Promoting your own apps - AdMob in-house ad campaigns

As I've mentioned in my previous blogs, the amount an app will earn you is relative to the number of installs you have. To get installs, you need many things, from a great app to a marketing strategy.

So how can you market your own app on a budget?

One thing I have trialed this week for the first time is using AdMob's in-house ad campaigns. Essentially, you sacrifice showing someone else's ad in your app (which affects your income) in order to show ads for your own apps. It costs you nothing (except lost revenue..) but in theory it should build up more downloads for your other apps and make you more money long term.

In only 1 week I've found this to be a very effective way of launching a new app. You can build on the success of your other apps and help your new app get traction. It's great. But it's not free. You will notice a drop in income to begin with (after a week, I'm still down daily on what I'd usually get) as I'm showing a lot of my own ads. I'm basically replacing all my banner ads with my own ads. I'd estimate it costs me about $1 per install that I'm getting out of my advertising in lost revenue.

However, if my new apps start to grow and get organic installs, long term is should be a winning strategy - I'll report back with my findings. Any tips on how best to do in-house ad campaigns please add a comment to start the discussion!