My First Month's Ad Revenue [Admob]

[Nemecys]

Hey guys,

You may of seen my previous thread where i shared my recent mobile experience with you and some of the mistakes I made and some of the things I got right.

This time i would like to share with you the money you can make from a game released on Play Store using Admob as a source, I’ve not seen any information about this on the UE4 forums, so i thought it would be nice for other users to see.

So, small bit of backstory,

This game was made in about a week and uses a fair bit of free Epic Games assets and Music allowed for commercial use, the only content I actually made was the game code, mechanics, UI and Loading screens.
If you want an idea of how the Adverts in my game are placed or work you can check out the game below, I HIGHLY recommend you do this so that you understand the Users Experience created with this and it will give you a MUCH stronger idea of how this all comes together.

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Below i have posted a screenshot of my earnings from 9-Dec to 29-Dec.

---

Key Dates
13th Dec - I announced the game on Facebook and Unreal Engine forums for the first time, the day before it was out but i only told a few friends and showed some on my phone.

Here I have posted the day by day information in a list form, so you can see how each day the amount earns varies wildly, and is entirely dependent on the CTR (Click Through Rate).

Here you can see that Interstitial Ad’s are the main source of the impressions and income, people often don’t get enough time to see the Banner in my game, that and the fact its only an “option” means people RARELY pay attention or even click it.

Here you can see the Store Views i get as gathered by AppAnnie.com, its quite a useful website and offers you some nice information for free that I can’t see as clearly on (Its one click on AppAnnie)

So all in all its quite a fun experience, and considering the small amount of effort i spent Advertising and promoting my game (Posting on Facebook) it goes to show the potential of Ad Revenue in general, especially if you can get your game to surpass 1000’s of Installs.

In Total the game has had 35 installs (Literally nothing) but still offers potential even at such a low install rate.
If you’re curious as to how often I actually play ads or how the game is to experience in general, you should check it out on the Play Store and it will give you an idea of the qualtiy of the game I made, and the qualtiy of the production in general.

1st Month
Total Earnings: £8.95

](https://play…com/store/apps/details?id=com.AkariGamesStudio.ChristmasCrunch)

Hopefully this information will give you all an idea of what sort of potential AdMob offers and in general for the mobile community, if you have anymore questions regarding this please post below and I will try and share my experience with it.

Thanks!

[Vetx]

nice work

thank you for sharing with us

[unit23]

Nice! Also because your game looks cool, from what i can tell from screenshots.

Though, event based ads work probably only for that event. So i would guess that there will be now a 11 month “low” period in earnings, and then another spike around December 2017.

Event based ad revenue has also a great potential on . Event based includes seasonal celebrations, or all sorts of ongoing events.

For another spike you need a easter bunny or valentines day runner

[Nemecys]

@Vetx;645784

nice work

thank you for sharing with us

Thanks, It’s nothing special earnings wise, its just something I wanted to share with people as it was information I was looking for myself in the first place!

@unit23;645807

Nice! Also because your game looks cool, from what i can tell from screenshots.

Though, event based ads work probably only for that event. So i would guess that there will be now a 11 month “low” period in earnings, and then another spike around December 2017.

Event based ad revenue has also a great potential on . Event based includes seasonal celebrations, or all sorts of ongoing events.

For another spike you need a easter bunny or valentines day runner

Thanks for your kind words, I was happy the game tied together (kind of) visually, but its definitely rough round the edges!

Yes you would be right, the fact i made a very seasonal product drastically affects the performance of the game as a whole, but yes the great benefit about seasonal games is, they come around and potentially can advertise themselves once a year.

The Idea to take from these sort of projects is their annual revitalization and how to best capitalize on the season or year by reflecting on it accordingly.

Cheers for the comment/advice/good will!!

[gameDNA]

Thanks for sharing your impressions. I think you could have much better revenue if you implement Rewarded Video ads because it converts more than Interstitials.

[Nemecys]

@;645894

Thanks for sharing your impressions. I think you could have much better revenue if you implement Rewarded Video ads because it converts more than Interstitials.

Glad you found it useful!

I couldn’t agree with you more, initially I was very tempted by your UMA Plugin, but because this was a “Test” project, it didn’t seem worth the investment, and allowed me to test the basic level of ad integration UE4 offers.
However if this game had been designed with proper rewards and substituent videos, the experience and revenue would be improved.

Hopefully this information gives people a more realistic expectation of Ad Revenue in the mobile industry in the year of 2017

[Makis]

Thanks for sharing this Nemecys. If you want to try how videos ads perform, check my plugins: .

I can’t find your game though at the play store. Have you restricted any devices and countries?

[gameDNA]

@Nemecys;646570

Glad you found it useful!

I couldn’t agree with you more, initially I was very tempted by your UMA Plugin, but because this was a “Test” project, it didn’t seem worth the investment, and allowed me to test the basic level of ad integration UE4 offers.
However if this game had been designed with proper rewards and substituent videos, the experience and revenue would be improved.

Hopefully this information gives people a more realistic expectation of Ad Revenue in the mobile industry in the year of 2017

Yep but in the serious game I think it’s must-have. More revenue possibilities, better conversion from rewarded videos and ad mediation.

[Nemecys]

@Makis;646838

Thanks for sharing this Nemecys. If you want to try how videos ads perform, check my plugins: .

I can’t find your game though at the play store. Have you restricted any devices and countries?

Hey Makis,

Cheers for the link to your Plugins, I’ve never used Github before, does it work with the “Binary” versions of the engine?
(The ones you download with the Launcher, as i don’t use C++ code/programs)

I checked in the Pricing and Distribution section and it was only listed under 2 Countries, I have now selected all countries.

Out of curiosity do you know if this affects any legal/policy information i would of posted?

I think i originally only chose UK and US because i was SLIGHTLY more aware of their laws, mainly because i also fear statements like these:

I will look around more to see if any devices are restricted, but I certainly didn’t restrict anything manually.

Thanks for pointing that out and commenting!

Game Link:
[

[anonymous_user_a08c0bf2]

Great information about the AdMob revenue. Keep up the good work!

[Makis]

@Nemecys;647058

Hey Makis,

Cheers for the link to your Plugins, I’ve never used Github before, does it work with the “Binary” versions of the engine?
(The ones you download with the Launcher, as i don’t use C++ code/programs)

I checked in the Pricing and Distribution section and it was only listed under 2 Countries, I have now selected all countries.

Out of curiosity do you know if this affects any legal/policy information i would of posted?

I think i originally only chose UK and US because i was SLIGHTLY more aware of their laws, mainly because i also fear statements like these:

I will look around more to see if any devices are restricted, but I certainly didn’t restrict anything manually.

Thanks for pointing that out and commenting!

Game Link:
[

Well ideally you should have terms of policy and terms of privacy for your games. (Most games don’t have…). And if you are releasing all countries you should be aware how you should handle taxes like VAT or other similar taxes. For example handle vat for European union countries, Norway and similar taxes for few other countries when you are selling a game or in app purchases, but for some countries you should check if you have to registered to appropriate authorities.For example i will release my game only to US European Union and few other countries i got confirmation handle the taxes. I think it is easier with Apple since they handle everything for you. Now usually what you will hear is a vast majority of developers don’t comply with it but in the other hand it is not easy to enforce it. But if you want to learn all the details probably you need a expert.

Now regarding the game, i can now download it. It was the countries restriction that prevented me to download it.

Fun game for one week development.Blueprints are indeed amazing. Question: how do you deliver the presents?!

If you would like a bit of feedback/suggestions, you can maybe consider changing the textures to more stylized one with bright colors, i think it will be more aesthetically appealing. Maybe make different unlockable skins/color variations for the character, and use the rewarded videos to earn coins to unlock them. If that is easy for you of course to make them or try to find them from assets stores.

Save maybe a screenshot and share it to your friends(check my sharing plugin). You know things like this.

Regarding the plugins, yes you can use them with the binary version of the engine. It’s easy, you just add at your project an empty c++ class.Save it close it. Then at your project folder add a folde named Plugins. Copy in this folder the plugins you want. Right click on you project and generate visual studio solution. Open visual studio and build. Then open editor. If you are using 4.14 enable plugins from editor settings. Restart and package for android. Everything is available to blueprint nodes. You don’t need to write any code. For more instructions check this thread:https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?127487-FREE-AdColony-AppLovin-Chartboost-UnityAds-Vungle-Sharing-OneSignal-Facebook-Everyplay&p=617273#post617273

If you need any help post there and i would try to help you.

By the way i checked the credits, this guy Kevin Macleod (incompetech) should be a multi-millionaire or something. His royalty free music is everywhere!

Good luck with your game and thanks again for the information about Admob:)

[FrankieV]

Apps that do well as far as ad revenue driven solutions goes are general purpose applications as extension to usability. An app that can send your pictures to any and all of your social network portals would probably do better as to impressions than a video game.

Also check the terms and conditions on your ad contract. A friend of mine worked on a hot game title out of the gate and was bringing in thousands a day in ad $$ but after the 4 days the numbers fell off to almost zero. Turns out the company they went with sold ad revenue sharing in blocks and it turned out they had burned through their block allotment in three days.

Admob is but still read everything and then read it again.

[Nemecys]

@FrankieV;647346

Apps that do well as far as ad revenue driven solutions goes are general purpose applications as extension to usability. An app that can send your pictures to any and all of your social network portals would probably do better as to impressions than a video game.

Also check the terms and conditions on your ad contract. A friend of mine worked on a hot game title out of the gate and was bringing in thousands a day in ad $$ but after the 4 days the numbers fell off to almost zero. Turns out the company they went with sold ad revenue sharing in blocks and it turned out they had burned through their block allotment in three days.

Admob is but still read everything and then read it again.

Yeah thats true, if you create an app that can be used regularly that isn’t already developed by the phone manufacturer. A few years ago that used to be Flashlight apps for me, but that’s since become redundant.
I was always considering making some sort of weird Game/App blend but my ideas don’t seem attractive enough yet.

Ahh really?
That’s news to me, I will definitely check out the terms of my Ad contract, I can’t believe they can be so sneaky as to get free impressions that way.

Thank you for your Advice FrankieV

@Makis;647332

Well ideally you should have terms of policy and terms of privacy for your games. (Most games don’t have…). And if you are releasing all countries you should be aware how you should handle taxes like VAT or other similar taxes. For example handle vat for European union countries, Norway and similar taxes for few other countries when you are selling a game or in app purchases, but for some countries you should check if you have to registered to appropriate authorities.For example i will release my game only to US European Union and few other countries i got confirmation handle the taxes. I think it is easier with Apple since they handle everything for you. Now usually what you will hear is a vast majority of developers don’t comply with it but in the other hand it is not easy to enforce it. But if you want to learn all the details probably you need a expert.

Now regarding the game, i can now download it. It was the countries restriction that prevented me to download it.

Fun game for one week development.Blueprints are indeed amazing. Question: how do you deliver the presents?!

If you would like a bit of feedback/suggestions, you can maybe consider changing the textures to more stylized one with bright colors, i think it will be more aesthetically appealing. Maybe make different unlockable skins/color variations for the character, and use the rewarded videos to earn coins to unlock them. If that is easy for you of course to make them or try to find them from assets stores.

Save maybe a screenshot and share it to your friends(check my sharing plugin). You know things like this.

Regarding the plugins, yes you can use them with the binary version of the engine. It’s easy, you just add at your project an empty c++ class.Save it close it. Then at your project folder add a folde named Plugins. Copy in this folder the plugins you want. Right click on you project and generate visual studio solution. Open visual studio and build. Then open editor. If you are using 4.14 enable plugins from editor settings. Restart and package for android. Everything is available to blueprint nodes. You don’t need to write any code. For more instructions check this thread:https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?127487-FREE-AdColony-AppLovin-Chartboost-UnityAds-Vungle-Sharing-OneSignal-Facebook-Everyplay&p=617273#post617273

If you need any help post there and i would try to help you.

By the way i checked the credits, this guy Kevin Macleod (incompetech) should be a multi-millionaire or something. His royalty free music is everywhere!

Good luck with your game and thanks again for the information about Admob:)

I was originally concerned with all the VAT and Tax Handling, but thanks for giving me a brief overview of that!

Delivering Presents should just require you to TAP on the Houses as your running by (Its a bit buggy, so sometimes you need to be close, sometimes you don’t :P)

Definitely, thankfully they are all from the same set and share a similar style, but you are totally right, its too “Gritty” for its theme, and those ideas for features are great definitely something I want to tackle so i have that skill for future projects.
I was never too sure HOW to handle unlockables on Play, whether it should be local save games or something else.

Thanks for clearing up how to use your Plugins as well, its another aspect of the Engine i’ve been afraid to use just because i know how easy it is to “Develop” your own bugs when trying a new project, so i tried to keep it vanilla first time round.
I will definitely be making use of your Free Plugins in my future projects; QQ: Do you require or desire credit for using the Plugins once the game is released?

Yeah I know, right?

Kevin creates so much free content for us to use, I just hope he’s getting some form of income for his hard work!

@;647127

Great information about the AdMob revenue. Keep up the good work!

Hey ,

Thank you for your kind words and support!

[Makis]

@Nemecys;649521

Delivering Presents should just require you to TAP on the Houses as your running by (Its a bit buggy, so sometimes you need to be close, sometimes you don’t :P)

I was never too sure HOW to handle unlockables on Play, whether it should be local save games or something else.

Thanks for clearing up how to use your Plugins as well, its another aspect of the Engine i’ve been afraid to use just because i know how easy it is to “Develop” your own bugs when trying a new project, so i tried to keep it vanilla first time round.
I will definitely be making use of your Free Plugins in my future projects; QQ: Do you require or desire credit for using the Plugins once the game is released?

Yeah i found how to deliver the presents, need to be closer.

You are welcome for the plugins, no credit required. Feel free to use them as you like.

You can save unlockables locally, most of the games do so.

I am planning to use Playfab services. They have a free tier of their services which will cover most of your needs for now. And they have plugins for Unreal already, both for blueprints and for cpp.