Expert Tips for Monetizing Your Mobile App
In-app purchases refer to buying goods or services through an application installed on a mobile device. In-app purchases allow you to keep your app for free. You can later release updates or upgrades for the paid app version, feature unlocks, discounted sales, or other app ads. You can significantly profit despite giving the basic app for free. So, monetizing your in-app purchases is a steady source of income for the app.
Types of In-App purchases on iOS:
Consumable: The user gets progress or growth when something is bought as a consumable in your app, for instance, life in a game. The user can buy it, use it, and later repurchase it whenever necessary.
Non-consumable: This is to pay for the app’s premium features. It is a one-time payment done by the user, and there is no expiration date for it.
Auto-Renewable subscription: This is similar to a monthly magazine subscription when users pay for access for a scheduled frequency. The subscription will be automatically renewed.
Non-Renewing subscription: The user can access special features in your app for a specific period. After the expiration, the user has to pay for it again manually to be able to access these features.
The role of in-app purchases in ASO.
- The in-app purchases can show up on your app store listing, in the search result, and help you get featured on the App Store.
- From the search results on the app store, it takes the user directly to your app to finish the in-app purchase, suppose the app is not downloaded yet.
- Apple app store allows you to promote up to 20 in-app purchases, with a promotional image for each to get your IAP listed in search results.
- To scale up your app’s discoverability to secure a high ranking, you have your app and 20 promotional IAP images. It can significantly increase your app’s chances of appearing in the search results.
- IAP presents the best opportunity to gain higher chances to dominate relevant keyword search phrases. This means that if the IAP appears in App Store results, it takes another place below your app, pushing down your competitor below the screen.
- Your search results can be optimized for the app store algorithm to detect popular keywords by effectively using the 30 characters display name and 45 characters for the description.
Importance of in-app purchases for app monetization.
- Each IAP is allocated a title of 30 characters and a description of 45 characters. Therefore, the best way to optimize it is by including the app’s most relevant keywords in these IAP fields.
- Remember to add the most critical keywords in the title and avoid repeating the same in the description.
- You can also alter the visibility of your in-app purchases in the search result according to the order in which your product will appear for the user. For example, if a user has already purchased a app’s special feature, this IAP will not be displayed to them. Instead, they will can view only the in-app purchases that they have not bought yet.
- You can also program in a way that the IAPs are displayed only to those users who have already installed your app.
Other essential requisites for in-app purchases are:
- The IAP’s display image has to be either JPG or PNG format. It should not have round corners and the pixel specification is 1024×1024.
- To promote your in-app purchases, your app must support the SK ProductStore Promotion Controller API; otherwise, your IAP will not be visible in the App Store.