With the upcoming preview of the 3.0 version of the iPhone OS, we took a look at Apple’s past releases to see how long it takes consumers to upgrade their device OS. 

We found a strikingly similar adoption pattern for the releases of the iPhone OS versions 2.1, 2.2, and 2.2.1.  About 30% of requests came from upgraded devices within the first week, and then there was a steady increase in upgrades over next couple months. 

As of Saturday, March 14, 65% of iPhone OS requests in AdMob’s network came from version 2.2.1 that launched on January 27.  26% came from version 2.2, and 7% are still on version 2.1.  This data includes requests from both the iPhone and iPod touch, however both the percentage of traffic and patterns of adoption are similar for both devices.  iPhone developers should take this lag in adoption of the newest iPhone OS into account when releasing sites and apps that take advantage of new features. 

Even with this lag in part of the user base, Apple is light years ahead of some of the other smartphone manufacturers in their ability to quickly push upgrades to their operating system.   Many consumers have Smartphones running Windows Mobile or Symbian for example are running OS versions that are several years old.

Mike F.
Product Marketing

Advertising to users on their devices is the most effective way to promote your application.  While the quality of an app is the biggest driver of success, advertising can help users discover your app among the thousands of competing apps in the store.  Below are some tips for success that we have learned working with our iPhone partners.

Advertising is most effective when launching a new app
A concentrated burst of downloads is the best way to maximize your ranking in the App Store.  Combining downloads you receive as a new application with downloads generated from advertising can create a boost to your initial ranking.  In addition, establishing a user base quickly means you receive product feedback, obtain user reviews, and gather usage data.  You should also consider advertising when your app drops out of the Top 25 or Top 50 to keep it discoverable by users browsing these lists.

Install download tracking to evaluate the effectiveness of your ads
AdMob’s download tracking feature allows you to measure the conversion rate for each of you ads.  The conversion rate is the percentage of users who clicked on an ad that eventually downloaded the app.  The appeal of the app, effectiveness of the landing page, user reviews, ad targeting, and pricing all contribute to the conversion rate.  Visit our site for more details.

Run multiple ads at once and refresh copy weekly
Click-through-rates (CTR) and conversion rates tend to slowly decline over time.  Running several ads at once enables you to battle this decline by testing new ad copy and letting you direct your dollars towards the best performing ads.  Test different ad language (e.g.  “new”, “hottest”, or “limited time offer”) and try presenting your application in different ways (“Find weather in SF” vs “Is it raining today?”).   For paid apps, consider adding the price of your app in the ad to minimize unqualified clicks.

Experiment with different targeting options
iPhone ad targeting options include iPhone vs iPod touch, by country, carrier vs WiFi, and market area within the US.  Finding the optimal targeting for your particular app can have a big positive impact on downloads.  As an example, iPod touch users tend to be much younger than iPhone users and convert better for games.

Start at the minimum bid and increase it as necessary
AdMob is a bidded marketplace where you pay only when a user clicks on an ad.  You receive traffic depending on your bid per click, targeting, and the number of other advertisers competing for traffic in our system.  Start at the minimum bid and if you want more traffic you can increase your bid level.  Utilize AdMob’s daily budgeting feature to limit daily spend as your money can be spent quickly given the size of our network.

Install an Analytics package to understand user behavior
While AdMob gives you the tools to optimize your ad campaigns, you also need to understand the user experience within your application.  Flurry, Pinch Media, and Medialets all have free iPhone Analytics solutions that you can use.

Closely monitoring the performance of your ads and continually experimenting is the key to running successful campaigns.  Contact us at tryiphone@admob.com if you have any questions or join our AdMob Advertiser Discussion Group, we’d be happy to help.  Good luck!

Mike F.
Product Marketing

We just released an updated version of our iPhone SDK and it contains a great new feature that we are pretty excited about.

Many of our iPhone advertisers link their ads to content on the mobile Web.  Previously, when a consumer clicked on an ad in an iPhone application, the application would close and the Safari browser would then open the landing page or site for that ad.  Now with the new version of our SDK publishers can choose to launch a Safari browser within their app when a consumer clicks on an ad. This makes it easy for consumers easily return to that app when they are done engaging with the ad.

This new option greatly improves the mobile advertising experience for everyone involved.  It eases publisher concerns about consumers leaving their app when they engage an ad and gives them more control over the consumers’ experience.  For consumers, it gives them the choice to return to their app or continue using the Safari browser.  And for advertisers, we believe consumers will be more inclined to engage with ads knowing its easier and faster to return to the application they were enjoying.

We encourage all of our iPhone app publishers to take advantage of this functionality.  To download the new SDK, login to your AdMob account, select your iPhone app, and click on Install Code.

Join the iPhone SDK Group for future updates: admob-iphone-sdk@googlegroups.com

Mike M.
Product

Advertisers have been clamoring to get more detailed information from the iPhone App Store so they can accurately assess marketing effectiveness, including the return from advertising spend. There have been a number of excellent blog posts on this topic that are worth reading.

Starting today this is no longer an issue for AdMob’s advertisers. AdMob’s new Download Tracking service allows app developers to track downloads driven from AdMob’s App Store ads. For the first time, advertisers can accurately monitor App Store conversion rates – clicks on an ad that lead to a completed download of the advertised application – enabling them to precisely measure their return from advertising on AdMob’s network.  Advertisers can use Download Tracking to view and track multiple applications and drill down to look at conversion rates by specific ad and for specific dates.

Download Tracking works like this:

AdMob’s advertisers are already using this new information to write better ads, calculate their return on ad spend, tune their App Info pages, and develop better pricing strategies. A limited group of iPhone applications began testing AdMob’s Download Tracking in December, and the aggregate data already highlights some interesting trends:

• Free applications have an average conversion rate of 10 percent, significantly higher than the average 1 percent conversion rate for paid applications.
• Games generally have higher conversion rates than other categories of applications, up to a 100 percent improvement over non-game applications at similar price points.
• The App Store is an effective distribution platform for free applications. The average acquisition cost for free applications is under $1.00, significantly less than average application download costs on the PC Web.

It’s easy to get started. If you’re already serving AdMob ads in your App, you’re automatically set up. If not, you can integrate the tracking code by adding a small code snippet to your App, or using our HTTP API to report new downloads to AdMob. For more details, log into your account on admob.com and visit Download Tracking or check out the AdMob Developer Wiki.

Mike M.
Product

This month marks the one year anniversary of the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report, our monthly snapshot of the handset data we see from the billions of ads we serve each month.

AdMob’s network has experienced explosive growth in the past year, more than tripling in size.  When we put out the first Mobile Metrics Report last summer, AdMob had just celebrated serving the 5 billionth ad in our history, and this past month alone we served nearly 5 billion!

This growth has truly been worldwide.  Take a quick look at the list on page 3 of report at the growth by countries.  We found it particularly exciting that of the Top 20 countries in this month’s report, 15 of them had their traffic at least double from September 2007 to September 2008.

The iPhone has been a big part of the mobile growth story over this past year, with a real spike in the last couple of months. We see consistently strong usage of this popular device across all of the markets it is available in.  In fact, 40 percent of the 103m iPhone requests are from outside the US, with 14 countries – including Canada, the UK, Japan, and France – sending more than 1 million requests in September 2008.

This international strength is why the iPhone is higher in the worldwide rankings (#4) than in the US (#7). We know there continues to be a lot of interest in the iPhone and will provide a geographic breakout of iPhone traffic in the coming months.

Visit www.admob.com/metrics to download any of the AdMob Mobile Metrics Reports from the past year or send an email to metrics@admob.com to sign up for the monthly email distribution list.

We love to get feedback, so send us an email and tell us what you do or don’t like about the report.

Jason Spero
VP Marketing