Getting your mobile app up and running is one thing; having it effectively monetized is quite another. With the market almost saturated with high quality apps, setting yourself apart can be difficult. You cannot expect to be able to put an app up and for it to start generating revenue immediately. There needs to be a strategy.
Today, we’ve put together the most comprehensive mobile app monetization strategy for effectively monetizing your mobile app, so read on to find out how best to do it.
1. Identify your users
Monetizing apps can work in many different ways, so the first thing you need to do is identify your user base and how they will engage with avenues for monetization you can potentially follow. Before you do anything else, you need to know how this is going to work.
Is your app a game or a service? Is it for use in business or entertainment? How does this affect your user base?
Who is using your app will have a huge impact on how you can most effectively monetize your mobile app, and should be the key influencer in your strategy.
With that in mind, let’s look at some more particular monetization strategies.
2. In-app purchases
For games and service mobile apps, one of the most successful monetization strategies has been in-app purchases, or micro transactions. They can cover many different things but the basic principle is that once the user has downloaded the app (whether for free or at a charge), they can then purchase additional features or consumables within the app.
For games, usually these are things which allow the player to continue playing. Lives, for example, or something like that, which means that they don’t have to stop playing.
For service apps, you can also incorporate premium features for which users must pay extra. Unlike consumables which get used and then are gone, premium features do not expire, so you will have to think carefully how you integrate these features.
3. Subscription model
More and more mobile apps and sites are going in this direction now, and it seems to be a very successful and popular format. If it fits with your mobile app, then it’s certainly a great option.
Subscriptions are generally about getting access to content libraries that are regularly updated. The big, obvious examples of this are streaming services like Netflix.
You will typically do well to offer a free trial period, after which a paid subscription starts. This is a great way to get users invested in the content available.
Splitting up budget and premium subscription packages can work very well, too, in which you give users who pay extra access to extra, premium content.
4. Advertising
Perhaps among the most universally applicable, advertising might be considered the traditional method of monetizing mobile apps. Virtually any app that isn’t a subscription-based service can have the possibility to incorporate ads.
By showing third party ads within your apps, you will get paid usually both for impressions, clicks and conversions. These ads can be either native, meaning they are adapted to the specific app’s layout and will appear as any other post would. Facebook ads, for example, work this way.
Interstitial ads, on the other hand, display during down time, like loading screens, and usually cover the whole screen. They can be a bit more intrusive, but they’re still a mainstay of many mobile apps.
When it comes to ads, an important part of your strategy is ensuring they do not interrupt the overall user experience. Otherwise, you may drive users away.
5. Data
One of the biggest emerging assets in the modern tech world is data. Staggering quantities of it litter the global internet super space, and there is a real possibility for monetization here.
Almost all emerging business are integrating data and analytics alongside their other core business functions. This has been one of the biggest trends for the internet of things in 2020-21.
Whenever your app generates engagement or interaction, user-data is generated by the analytics. It answers questions like who spends time on your app, how much, how much money they spend, and why users may be leaving the app.
By obtaining this data, you can sell it to other firms looking to analyse this data on a large scale. As long as you are mindful of the ethics of this practice, it can be a lucrative way to monetize your app.
To wrap up, then, the most important thing is that you know whom your app is reaching. You need to assess this on a general level before publishing your app, and then keep track of it via analytics. If you keep up with your users, how to monetize the app will come more than naturally.
