How To Monetize Software Effectively To Increase Revenue

Monetization platforms monetize your software for you, so you can spend your time focusing on what you love: writing great code. These platforms, such as the industry-leading CodeFuel product suite, serve the dual functions of monetization and promotion.

If you haven’t heard of these toolboxes, it’s not very surprising. Monetization platforms are a relatively recent development in the marketing world. But, given their solid rate of growth and the amount of value they add to the marketing industry, they are clearly on their way to becoming global standards.  

Pick a Platform

There aren’t many high-quality platforms to choose from. Most of those that do exist are only following in the footsteps of CodeFuel.

When you evaluate potential contenders, however, examine these factors to find out which one leads the pack:

Features and Benefits – The first thing you’ll want to check is certainly the features and benefits that the product suite offers…if it even is a product suite. In many cases, monetization platforms aren’t actually platforms at all: they’re simple advertising tools.

A full-service platform should include:

  • Monetization Solutions
  • Promotion Solutions
  • Multiple Advertising Options
  • Analytics
  • Fast Integration
  • Advanced API
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
  • And So On

Company History – Take a look at the company’s track record, size, valuation, and so on. Some companies have just started up, while others have a history of growth and expansion. Visit third-party websites to view the company’s reputation.

Quality Partners and Users – High-quality users are the kind that converts, and high-quality partners are those whose judgment you would trust. Do they develop apps that you would feel comfortable advertising? If so, great, because these are the types of apps you can use to help monetize your installs.

Choose the Right Tools for the Job

Naturally, you won’t need every tool in the monetization chest, but you may be able to use more than one. Examine what the platform has to offer and see if it fits your needs.

Here are a few examples of the types of tools that will help you monetize your app, browser extension, or website:

Smart Installer – A pay-per-install program advertises third-party offers during the installation process, and each time someone converts on an offer, you earn money. The installation can be customized to fit your brand and optimized to boost conversions.

Search Monetization – Search monetization is an innovative monetization method that includes both a search function and a monetization function. This ingenious strategy adds value to the app and the user, without overtly marketing to them. Each search earns you money.

Targeted Advertising – The most effective ad networks are often the most specialized. CodeFuel’s DisplayFuel, for instance, cultivates a select inventory that is specifically designed for software developers.

Analytics – The analytics hub will be your window into your monetization campaign. You will want analytics data that is both easy to understand and easy to customize if the need arises.

This set of tools offers something for just about every developer. You may only use one tool or you may use them all. But once you’ve started, it’s time to track your campaign.

Analyze and Improve

After you’ve chosen your network, picked your tools, and started your campaign, you’ll need to analyze and improve your marketing funnel.

Don’t worry, monetization platforms make this a piece of cake.

Pay attention to the most important information first, such as the number of conversions, downloads, and abandonment rates. As time goes on, you’ll be able to make use of more advanced analytics features, real-time reporting, and custom functions.

Monetization Platforms and Conversion Funnels

Don’t be scared by marketing terminology. “Conversion funnel” is the only one you should be concerned about. The conversion funnel is simply another name for the sales funnel.

The sales funnel is the old idea that customers go through four stages on their way to the final purchase: awareness, interest, desire, and conversion.

Monetization platforms allow you to develop the entire funnel simultaneously, from conversion to promotion.

Promote

The final step to monetizing your software with monetization platforms is promotion. After all, without growth, you won’t be able to get the traffic you need to earn money.

Fortunately, you’ll find that monetization solutions, such as specialized ad networks and pay-per-install networks, are ideal solutions for software promotion. The very same monetization platform can also serve you as a promotion platform. 

 

As you can probably see, monetization platforms are complete solutions for developers, software publishers, and advertisers. From ad-powered monetization to search monetization and analytics, the right monetization platform will take you from zero to 60 in the amount of time it takes you to insert some code. 

5 Marketing Benefits You Should be Bundling with Software Now

Software bundles are product suites that contain multiple applications. They are frequently used to combine multiple small apps, tools, extensions, or plugins into a single package. For instance, you could purchase a bundle of WordPress plugins or Photoshop extensions.

Since selling an individual plugin is often not possible, developers will often package multiple tools together in order to make a viable sale. While you can package your own apps and plugins together, it’s often more feasible to work with others when creating your software bundle.

Doing so carries a number of benefits that can give you edge in marketing and monetization.

How?

Here are 5 of the top reasons.

1. New Partners

No developer is an island, and bundles are proof of that. When you work together with other developers, you build connections with other companies and individuals who can be your partners in business.

In marketing there is an awful lot of emphasis on the competition, but sometimes not enough on non-competitors. Forming relationships and pooling resources is sometimes the best way to climb the ladder and become successful.

More successful companies are excellent resources that can help you further your career, while smaller fish help reinforce your own position as an authority in your industry. Besides, who knows how they could help you down the line?

2. Bigger Audience

Another benefit to partnering up and bundling is growing your audience. The more partners who are involved, the more audiences you’ll have access to. Since each partner will undoubtedly let their followers know about the software bundle, you’ll gain exposure to that audience as well.

Promotion is one of the primary reasons you should consider bundling your software. While many developers shun the idea if the bottom line won’t see a big enough impact, it’s often best to look at it as a marketing investment. It’s very unlikely that bundling will hurt your business in any way.

In fact, the opposite is usually true. If, for example, two developers pool their audiences, revenue-share programs can often earn more money for each developer, even if they charge the same price for their bundle as for the individual app. Why?

As mentioned below, a bundle enhances the value of a product. If you include two apps for the price of one and double the audience pool, you are likely to see more than double the number of purchases, due to this enhanced value.

The end result?

3. More Money

If you do your math right, the aggregated demand of your audiences combined with the enhanced value of the bundle will bring in a larger net income. In other words, if you create or join a bundle, you’ll be able to see a return on investment.

On its own, a plugin can be difficult to monetize, unless it has an extensive range of features and provides serious value to the customer.

Given the increased value and demand for a bundle, however, that plugin can potentially earn more money, in addition to the other marketing benefits and networking benefits mentioned here.

4. Portfolio Experience

For new and intermediate developers, extensions and plugins are ideal ways to get your feet wet. And a portfolio piece looks that much better when it has been included in a bundle along with product from other well-established companies. This way, you can point to the project and its reception: the number of downloads, the ratings, the revenue, and so forth.

It can be daunting and difficult to jump headfirst – or even feet first – into software development. And if you don’t yet have the technical knowledge, it makes sense to take baby steps towards that goal. But just because you start small doesn’t mean you have to go unnoticed.

5. Enhanced Value

A sole plugin has much less value than a suite of products. This enhanced value increases the likelihood that you’ll gain all of the above benefits, such as increased recognition and income. Products that are more valuable in a customer’s eyes will also reflect better on your company. 

It is for this reason that subscription models like Netflix are so successful. Despite the service’s low monthly cost, it has been able to outstrip the traditional a la carte model used by other movie rental outlets.

A Word of Advice

When you bundle your products, ensure that you are adding value to the complete package. Don’t include software that you yourself wouldn’t use or recommend. If, for instance, there is persistent or annoying software, this could have a negative impact on your business instead of a positive one.

Finally, it should be noted that there is another use of the term bundling. The other usage of “bundling” is almost synonymous with pay-per-install, where you include third-party apps with your main software program and earn income when users install those apps. This is also a common monetization strategy, implemented successfully by advertising industry leaders like CodeFuel.

 

Happy bundling!

Use Marketing Psychology to Get More from Your Bundled Software

Bundled software – software packages that contain several individual programs – are a great way for developers to increase their exposure, improve their portfolio, and earn more money.

So how exactly does bundled software appeal to consumer psychology? And how can you use bundles to get more from your customers?

Use Bundles to Control Supply and Demand

Supply and demand, the age-old economics terms, refer to the volume of available product versus the consumer’s desire for that product. Generally, supply and demand work together with the marketplace’s competition to set a product’s price –  in this case, a software bundle.

But, for quite a while, marketers have been manipulating the perception of supply and demand to alter the price of a product. If you artificially limit supply, then you can increase the demand and the price. And if you are able to generate demand, you can increase the price.

Software bundles are mechanisms that automatically make use of certain marketing concepts to manipulate both supply and demand. But by setting artificial limitations and by taking advantage of the benefits that bundling offers, you can affect both factors.

At first glance, supply may not seem to have anything to do with software bundles, since digital goods can be reproduced on-demand, ad infinitum.

And though physical supply, manufacturing, and the supply chain have no effect on the price of a product, demand – along with the production costs – do have an effect on the price.

Using Scarcity to Increase the Perceived Value

To get around this, marketers and advertisers have long been using artificial scarcity to affect the pricing and order volume of products. By placing a limitation on your product, you increase its perceived value, with the goal of increasing the demand for the product.

Short-term bundling is a tactic frequently used by companies such as Envato, a marketplace for digital goods. By discounting prices and only offering bundled content for a limited time, they increase conversions and revenue.

Here are a couple examples of limitations you can use to enhance the value of your bundle in the customer’s eyes:

Use deadlines. A limited time offer works, because customers know that the price tag will go up after a certain period of time. If you drop the price of your bundle for a limited time, or only offer the bundle for a fixed time frame, you’re automatically creating scarcity and demand.

Only offer your product in a specific bundle. Even if a smaller piece of software, such as a plugin or extension, can’t stand on its own, it may look more valuable if it is only available as part of another software bundle.

Only offer a set quantity. If you advertise a limited edition bundle to a set number of customers, then they are guaranteed something unique. The artificial limitation of supply and the principle of scarcity drives up demand, and can also drive up the price.

Play Up the Social Proof

In addition to scarcity, social proof is another marketing concept that affects consumer demand. Social proof refers to the idea that the reputation of a product, service, or company can be improved by the quality of the companies associated with it.

In the same way that a man is judged by the company he keeps, a company is also judged by the company it keeps. When you bundle your software, your software, your work, and your company gain the social proof associated with your partner companies.

Even if your company is completely new, you will gain a measure of authority, not to mention market exposure, simply by including your software in a bundle.

For instance, a lone plugin on a basic website doesn’t have as much social proof as a plugin that is part of a complete suite of products being offered by ten different partner developers.

The perceived increase in value, then, will warrant a price increase.

Exclusivity

Closely tied to the idea of social proof and artificial scarcity is exclusivity. By placing quantity limitations or limited time frames on your bundle, you will also promote the idea that your bundle is “exclusive.”

With this concept, consider the VIP table at a fancy restaurant or club. The VIP table or the scarce software bundle appeals to the self-esteem of the user, who wants to be part of the in-crowd. Limited editions, baseball cards, and so forth are all examples of exclusivity in action.

By creating a unique software bundle, in one sense you are automatically creating an exclusive product, simply by packaging together a handful of other products that already exist.

 

Bundling is a staple marketing and monetization tactic that every developer should test. With a little artificial scarcity and a bit of marketing finesse, you can use software bundles to work “supply” to your benefit, generate demand, and earn more money. 

Software Marketing in 2024: 5 Tips for Getting the Word Out

Software marketing in 2024 isn’t the same as it was five or ten years ago. Gone are the days when you can create a quick-and-dirty app for quick-and-easy profits. In most cases, a single app needs to form part of an ongoing, long-term business and marketing plan.

With that in mind, it’s best to build a product that adds lasting value to customers, so they stay engaged for the long term. Loyal users make more money, aid your reputation, and fuel your business growth.

Here are five tips for developing a long-term, successful software marketing plan in 2024.

1. Target Your Advertising

Advertising is becoming a complex science. To be successful, you need to know who your audience is, where they spend their time, and how to target them.

Who – Most analytics, advertising networks, and marketing platforms offer sophisticated targeting. Depending on the advertising platform, you’ll be able to target gender, geographic locale, age groups, education level, interests, relationship status, and so forth. This information is extremely powerful and has a big impact on conversion rates. Use user testing and analytics to gather as much of this information as possible.

Where – Though you want to know where they are in the real world, you’ll also want to know where your users spend their time online. Knowing the “who” will help you find out if they spend more time on certain social networks, on certain websites, on certain apps, and on which devices and operating systems.

How – So now that you know all about your audience, how do you target them? Choose the right advertising platforms. If your audience spends time on Facebook, then Facebook is clearly a good option for advertising. If a niche audience spends a lot of time on a set of niche websites, make sure that your advertising networks or marketing platforms can advertise on those websites.

Targeting the right users is half the battle.

2. Automate the Right Parts of Your Marketing

Marketing automation is an essential asset for online marketers. When used correctly, automation can give you a competitive edge; when it is misused, it can sound artificial. Here a few things you should automate:

Data Gathering – Keep track of what’s going on in your industry through tools such as Google Alerts, RSS Feeds, Digg, and similar aggregators.

Auto-Responding and Auto-Posting – Automatic responses to inquiries, social media follows, blog comments, and emails are fine. Some automatic social media posting is fine, but too much can seem artificial. Some marketing firms have found that automatic social media posts lowers the number of followers, likes, and so on.

Custom Triggers – Easy-to-use tools like IFTTT (if this then that) allow you to set up triggers between online channels that automatically perform another action. For example, each time someone follows you on a social media channel, you can automatically send them a thank you message. Programmers will probably be able to create custom scripts that perform certain actions under certain circumstances.

In general, when automating your marketing, auto-responses are fine. But avoid automating your online socializing, such as commenting, Facebook posts, Tweets, and so forth. People can tell.

3. Use Marketing Platforms

Marketing platforms, such as Grow Mobile and CodeFuel’s monetization products give developers an array of marketing tools.

Grow Mobile, for example, gives you access to multiple ad networks in one handy interface. Instead of tracking and engaging multiple campaigns on multiple networks, you can follow all your campaigns under one roof. Tracking analytics, ROI, and customer value becomes much easier.

In a way, this could be considered a form of automation. Elsewhere on this blog, we discuss monetization platforms and marketing platforms in depth, and their future role in online marketing.

As with other marketing automation tools, these platforms are particularly useful – and practically necessary – for any developer who wishes to remain competitive.

4. Use a Pay-Per-Install Program and In-App Ads

Pay-per-install software works by presenting advertisements during the download process. You can tweak and customize the installation process the same as you can with any other conversion funnel. Split-testing and analytics allow you to boost conversion rates and your revenue.

Once your download is completed, you want to keep making money. That’s what in-app ads are for. Using the information you gather about your audience, choose an appropriate ad network that targets the right users.

Keep your ads streamlined, unobtrusive, and as relevant and integrated as possible. Some highly relevant ad formats, such as recommendation engines, actually work with a program to add value, which increases conversions that much more.

5. Get Listed

Get your app listed wherever you can as lists are amongst the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. Here are some others to consider:

Software Directories – Find a software directory that allows you to use a pay-per-install program, and use the directory to get in front of thousands upon thousands of users.

App Stores – App stores aren’t just for smartphones any more – Windows 8 and Mac have their own app stores. Store listings is a must for any developer.

Top Ten Lists – Bloggers love top ten lists, so find your nearest niche blogger and let them know about your app. If the app is good enough, it may be included in their next top ten list.

Affiliate Networks – If you charge for your product, get listed on an affiliate network. With the right commission, your software will get picked up by affiliates, who will end up marketing your software for you.

Pay-Per-Download Networks – Another way to earn money and get the attention of marketers is on pay-per-download networks, which often have affiliate programs of their own.

These are just a few tips to help you improve your software marketing. For more, check out our blog.

A Guide to CodeFuel Conversion Rates

Monetization’s a hot topic these days. Anyone who’s built an app or wants to build one needs to know how to earn money from it. We’re swimming in an ocean of free, freemium, ad-powered, and paid apps, which means choosing the right monetization strategy for yours can be overwhelming. Should you handle your own advertising and marketing, hand it over to affiliates, or can you find a one-stop shop to meet all your needs?

When it comes to monetization, you’ll need to solve a few key problems. You’ll need to be able to reach your audience, convert your audience, and generate revenue.

The right monetization platform solves all of these problems and gives you the tools you need to succeed in a saturated marketplace.

Reach and Revenue

Reaching the right people with your software is a distribution problem.

Are you equipped to solve it?

Software distribution can mean a couple things. On the one hand, it can refer to the actual deployment of software. On the other hand, it can refer to the distribution of software to the target audience. This latter definition is one of the cardinal problems that developers face. Getting a product into the hands of the end users is, after all, a marketing and advertising problem.

The right monetization platforms solve the distribution problem. They give you access to their extensive network of partners and users. When you advertise your product, you’ve got immediate reach to a whole network of people.

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

The right monetization platforms also solve the monetization problem. And they do it the same way they solve the reach problem: through advertising. Only this time, you get to earn money by integrating ads into your app, into your installer, and so forth.

Now, not all monetization platforms operate through advertising. Some use affiliate deals or other forms of third-party payments. In either case, however, you are earning revenue by promoting other companies’ products.

Choose Your Monetization Wisely

All monetization platforms aren’t created equal. Some offer higher payouts than others. Some have better reach. Some offer higher conversions.

And some do all of the above.

CodeFuel’s conversion rates are best in class, CodeFuel’s reach is higher, and CodeFuel’s payouts are better. We have over 260,000 active publishers and a global network of users. We use our worldwide reach to bring together software developers, publishers, advertisers, and users.

We rose to the top of the class by being the best in the world at monetization, and here’s how:

CodeFuel’s Cutting the Edge of the Cutting Edge Advertising

There are some problems with “traditional” online advertising strategies.

For one thing, they don’t work. Banner blindness affects everyone, which means that many people aren’t seeing banner ads any more. Ads that blink, pop, and blast your content in front of users also doesn’t work. What it does do is annoy people.

We provide advertising that is contextual, relevant, and useful. Our search feeds integrate seamlessly into apps, so users don’t feel like they’re being marketed to.

CodeFuel’s Conversion Rates are Best in Class

We know how to be the best: test, test, test. We give our customers access to state-of-the-art analytics and split-testing tools, so that user satisfaction stays high and conversions stay high.

From customizable installers to relevant search feeds, the end user is constantly being given exactly what they need. And the advertising funnel can continually be refined to optimize conversions and improve the user experience.

CodeFuel Designs for Conversion

To us, the funnel is everything. Our analytics are specifically designed to give you an immediate, actionable picture of your funnel. Our reporting is in real-time, so you can respond right now to situations and trends as they occur.

Monetization through Optimization

Monetization and optimization go hand in hand. Your ROI depends on how well you optimize your funnel. That’s why we focus on it, and that’s why we give our customers the latest analytics and testing tools. That’s why CodeFuel’s conversion rates are best in class. And that’s why we’re the best monetization platform on the market.

Our products let you reach your customers and your revenue goals. We bring together the world’s best partners and engage a worldwide network of users to help you monetize your software. Our tools give you the ability to craft and customize advertising funnels and revenue channels that work specifically for your products and your customer base.

When it comes to choosing the right monetization platform, there really is no choice.