October Data

For a long time, I've been looking for a way to monetize my Playbook apps. It has not been going well. Anyway, since it's November, I thought I'd share my download and sales data for the month of October.

In short:
28646 downloads
142 sales
$0 in ad payouts

From October 1 to 31, my Playbook apps received a total of 28648 downloads, or around 924 per day. About 9000 came from Canada, 7000 from the UK, 3000 from the US, with the rest split amongst various other nations all over the world, including a single download in Brunei.

Mid-week days tended to produce about 30% more downloads than the ends of the week, with Thursday being the most popular day, averaging more than 1300.

My most popular app was GPS Data Master, and my least popular was Psychic Test.

On the sales front, I sold 140 apps and 2 in-app purchases. Purchases come in multiple currencies, so it's hard to figure things out exactly, but after fees I should net about $90. I sold at least one copy of 10 different apps. The top-seller this month was Awesome Sudoku, which moved 60 copies.

On the advertising front, the various ad networks I use on my blogs combined for around 10000 impressions, 100 clicks, and earnings of $1.88, which I will not receive because it's nowhere near the payment threshold. The ads on my Playbook apps had around 38000 impressions, 370 clicks, and earnings of $7.60, which I also will not receive. These amounts will roll over, and I should be eligible for some kind of payout in 4-5 months. Maybe.

Admittedly, the fill rates haven't been great, but based on the CTR and EPC I've been getting, to make a living on ad revenues, I would need every single Playbook owner out there to use one of my apps five times per month. And that's a bachelor apartment-style living, not champagne and caviar. Suffice it to say that I'm not second-guessing my decision to abandon development for RIM products.