This can be a visitor submit from fellow software program developer, Simon Kravis.
It’s typically stated that software program improvement is just 10% of what’s required to earn cash from software program and I can attest to that. Since 2018 I’ve been growing picture captioning and associated software program, extra as a retirement diversion than a critical supply of earnings (after a profession largely concerned in writing scientific and engineering evaluation software program), within the hope that gross sales earnings would at the very least cowl operating prices. My greatest advertising and marketing instrument has been writing critiques of the category of software program that I produce, and the internet hosting website (Hub Pages) offers some helpful analytics on how usually these are accessed and for a way lengthy. Under is the graph for an article on tagging.
The decline since early 2022 is difficult to elucidate – the article is periodically up to date so the regular decline isn’t on account of diminishing ‘freshness’ – which for Google might be a file Modified date.
Right here is one other overview article profile (Scanning A number of Pictures) exhibiting an identical decline:
However one other (Greatest Photograph Captioning Software program) has held up, although at a low degree.
I provide digital photo captioning software (Caption Pro) on Home windows and Mac platforms, and an iPhone captioning app (CaptionEdit), with the Home windows model courting again to 2017. I additionally provide a part of the performance of Caption Professional on Home windows for auto-cropping scans of multiple paper photos (ImageSplit). On Home windows neither Caption Professional software program downloads or gross sales appear to correlate with overview accesses, regardless of about 1/3 of website online accesses coming from the overview. Nonetheless, downloads do present some correlation with Caption Professional website online classes, as proven within the graph under.
Gross sales don’t correlate with downloads, which maybe explains why most promoting for area of interest merchandise isn’t profitable – it could improve downloads however this doesn’t seem to extend gross sales. The noticed proportion of downloads leading to gross sales for ImageSplit and Caption Professional are 6% and 9% respectively. The shortage of correlation between gross sales and downloads could also be because of the small variety of gross sales per thirty days, which ends up in random fluctuation dominating the outcomes.
The choice to enter the Apple “Walled Backyard” of software program was partly on the prompting of pals quite than a business analysis. Apple Developer membership (costing ~US$100 per yr) is required to forestall software program being blocked from set up by way of being from an unknown writer. Additional prices have been buying a reasonably fashionable Mac on which to carry out improvement, because the App Retailer will solely settle for software program developed utilizing latest variations of the Xcode improvement atmosphere, which can solely run on pretty latest {hardware}. The App Retailer takes a fee of 15% on gross sales, which is sort of cheap when in comparison with the problem of implementing e-commerce on Home windows, the place a PayPal account eases the issue of low-value foreign-currency transactions, however e-commerce plug-ins could cease working after years for no discernible purpose. The overview course of for software program acceptance into the App Retailer is mostly quick, however seemly trivial points can require resubmission. Options which have handed one overview could also be rejected in a later one. The overview course of is mostly quick, however on one event took 4 weeks.
Caption Professional for Mac has been obtainable (by way of the App Retailer) solely since Sep 2021.It seems inside the prime 6 outcomes for a search utilizing “Caption Pictures”, which is the supply for many downloads. About 3.5% of downloads end in gross sales. This determine is way lower than the Home windows model of the identical app, regardless of Mac customers’ status for being extra keen to pay for software program. The iPhone app didn’t seem in any respect initially when looking for “Caption Pictures” within the App Retailer. After 6 months it started showing as outcome quantity 140, after it had 360 downloads. This poor rating efficiency might be as a result of “Caption Pictures” is a extremely popular key phrase utilized by many apps, together with people who solely caption movies. It has had only a few downloads and gross sales, regardless of Apple Search Adverts and Apptimizer campaigns. The variety of downloads elevated dramatically in the course of the Apptimizer marketing campaign between Jan 24 and Feb 2 (as they have been bought) however the change in rating from these downloads didn’t end in any gross sales, maybe as a result of no installs have been bought. The Apple search advertisements marketing campaign (which resulted within the app being proven as an advert 1 in 50 occasions when the search phrase “Caption Pictures” was used) didn’t enormously have an effect on downloads or gross sales. A Fb advert marketing campaign to point out a hyperlink to the app every time “Family tree” or “Family tree Software program” was looked for was additionally unsuccessful, and really costly, as Fb fees by impressions quite than clicks. Further backlinks to the website online have been bought in September 2022 from Hyperlinks Administration in an try to enhance the website online Google rating, however this didn’t seem to have any impact on net visitors.
Mac and Home windows customers contacting me with issues have had a variety of expertise degree – from fully naïve to former programmers. Most have been from the US, which displays the geographic distribution of gross sales. There have many downloads to non-English talking international locations however only a few gross sales.
Some outcomes from the Mac and iPhone Apps are proven under:
On stability, growing for Apple platforms was not a superb business resolution, as some great benefits of a largely captive viewers (fully captive within the case of the iPhone) don’t appear to end in increased charges of downloads or gross sales. Competitors for iPhone apps is so intense that area of interest merchandise with out huge promoting budgets are unlikely to succeed. The identical is prone to apply to Android telephone apps, which anecdotally have a much less rigorous overview course of. My expertise is that promoting and backlink buy for any platform will not be efficient in rising gross sales for area of interest software program.
Simon Kravis runs Aleka Consulting, a small software program and consultancy firm in Canberra, Australia specializing in data administration and providing numerous software program merchandise. He has primarily developed scientific and engineering applications, beginning within the period of paper tape.