly, Referred customers are loyal and profitable both.

Cons of Referral Marekting

      1.  It is the time consuming program.

      2.  Hence, no multiple referral programs are available.

7. Freemium Upsell

Freemium apps are available free of cost to download but offers some paid or premium features. Hence, These paid and premium features can access through in-app purchases only.

Therefore, In this type of freemium model apps, users download the app without paying any extra charges and if  they are interested in their content, they will get the full access to functionality  by committing a purchase. Furthermore, using this tactic, gaining lots of new users is easily possible because premium features are optional to get

Moreover, this strategy is extremely common for education and health and sports application, allowing users to get premium features at a particular cost. You can also take help from the seo service providers.

Hence, it is the time to look at the positive and negative impact of this model.

Pros of Freemuim Model

1. No invasive ads
2. So, this model is friendly with any other approaches
3.  Need low maintenance for the  monetization tactic
4. This model has wide reached as it is free for the users

Cons of Freemium Upsell

   1. Fluctuation in Revenues

   2.  You have to pay for the maintenance cost

8. Transaction Fees

Well, Transaction fees s the best way to monetize your apps.  It is one of the best ways to make money  from your apps  on the app store. Hence, It is for the those apps that provide a platform where digital transactions could be occur on the regular basis.

Thus, we have curated some pros and cons on transaction fees which will give you a clear idea about it’s loopholes.

Pros of Transaction Fees

1.  It is an income generation process

2.  This model promotes digital transactions

3. So, no user credibility could be harmed.

Cons of Transaction Fees

1. The income is fixed, you cannot make any changes in the cost.

2.  So, It is not compatible with other monetization model.

Conclusion

Thus, we have seen that  demand of the free apps has been increasing day by day in the market place ad it will never stop at the recent time. Instead, increasing competition in the industry, publishers are also applying new monetization methods and creating more useful free apps for users. If you are willing to develop a money making app, consult the best mobile app development company that can you in a better way.

Read more: Things You Should Consider Before Building A Mobile App