Great story from iPhone ad network provider AdWhirl. Apparently the developer of one of the most popular applications for the platform ever wasn’t generating any ad revenue from it for several days, missing out on up to $2000 a day according to the company’s co-founder Sam Yam.
Here’s the gist of what happened: Inner Four, the developer behind the insanely popular (and inane) iPhone / iPod Touch application Mirror Free (iTunes link) – a gratis tool that turns your device’s screen into a mirror – was using a sample key instead of the key provided by AdWhirl that was supposed to power real display advertising units in the app interface.
The ad network enabler found out that the developer was missing out on revenue from the app, which has consistently been topping the charts across the entire App Store, when someone from the team downloaded it to their iPhone and noticed test ad units were being run that were attached to the sample AdWhirl application key. As the company was still able to see what kind of traffic the application was getting, the developer was losing out on an estimated $2000 a day, although that number is evidently hard to verify.
Update: here’s the evidence from AdWhirl. Yam explains:
AdWhirl allows you to set percentages for the ad networks you run. On our sample app, we had only a quarter of the inventory dedicated to AdMob, with the remaining 3/4 (maybe even more, b/c of our rollover feature, but I won’t get into all the nitty gritty) of the inventory used to demo how our custom ads work (custom ads don’t pay the developer any money when run, but allow them to cross-promote their other apps or promote a website, for example). Thus 3/4 of the ads weren’t generating money, and the quarter of ads that were generating money exceeded $500/day (and growing even more quickly on the most recent day) – doing the 4X multiplier on revenue generated gets to the $2000/day figure (you’ll notice the early days didn’t generate any revenue – this app rose to #1 VERY quickly).
AdWhirl contacted the unknowing developer and dynamically pushed out new keys on the platform from their side, claiming that otherwise the developer would have been forced to submit an updated application to the App Store that could take days or even weeks to get cleared.
Most iPhone app developers will never see their app(s) top the charts, let alone be able to effectively monetize them. That’s why it’s so baffling to see the developer of such a top ranked application – out of 65,000 free and paid apps in total – stumble over such a minor coding tweak.
In software, it’s impossible to over-test anything.
‘Gratis’ tool.. that is very ‘goedkoop’
I think you mean “verniet”.
He must be really pissed for losing out on so much money.
Ouch
Is this aimed at TechCrunch ?
http://blog.twi...rity.html#links
$2,000 a day on ad revenue? Sounds extremely far fetched, please show me the evidence because my research shows quite the opposite. Ad revenue for mobile apps is pretty dismal. Their story smells like stink bait.
I thought the same thing…. but incredibly the app is currently the #1 free app in the entire app store. Why? Who knows.
The #1 paid app can generate 20,000 downloads and it’s estimated that free apps get 10x the number of downloads. If the app is able to get anywhere close to 200,000 downloads a day and everyone opens once or twice then $2000 a day is spot on.
I don’t expect this ranking will last long so this mistake is likely to cost this developer a lot.
Props to the developer for posting a screenshot of their AdMob account.
I think this app benefits from being well suited for an advertisement, you couldn’t ask for better attention span. Most apps are usually the opposite.
Yeah. But Kudos to the Add Network to dynamically update the App’s Key to deliver the adds and fix the error on the developer’s part.
What is the CPC/CPM range on mobile apps? it would be interesting to have an article on how mobile advertising is performing.
anybody volunteering to hack some docs from adwhirl/admob?
It seems they just estimated and btw a 2k$/day loss in the title would make everyone read this article seriously!
Okay! get me tht app I’ll fix it. ^)
Ah, would love to provide the evidence.
We had AdMob set at 25% of the inventory with custom ads the remaining 3/4 (advertising AdWhirl, b/c that’s what our sample app did, which was where the test key was copied over from). Here are the growing revenue numbers up till today (which doesn’t end till 5 pm PST).
http://adwhirl..../mirror_app.gif
One thing that is shocking me – those CTRs are… ridiculous. My guess is users have nothing else to do so they click on the ads before they go.
Sam
AdWhirl Co-Founder
The CTR’s are high because you decided to run plastic surgery ads next to the mirror app. Genius…
As a developer, would you proceed to dump someone who caused you global embarrassment or try to get some past “claimed” revenues? Sounds like AdWhirl needs to step up here in a bigger way than just shipping out keys.
I think this is a fair point.
These guys seem pretty lighthearted, though, as their own app description says:
“Dudes… Chill.
We know this app is a piece of cr@p.
Someone was charging $0.99 for a mirror app like this, we thought it was unfair.
Don’t hate us for a stupid app. Love us for saving you $.99
Honestly, don’t download this. It is just a blank screen with a frame.
If you must download this t**d, please do it with a sense of humor.”
I like these guys, lost revenue aside
@Sam Yam – That looks like $2000 *per month* to me, NOT *per day* as the TC post claims.
@Sam Yam – That looks like $2000 *per month* to me, NOT *per day* as the TC post claims.
One of the MOST stupid apps.
WTF!
for some reason, the more stupid they are, the more popular. Why? people are stupid, seriously.
Considering this is the top free app, that would make this the most stupid app…
Erm… doesn’t that graph show earnings of $2000 over a period of 5 days?
this sounds too good to be true. happy to be proved otherwise
thats the stupidest app ever.. no way are they losing out on 2 g’s a day
$2000 a day, I’m sorry for the dude; he would be now smiling all the way to the bank.
http://www.nichea.info
Personally, I’m not the least surprised that the #1 app for iPhone users is a mirror. Hell, it’s almost too obvious.
nailed it.
LOL! I love my iPhone, but that’s great comedy.
from the look of the attached report it looks more like about $400/ day rather than $2000/ day. I’d like to know how much time the issue went unnoticed to know how much revenue was lost by the App developer??
AdWhirl claims $500 a day on average, but that this was only 25% of the inventory. I think it’s fair to say he was losing UP to $2000 a day, since recently. Even if AdWhirl is stretching and it’s more like $1000 a day, it’s still baffling.
$2000 over a month or day is alot of money to be losing out on
Actually best thing on this article is Robin’s last comment –
In software, it’s impossible to over-test anything.
And all the people said AMEN.
If you find a glitch, you may always claim a lot of money. $2000 per day is too big claim to be believed, it looks like you shoot up your revenue just to blame the developer.
The embedde spreadsheet indicates a revenue of a bit north of $2000 in one month, not one day.
I’m impressed with AdWhirl here… they found the coder’s mistake, addressed it by changing the codes on their end, and alerted him… all so he could make more money from his app.
Hi,
I am from inner four.
We screwed up.
Not the first time, won’t be the last.
My thoughts on revenue:
# of downloads are important,
# of impressions are more important,
and click-throughs the most important.
I think a big component of revenue is how long the app stays open. “Weird Laws” stays open awhile, and generates a good number of impressions per use.
Mirror free, is well, how do you say…. a really useless app, you open it, you say “what is this piece of crap” and delete it.
Not a lot of time for impressions, I think if we had a button that said “send mean e-mail to developer”, THEN we would get a lot of clicks!!!
Someone else was charging $0.99 for a mirror app. At least you did not need to pay to see how silly it is.
Happy trails and have fun,
John Swartz
Inner Four, Inc.
Awesome John, you guys seem to have a great sense of humor.
Ha…. Inner Four just gained my fandom.
That’s a lot, the apps looks like cool though. LOL
But it’s not really about the money, is it? It’s about creating a great app for the iPhone.
This was NOT caused by “sloppy coding.” This was an oversight. The oversight was on the part of the developer AND the client. It is the CLIENTS responsibility to ascertain whether they got what they paid for or not. And of course its about the money. It the client lost money its important.
Oops!
NOT sustainable $2000/day.
Developers should always eat their own dogfood.
Look at the dates
From 2009-06-17 to 2009-07-17
So that is from 17th June to 17 July – 1 month ad revenue of $2k
I am sure that he has good reasons for continuing coding even better apps, now. At some point Android apps might be more popular.
Ouch! Good on AdWhirl for sorting it for him though!
Many times I find the apps on the AppStore is like a try-and-uninstall kind of apps. There are not many which can stick on my iPhone and certainly MirrorFree is not one of it.
Their CTR absolutely blows my mind. I’m looking at more like .5% from Admob. I guess a lot of that is that just about every impression is from a new user (since they close it before the 2nd impression comes up) .. but I also wonder if Admob iPhone advertising is also a lot more relevant than Android – there are so many iTunes products to promote.