4 Ways To Monetize Free Android Application

Current situation on Android Market seems to be not very promising for developers who want to sell their apps. Even having cool free version and paid version of your app doesn’t help. So other revenue streams should be found for Android applications. Perhaps it’s essential to have as many revenue streams per application as possible. 

OK, lets imagine that you’ve got an app and thinking about how are you going to earn money on it. Below are my ideas about making business with a free Android application.

1. Advertisement in Android Applicaiton

This way means that you are going to show ads in your application. The main difficulty here is to keep balance: on the one hand you should show as many ads as you can to generate more revenue and on the other hand your user must be satisfied (or even excited) with your application in order to make your ads running permanently. That means that it might be better to have small ads amount and non-annoying placement in order to create long-lived and more or less permanent revenue stream.

It seems that there are lots of places where you can put advertisement inside your application. It can be:

• Main application’s screen. You can place a small text advertisement here, but be careful with it - your user downloaded application not for advertisement, but for the application itself and for it functionality. If your app is a game you may want to show ads when switching from level to level.
• Auxilary screens. I mean such screens as “Info”, “About”, “Rules”, etc. You get the idea. This screens are not essential for the application and it gives you more freedom in placing ads. Your ads on such screens can be a little bit more agressive, perhaps you may want to place banners there, not only text ads.

You may want to use one of the following advertisement service provider (not the full list):

• Google Adsense
• Microsoft Ad Center
• Bidvertiser
• AdMob

It seems to be good idea to use couple of them simultaneously, but it should be tested anyway and everyone will have different strategy in placing advertisement in your application. 

Another thing to consider when placing ads in your application is advertisement behaviour. Clicking at the ads link may open a browser window, but it means that you will loose user’s focus from your application. It may be both not really good for you ( user do not see your ads anymore ) and for your user - it may be annoying.

There is an alternative way to serve advertisement - use a WebView control to show advertisement and open ads pages in a WebView control. In this case user is still in your application and at any time user can go back to your app ( of course if you’ll provide such possibility, e.g. “Back” button at the bottom of the screen). You will need a web page with ads in this case to show them in your app.

2. Generate and monetize traffic

If your application is a quite popular, then this way of monetizing a free Android application may also work. The idea is in the following. You should invite your user to visit your website (e.g. to view high scores, read info about application, etc. ). You may do it by placing a link and invitation, do not forget to say WHY user need to click this link ;). Popular application can generate quite significant traffic to your website, where you can monetize it by showing ads for example.

Showing ads on a landing page is not the only thing you can do with a traffic. If you have products or services relevant to your Android application theme, you may want to try to sell it on a landing page instead ( or even in addition ) of showing ads. The idea here that you may drive your target audience to your web site via Android application.

3. Sponsorship

One more way to make money on a free Android application is to find a sponsor. For a fixed price you may put sponsor’s attributes in your app. It may be sponsor’s logo on your splash screen, “sponsored by” line in a description or something else. Quite straightforward way to make some cash.

4. Micro Transactions

Quite complicated way, but it may worth the efforts needed to implement it. What do I mean under micro transaction? Micro transaction is a small payment (usually amount is determined by user) done by user to you, like a donation. But as opposed to donation you will provide some kind of “bonus” for user who have done micro transaction. How can it work in Android application? You will need a site to receive payments and provide user with some kind of code which should be entered in your application to unlock “bonus”. 

Inspire your user with a possibility to have some unique feature in your app and perhaps you’ll receive some payments. You may also let user to switch off advertisement for a small one-time fee.

That was some of my thought about making money on a free Android app. I’m sure there are lots of more ways in doing business with free Android applications and I believe that having multiple revenue streams is essential with a free Android application.

What do you think? Do you use any other scheme? Comments and new ways are greatly appreciated! :)