Android App monetisation in South Africa

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Pho3niX90

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Hi Guys and Gals

Has anyone had any luck with google IAP? Is ads still the only way to gain revenue?

Although I have had "success" with ads I still think it degrades the quality of an app, as I have never heard of anyone that likes seeing ads.

I have also tried contacting google and asking them permission to use another IAP provider until they allow south africans to register for a merchant account, however they just give me an automated response with a link to their policies.

So my question is this, what methods have the other developers used instead of AD's, if there even are any?

Just as a further discussion for those that have used ads and still are, what are you average clicks a month and impressions? And what's your average CPC?
 
* I'm not sure if this is against their policies *

You could maybe run your app as a trial or limited version and allow users to pay via something like PayFast to gain access to the full features? Or maybe an ad-free version for paying customers.

Seems like something they shouldn't be allowed to block, since you can release a free app that is restricted to paying customers.
 
That is against their policies sadly. All in app payments must be strictly using googles system, unless the content being bought can be used outside of the app (physical goods, music etc)
 
Not as yet, however tried my luck again by mailing them, and received the below response:
If you're legally able to do business in one of the supported countries listed and you meet the Google Payments Terms of Service requirements for that country, you can register for a Google Payments Merchant account in that country. You can review terms of service by country in the Google Merchant Center Help Center.

Before you can register for a Merchant account in a different country, you'll need to update your Google Payments account with your new legal address. Please note that you can only change your Google Payments address if you don't have a Google Payments or Google Play balance.

So, I have been in contact with = www.yourcityoffice.com and they offer legal address registration in any city you like, so I am going to use an address in london which they also do mail forwarding, cost being around R300 a month.

I just need to double check that if I go this route as suggested by the consultant, would google still pay to an bank account registered in south africa or would they require a bank account in registered country as well.
 
Pho3niX90 said:
That is against their policies sadly. All in app payments must be strictly using googles system, unless the content being bought can be used outside of the app (physical goods, music etc)
Click to expand...
But user log-in isn't prohibited. Could require payment for registration from an external site not even linked to from the app?
 
giggity said:
But user log-in isn't prohibited. Could require payment for registration from an external site not even linked to from the app?
Click to expand...

This could be a work around, however this would obviously add another layer for the user to follow, it would create more negative reviews than anything else.
The problem is as well, do you really want to use another IAP merchant? At this point in time all users that use in app purchases are familiar with the simplicity of google IAP, it takes a second to do a purchase, if you add a layer of purchasing that they have never seen before it might just chase them away.

I am still waiting on a reply from Google regarding the bank account, if all is good I will register it in London and use a local account (obviously if they allow, which I see no reason why they shouldn't).

From ads only this has been my least profitable app, and it's averaging roughly R500 a day via ads. Simple interstitial ads that they have a choice to view to gain "rewards". So imagine they possibilities by incorporating google IAP.
 
So long story short, finally have my merchant account. So all smooth sailing from here on out.
 
That is great news. If you won't mind, can you please confirm your steps? Did you register your address in London and use your own bank account details in South Africa?
 
Illie said:
That is great news. If you won't mind, can you please confirm your steps? Did you register your address in London and use your own bank account details in South Africa?
Click to expand...

Sorry for only replying now.

  1. First I registered an address via "yourcityoffice.com", asked them for an address in London for the cheapest monthly rate. They offer other services as well like mail forwarding to south africa etc
  2. I then created an account on payoneer.com, to receive the funds as google only sends funds to bank accounts located in united kingdom, with payoneer you get a transactional account via Barclays. They send your cash here and you can withdraw it straight into your south african account. What is also cool is that you can order a mastercard free of charge to directly spend money form this account.
  3. Lastly I registered my merchant account on google play, selected UK as my country, used my received address from yourcityoffice, and bank details from payoneer.

I suppose the above can be done with any country, I specifically avoided USA since they are extremely strict since 9/11.

My private banker is also busy looking into an option to create me a account in UK, this would cut out payoneer completely as well.
 
Last edited:
Thank you so much. I appreciate your post and this awesome solution.
 
So,

I have implemented another monetization system along side of admob and google IAP's. My conclusion is as follows:

Google IAP: You have an in app purchase for 1000 coins for $1, users can use purchases with their cash, on top of that google takes 30%
Tapjoy Offers: You can set that for each $1 you earn, a user gets 1000 coins, so users do not have to spend actual cash but can do offers like for example watch a video, download an app etc to earn, and offers are scaled according to your initial 1000 coins for $1 setup. Currency can be anything you like. To make things better there are no royalties taken so higher net profits, it offers analytics as well, push notifications to users that have not opened the app in a while etc. Really impressive system, although I was skeptical at first.

So in a nutshell, I would suggest all developers to make use of tapjoy and to properly implement it. It also complements Google IAP where it will show offers instead of IAP's to users that do not really purchase in app, however for "Whale" users they can be prompted to rather purchase IAPs.

Of these 3 I much prefer tapjoy, tapjoy has made more money in the last 7 days than the other 2 combined for the last 20 days. It seems people are more inclined to pay with their time than actual money, however this might not be the case with all apps. Both my google IAP's and tapjoy offers a 1to1 ratio for cash to money (When in actual fact tapjoy has a higher net profit.)

Sorry if the text above is not properly structured on readable. But this was typed fast just to give more knowledge to developers.
 
@Pho3niX90 Would you mind posting a link to your app? I'm inquisitive to try it out.
 
Hi. Sure no problem.

Its a simulation/gps type monopoly game in a sense. Where you purchase actual real world venues with virtual cash, and earn rent and property values go up as people checkin. There are still tons of features on the table that need to be implemented.

My biggest mistake was not to cloud test it in the beginning on different devices, causing tons of bugs to popup. Users are more inclined to leave a negative rating as opposed to contact the developer.

Here is the link https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=za.co.cyberscene.venuetycoon
 
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