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How to monetize free games. CPA?

by madmole
10 replies
I have a couple of free games I created and game mods I made for other games. I get 200,000 downloads a year on one, and the others have gotten at least a million downloads total. If I updated the games, traffic would increase too.

The games have their own method of monetization, but it has fallen way short of my expectations, so one of my fans suggested I try CPA.

Any advice on a company to go with? I can create the products and get major numbers of downloads. I just have no clue about how to get started with CPA, and the couple my business partner looked at he thought they were phishing for social security #'s and such.

I'd prefer one that maybe uses paypal, or simply a really reliable company that actually pays.

Any advice welcome. Thanks in advance.
#cpa #free #games #monetize
  • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
    Sign up to blamads.com and you can make people sign up to cpa offers (making you money) before downloading your game. Once they sign up, your game will unlock for them to download. it's really that simple. Your affiliate manager can help you further. And if you have THAT many downloads, you'll get accepted easily, and perhaps become rich
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  • Profile picture of the author lotsofsnow
    The market leader for this is CPAlead.com. They are easy to work with and pay on time.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarketingVet09
      Originally Posted by hpgoodboy View Post

      The market leader for this is CPAlead.com. They are easy to work with and pay on time.
      I've heard a ridiculous amount of bad things about cpa lead lately.. And besides, from what I can gather from their website video, they only offer surveys.. Blamads has a wider variety of things that would be catered to teen boys, and plus they pay more than "around 1 dollar (what the video on cpalead site says)" per conversion.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulie888
        Originally Posted by Jusumax View Post

        I've heard a ridiculous amount of bad things about cpa lead lately.. And besides, from what I can gather from their website video, they only offer surveys.. Blamads has a wider variety of things that would be catered to teen boys, and plus they pay more than "around 1 dollar (what the video on cpalead site says)" per conversion.
        I definitely concur. CPALead was doing well last year, but recently things seem to have gone downhill for them, including reduced payouts and even serious allegations of not paying for all conversions. Blamads is much more appealing to me as well, and I really like the fact it has the highest payouts that I know of (for incentivized offers) and is affiliated with the EWA network.
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        • Profile picture of the author madmole
          Originally Posted by P.Sharma View Post

          Why not just call them directly and ask them how you could help THEM make more money??? And what is the problem so that you can fix that
          They had some kind of script error on their system. I emailed them and they fixed it pretty quickly, so I just now got registered. Hopefully they approve my application.

          Originally Posted by paulie888 View Post

          I definitely concur. CPALead was doing well last year, but recently things seem to have gone downhill for them, including reduced payouts and even serious allegations of not paying for all conversions. Blamads is much more appealing to me as well, and I really like the fact it has the highest payouts that I know of (for incentivized offers) and is affiliated with the EWA network.
          What is considered a high payout? I would be happy to make even 10 cents per download on my apps, I could easily get a million downloads a year just by updating and posting the news.
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  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    Hope you get answers from a big time game operator, in the mean time:

    It sounds like the recommendation might have been for a CPA Gateway, which can be tacked onto an existing site to force visitors to complete a CPA offer before gaining access. Usually the payoff for the visitor must be substantial, I imagine like time in a role play world. One guy would setup a poker tournament for the cost of the winners prize, like $25 and have players access it through the gateway. Some of the CPA offers don't require a credit card, they may be selling the visitor contact info to marketers.

    Yea some of the most sleazy deceptions are tied to CPA offers

    A class action lawsuit was brought against Zynga & Facebook for facilitating deceptive CPA offers through the zwinky toolbar.




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  • Profile picture of the author madmole
    Wow, lots of feedback already, I'm impressed. Bear with me as I am a novice at this, but I am a veteran game developer (16 years). I can generate a large number of downloads. I would prefer a method that doesn't take the user very long to enter in some info, and then they get access to my file, and I get paid something for every lead, rather than hope for a conversion.

    Is there something out there that fits this? I'm not totally against a conversion method, but I'd rather have a dime from a million people for sure, than a 1-3% chance of making 10 dollars from a conversion I guess. My experience with people wanting free games is they are cheap and probably won't buy anything anyway, so I'd rather make something for sure than a possible maybe.
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    • Profile picture of the author madmole
      Well I tried signing up to CPAleads and they rejected my application. They wanted to know more about my site, so I sent a detailed email to the guy, but didn't hear back from them yet. Is it uncommon for game sites to use cpa offers? Are gamers not a good target audience for a conversion?

      I then tried blamads but for some reason could not even get past the registration part, it kept giving me some kind of script error.

      Any more feedback guys?
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      • Profile picture of the author P.Sharma
        Originally Posted by madmole View Post

        Well I tried signing up to CPAleads and they rejected my application. They wanted to know more about my site, so I sent a detailed email to the guy, but didn't hear back from them yet. Is it uncommon for game sites to use cpa offers? Are gamers not a good target audience for a conversion?

        I then tried blamads but for some reason could not even get past the registration part, it kept giving me some kind of script error.

        Any more feedback guys?
        Why not just call them directly and ask them how you could help THEM make more money??? And what is the problem so that you can fix that
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  • Profile picture of the author Thomas W
    You should just collect the information yourself and do whatever you want with the data.. Assuming you told them that their information will be shared by third parties.

    There are plenty of lead brokers would gladly take your data from you.

    Alternative solution, would be to code your game to make sure it's connected online and sell adspace to either adsense

    Finally create a much better version if you paid upgrade. This is the model that is used on Iphone and Android AP marketplace. There usually a free and paid version

    Finally you can see JV with another Software company. I forgot what the actual term is but I remembered I installed this free software and in the middle of the installation it asked me if i wanted to install something else at the same time.
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