Mobile content monetization platform TapJoy announced today that it is partnering with some of the top iOS and Android application developers to help bring ad-funded payment options to more than 10,000 apps. TapJoy’s payment platform leverages virtual goods, currencies and banner ads to increase developers’ app revenues.
OMGPOP, Moblyng, Craneballs Studios, Game Circus and Spry Fox are the developers that have signed on with TapJoy. According to the TapJoy press release, the company’s partners have a global reach of 250 million consumers with 30 million daily active users. Mobile advertising options are proliferating for developers looking to leverage their virtual currencies but also acquire new users to their existing long tail of apps. The question for every app developer out there has become: “How do I get paid?” There are now more options than ever.
Last week we reported that Nexage has hit eight billion mobile impressions per month with a focus towards premium content like the National Football League, Angry Birds and the Associated Press. TapJoy does not do impressions but it does register a million completions of in-app advertising and virtual goods payments per day. Puppy World (OMGPOP) and Overkill (Craneball Studios), among others, can now enjoy an additional revenue source for apps released with the “freemium” model.
TapJoy employs a “pay per” model that rewards users for completing actions. Those actions could be downloading another application in TapJoy’s or the developer’s network, or a specific action within the application or game. TapJoy tracks these actions through a partnership with Apsalar.
Consumers do not always trust the action-reward model, though it has proven to be lucrative for developers. TapJoy has drawn the ire of Apple in the past with its “pay-per-install” practice, prompting Apple to say that TapJoy “is destroying the user experience and threatening the entire freemium model.” For apps and developers booted from the Apple App Store because of Apple’s policy changes, TapJoy set up a $5 million fund for developers to port from iOS to Android. That seems like a good publicity move for TapJoy but does not specifically help developers who had been doing well in the App Store.
