When to put ads?

Hi guys,

I'm currently under development of a game that I will release on Google Playstore and I'm quite new to this so I was wondering if you guys have any suggestions on when to place the ads on your game.

- Would it be great if I activate the ads on release of my game? I do have a space for ads on my game planned from the start.
- Or should I wait for a certain download count then update my game and activate ads to get revenue? but won't the other download counts be counted on the revenue?

I would love to know what you guys do on your own game to get some ad revenue. any suggestions will be much appreciated.

- mrfriedfish

 

why would you wait if you are going to do it?

 

Putting the ads in later could be a good strategy. Let's say the ads are a reasonable turnoff for some people, then putting in the ads early will make it harder to seed your game to get a critical mass of people. So you have to trade off revenue now for more users, and hence more revenue later.

It's like when you watch a TV show. Early in the program, there aren't many ads. But near the end they start rolling them in hard.

 

The same reason Facebook/Instagram/many others didn't have ads at first; to gain a userbase.

However, the chance that your game is going to continually gain a significant active userbase is very slim, so I would put them in at launch since that is usually the time you make most of your money.

 

@TheRaider: thanks, It's because I was wondering that ads might distract the player from the game and/or some people don't like having ads while playing. So maybe wait until some people are satisfied with the game before doing ads.
Do you put ads directly when you release your games TheRaider?

So it would be ok to think that there's a 50% chance people won't download because of ads and 50% chance that the game will continually gain an active userbase. If It's marketed right then put ads at launch then you can at least get a good revenue before people complain. then maybe update it to have a payment removal for ads. I don't really like transactions like remove ads payment myself.

Anyways, I need to make sure I finish a complete and great game first before this. But anyone who has experience on this and how it worked for them might help. It needs to be a part of the development. thanks guys

 

Have the ads from the start or the users will get mad when you add them in later. However you should not show ads at the point of which the game first opens. Save it until death or level end and don't show them upon everyone of these events, but say every third time you show an add.

 

yes i think sootie's got it here.

for me, i dont care so much if a game has ads or not, its about how intrusive and/or annoying the ads are. if i get a couple of ads before ive even played, or random ads while im playing (to trick me into tapping them when im trying to do something else), or any other kind of spammy behaviour, it is very frustrating and tells me they care more about making money than providing a good experience.