I am trying to deliver some promo codes to some users but I just realized that Android Market doesn't have this feature, like shown
here: https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/android-market/appy-talk-all-about-apps/2m8zvqr_HTo
and here: https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#!category-topic/android-market/feature-requests--suggestions/3Spa5KuMgF4
Some people named the website http://www.twirkz.com/ as a workaround to deliver promo codes. My question is: is it reliable? I know that people who install from there will not receive any of the updates that comes from the Android Market, but is there some problem other than that?
If any of you would know an alternative way to give some free apps from my paid app, I would appreciate.
Simple method:
Looking over the app market, it seems to be a favourite of many a developer to release the free app, and sell a micro application that just unlocks extra features.
Could be advantageous, as people will download free apps before buying, and like this, they don't lose their data (or so they usually hope).
You could offer the unlocking application rather than promo codes at that point in time. Probably easier to manage, and unlikely the app will need many updates later on.
Also, don't forget that it's pretty much a given that you'll include ads in the free app, so I believe most users of the free app won't mind you making a little amount of money on the side.
Another simple method:
Promo codes in-app, again using the system as-above. Offer the free app, then sell the upgrade, but this time via a purchasable code. Then you could generate promo codes yourself.
Annoying method:
Refunds.
Seems to be employed by some developers. Requires manually refunding the user, but then they can receive app updates normally either way.
Hope that helps, even a little bit.
According to Google, if you refund an item you should get the full transaction fee back.
http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138001
Google Play has now native support for promo codes.
From Android Developers blog:
Choose your app in the Developer Console.
Under the Promotions tab choose Add new promotion.
Review and accept the additional terms of service if you haven’t run a promotion before.
Choose from the options available, then generate and download your promo codes.
Distribute your promo codes via your marketing channels such as social networks, in email, on the web, to your app’s beta testers, or
in your app or game itself.
Users can redeem your promo codes in a number of ways, including: a) From Google Play, using the Redeem menu option. b) From your app.
They’ll be directed to the Play checkout flow before being redirected
back to your app. c) By following a link that embeds the promo code
Anything that is not directly from Google will have a chance at failing. I know that you can offer a discount and then put the price up again, but make sure you don't make it free. I don't believe you can go from "Free" to charging.
Related
I have two questions about uploading app to play store. First of all I want to upload two versions of my app, the first one is free with adds and the second one is paid without any adds, but is the same app in both cases.
What should I do to upload both apps? I had thought about changing the package name but the problem I think I will have is that if the user downloads the free version and then pays for the premium he will have both applications in his smartphone, the premium won't override the free one.
And this question is more about your experience uploading apps. I have mine in english, spanish and french. I had thought in uploading the app in every country but in the videos I have seen everyone chooses a few countries to upload their own apps. What do you recommend me to do?
Thank you in advance.
There are a few ways you can handle it, though I have to say I'm not sure you should.
My suggestion is to upload your free version first, and later when you have enough users implement in app billing instead.
I know it's not directly answering your question, but I think it's a better approach that will save you a lot of time, and also be a better experience to the users.
Regarding countries, you don't need to upload it to each country, that's automatic (unless you indicate otherwise), and you actually can't upload or create a specific store listing by country, at least as far as I know.
You do need to create a store listing to the languages you want, otherwise they'll get the default language and in some cases see automatic translated listing, which is quite bad in my opinion.
You should have only one app, which is free to download, and implement an in-app payment in that app through which a user can choose to make a payment in exchange for the removal of ads, without the need to download a separate ad-free app. This is the standard approach to the problem you have described.
If you implement separate apps, your ratings will be spread across both apps, to the probable detriment of the rankings of both in the Play store's search results. Also, an upgrade to the ad-free version will require the user to download the paid version, which creates a barrier to selling it. Finally, once a user who has tried the free app decided to pay for removal of ads, they would almost certainly uninstall the free version, which might cause the store to see that app as being unsatisfactory to your users.
We are planning on changing our currently paid app, into a "free" (demo) app with in-app purchase to unlock the full game.
Our problem with making this transition is that we already have customers who've paid for the app. We therefore need to ensure that they wont have to pay for something they've already bought once. We have looked for every possible solution we can think of, but without luck.
Licensing is out of the question, as it will always return valid for free apps.
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. As a fallback we'll have to create two apps, but we would much rather prefer to only keep a single one.
Regards
Jannek
Edit:
Thanks for the feedback. We didn't find a solution, but ended up using the first achievement to unlock the game by default. this covers 80% of our players. Unfortunately also 80% of the pirates. for the remaining 20% we setup a token server, where they can unlock the game by entering the last 8 digits from their purchase info.
This also allows us to give out promo codes on Google Play.
A couple of unsatisfying solutions:
Update the app before you make it free. Collect IDs somehow of people who use it and record them. Downside is it will miss people that rarely update or use your app.
Release the paid app as a new package. Convert the old one into a "pre-paid licence". You can detect whether the licence app is installed or not from the new one. Downside is you lose all your ratings and reviews.
I would like to make my app freeware, but if a user is willing to retrieve additional features, it should be possible to 'activate' them after in-app payment.
Should I set up my app as "FREE" (or can that cause trouble later as this setting can't be change anymore?) and which way would you recommend to go - should I retrieve the additional stuff from my own website, or does Google provide a way for it after payment was successful?
Basically the app will be (and stay) really useful (well I hope) in its free state already, I just want to kinda provide additional goodies for the few that would be ready to support and maybe want to get even more out of it.
Yes, set up your app as free.
What you're describing is the freemium model, where you give the app for free, and charge for advanced features:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemium
A lot of Android apps are successfully monetizing using the freemium model. One example is Angry Birds Space, a top downloaded free app, which uses in-app billing to sell Mighty Eagles or remove ads.
I have a situation that I have not seen addressed elsewhere, so I'd like to ask folks for ideas. Here's what's up:
I sell a relatively expensive (US$25) app that I have sold for 10 years in various forms on different portable platforms. In general it's pretty vertical-market oriented (astronomers, ham radio operators) but in some cases is of general interest and has sold pretty steadily over the whole time it's been around. I have an Android version ready to publish but am not sure the best route to take.
The issues that are troublesome for me are that it must be possible to download a free, time-limited but full-featured version for evaluation, and that I need to be able to sell it to previous customers at half-price (just a long-standing policy of mine.)
Note that I am already set up to sell from my own website - have been doing it with other versions of the software for years, and the app is already set up to run in "trial mode" until a registration code is entered.
I have been assuming that I would publish it on the Android Market as a free app, and add code to it to look for an "unlock key" app that I would publish there as well. The idea being that a person could download and test the app, and if they chose to purchase it could either buy the unlock key via the market, or could go to my web site and purchase a registration code, allowing a path for my "customer loyalty" discount.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this violates section 3.3 of the Developer Distribution Agreement: "All fees received by Developers for Products distributed via the Market must be processed by the Market's Payment Processor."
I have a couple of ideas, but I'd really like to hear some other opinions first. Sorry for the length - it's just a long question.
(Oh, and FYI, there is already a published iOS version of this app, and none of this is at all possible for it, and I think it's awful.)
You could get them to buy the app at full price and then send the discount back to them - like a cash-back scheme. It's not very efficient though.
You can use in-app billing to process the purchase. That way you won't violate any agreement.
You can publish more than one APK in the market, with different prices, and validate the install upon first run with a code you send them.
I am currently developing an application where I want to be able to have an option to allow the user to donate money for the app. Is there a particular way about doing this for android. I have tried looking at google but it mainly shows about paypal donation buttons for websites
I think it should be possible.
There's a similar discussion on Google Groups which basically says that donations are allowed as long as you don't offer additional functionality for that money.
Meaning no functionality is enabled after the donation is made.
Like #alocaly said, you're unable to recieve donations through a system different from android market payment or ads inside the application.
However, it is still possible to have your application on the Internet by free and with a donation button. The difference is that you cannot post it on the Android Market, so you'll have to do some extra work:
Upload to a webserver, so it can be downloaded to your phone.
Create a website (or post your application to another "illegal" market), so people can find your application.
Use some sort of advertising to let people know your application (Twitter retweets, community ads, GoogleAds, SEO, whatever)
Manage some kind of update system. Since you don't rely anymore on the Android Market, you don't have an automatic updating method (Android Market updates applications when you post a new version of it), so you should have a small class that checks a website looking for a new version (it's not that hard) and downloads a new version when there's one available.
Make work the Paypal button like #Tim said
However, you are able to do something that I've see out there: create a free version of your application and post it on the Android Market, and post another version of the same application called "Same program name (Donation)", costing some money. When someone wants to donate you, they'll only have to buy this version.
I hope it helps
I don't know what importance it has, but I think that the chart / terms of services we sign as android developers don't allow the usage of this kind of monetization.
As this is a subject that is changing a lot in Android world, with the soon to come API to pay in apps, I'm not sure it still has any importance, but you should still be aware of that.
Maybe you should take a look at this post, which explains how to integrate Paypal payments into an Android App witout leaving the App itself: How to integrate paypal donate in android app?