Hello, I am just making my app in my Self hosted Buzztouch server and i see an option for allowing advertisements on a screen on my app, I was wondering if some could tell me about it and how to set it up?

That's not functional yet. To do advertising you need to ad the appropriate SDK to your app. Which OS, iOS or Android ? Fred

ohh, thought it was as it was an option :/ Its IOS

Actually I believe that it should work for iOS. If you select Allow Advertising (or whatever the exact term is) for a screen, and then you sign up for iAds, then you should have advertising show up on those screens you turn it on for. What does NOT work at this time is linking things with AdMobs and other publishers via the control panel. This should work for iOS, but will require you to sign up for iAds and complete all the necessary paperwork. Mark

Mark, Thank you very much. I shall have a look around, does iAd's cost or does Apple take a slice of the money? Cameron

Hi Cameron, Every advertising program out there will take a cut of the profits...it's just how they make money. iAds does not cost to join (though you do have to be part of the Apple Developer Program), and you get 70 cents from each dollar you make. It literally takes nothing to set up on the buzztouch side except for deciding which screens you want ads to show up on. It's that simple. Mark

Mark, This sounds like a good thing! What i was planning was to have have advertising on pages from the more menu onwards, about app, share via t...... Or should i stay away from advertising on paid apps?

Well, personally, I don't like advertising on paid apps. After all, I already gave you money for the app...so why should I have to "pay" again via advertising!? My recommendation is to either go all free, and have it be advertising supported (you'll probably get more downloads that way anyway), or make it good enough that tons of people will pay to download it (and not get any apps). One of my apps...AZ Fishing Spots...started out as a 99 cents apps. I wasn't getting tons of downloads (very, very few), so I made it free and it skyrocketed. I then added ads (waiting for that version to be approved). Just my two cents! Mark

I see your point i was wondering about that, I may make a Lite/Free version with limited usage and have ads on that, and if they want no adds and more features they can buy paid app. I have think it will be a paid app and see how it goes, but i am putting a lot of effort into making it, so i need to make an income from somewhere. Paid app or advertising Thank you for your help

I'd start of as a paid app, and let the market tell you if it's worth it to them! You'll be able to tell by downloads if people think it's worth paying for or not. I did a Lite version of my AZ Fishing Spots app as well...got tons of downloads on that, and very few conversions to fully paid. That all told me that people just didn't want to pay for the info, no matter how cool I thought the app was. The trend these days are towards "freemium" apps...free apps with paid content in them. But, again, it's a fine balance. I don't really like the apps where I have to pay money to get the good stuff. If I think it's good from the start, I'm willing to fork out money for a fully functional app. Let us know how it goes! It's always a good data point for everybody to know success or no success. Mark

If you move on to Android, I'd recommend going free, unless you have a blindingly brilliant and original app. You can regularly find apps with paid and free versions with 500k> free downloads and <50 paid downloads!

Good point on the Android part! Is it even possible to make serious money with Android on a paid app?!

I don't think it is Mark. Even apps like Angry Birds were forced to go free on Android. Having said that, good money can be made with advertising, even with nutters leaving one stars because they don't like ads but don't want to pay! What can you do? Don't even have a right to reply! It's a flawed and twisted system. Love it!

Lets qualify "good money" mark. I make about 100-150 per month on my five apps combined that are on droid, however they are "ultra niche". The are designed for Boy scout leaders who have droids. So not only do you have to beinterested in paying for an app, you have to have a droid, and be a leader (a scout would not find the apps useful),and be involved int eh scouts in the first place. That being said, I built the apps ONCE. I do NO ADVERTISING to push them, every month I get approximately 2 tanks of gas or one Sushi Date with my wife on the house via Google Play. Not money that will ever change my life, but I enjoy the concept of work once, get paid. i call that pretty darn GOOD MONEY....lmao. About to launch all the apps on Apple...hopefully they do quite a bit better...i have heard that paid apps on apple do 2 to 3 times or more than what they do on droid. Sure would be cool if all my developing ended in something as cool as "free gas" for the rest of my life. Well, i can DREAM can't I? lol Cheers, Al :-)

Hi All, Decided to drop a post in this thread as it seems that you all would have a good idea about becoming a free app (with advertising) or staying paid. My app is basically only for Australians who like travel and have IOS. https://itunes.apple.com/app/aus-visa/id556424470?mt=8 Now over the first two weeks, I have had about 80 downloads. It's selling for $0.99. Providing its only just been released would you consider I stay paid? or go free? My only concern if I go free, is that it doesn't have a large enough target audience in order to make that amount of money through iAds (just my uneducated thoughts). Would love to get your perspectives! Thanks, Ben.

Hi @CodeMeNot, My experience with iAds is that it's completely worthless. I literally only made a couple of dollars in revenue over a period of a few months, and that's with around 20 downloads of the free app per day. If you are averaging 40 downloads a week at $0.99 per, I'd stick with that, and not make it free but with iAds. However...part of it depends on how interactive your app is, and how much time they'll spend in it. Just my two cents! Mark

Hey Mark, Thanks for that! Yeh, was thinking the same about keeping it paid. I was wondering about iAds though in a paid app. I feel like if the user has paid for it, they shouldn't be seeing ads. My app isn't overly interactive either. Basically users would use the app probably for average 2 mins - possibly 10 minutes. It's only find out a visa requirement for a country. Thanks again for your input mark! much appreciated.

Howdy! I'm against apps that are charged for and also include advertising. I think we should go one way or the other on it...pay once, or pay each time you use the app. In your instance, with very limited use of the app, it's very unlikely you'll make any meaningful revenue via iAds. Mark

Agree completely mark. Thanks again :)