Purchasing ads in the Admob network is a method used by many to increase the number of downloads their app receives.

The question is, would it be worth it to purchase ads for your app?

Recently, the owners of Strip Creator, a $1.99 app that allows you to create comic book strips using photo library or camera pictures ran a campaign to test the Admob network.

Ultimately, they were dissastified with the results quickly burning through $500 and realizing that they would need a very large budget to hit one of the more popular top download lists.

Their conclusion was that it is best to only use this sort of advertising for free apps which are much more likely to get downloaded, and they suggest using advertising along with a discount offer within a free app.

You can read the full article here: Fooling Around With AdMob

Please post about any experiences you may have about using Admob for advertising apps below.

[Source: Vivid Apps Blog]

©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

Please go to the latest edition of the iOS App Review Sites listing for the most recent version of this list.

Hi, welcome to another update to my listing of app review sites.  These sites should allow for free links to your apps in one form or another and accept submissions.  If any now force you to pay to get your app listed please post in the comments below, and they will be promptly removed.  If you have an iPhone app review site that you would like added to the list that is actively updated, is not just purely automated, and accepts free submissions please post about it in the comments below.

Once again I’ve tried to only include sites that update, and are more than just iTunes scrapers (which seem to have multiplied dramatically).  I have included some review sites this time that are not specifically iPhone, but could provide you with a good boost.   I did this after finding out a local programmer was able to get an app reviewed by Gizmodo -  and their app really wasn’t anything special – so don’t think your app isn’t good enough.

Please, if you copy and paste this list on your own blog.. link back.  I put in a fair amount of time finding all these and sorting them.  I heard there is actually a service out there now selling this list so beware before paying for this.

These are new sites that were previously not on the list:
http://www.iusethisapp.com/
http://app-reciationreviews.blogspot.com
http://www.macworld.com/appguide/index.html
http://ifanzine.blogspot.com/

The rest of the listings are ranked based on their Compete.com rank.  Lower means more traffic.

http://gizmodo.com – 703
http://arstechnica.com/apple/iphone/apps/ – 2,164
http://www.macworld.com/appguide/index.html – 2,964
http://toucharcade.com – 17,963
http://appsafari.com – 20,008
http://148apps.com – 28,493
http://appadvice.com – 30,224
http://appcraver.com – 35,313
http://iphoneapplicationlist.com 35,793
http://iphonealley.com/reviews/apps/ 38,385
http://appleiphoneschool.com/ – 46,571
http://appvee.com – 63,609
http://apptism.com – 64,156
http://appstoreapps.com 83,324
http://whatsoniphone.com/ – 103,990
http://krapps.com/ 126,102
http://iphoneappreviews.net/ 127,765
http://dailyappshow.com – 182,541
http://freshapps.com/ – 190,649
http://theiphoneappreview.com/ – 219,643
http://reviewmyiphoneapp.com/ – 237,569
http://appshouter.com/ – 250,748
http://nativeiphoneapps.com 331,810
http://slapapp.com/ – 729,423
http://www.imedicalapps.com/- 1,073,964
http://apptheater.com 1,157,874
http://tapcritic.com/ – 2,158,175
http://iphoneblog.de – 2,864,164
http://alliphoneappsreview.com – unknown
http://app-reciationreviews.blogspot.com – unknown
http://ifanzine.blogspot.com/ – unknown
http://www.iusethisapp.com/ – unknown
http://www.applesauceblog.com/ – unknown

If you have or know of any other good app review sites please post them below.  Thanks!

©2012 iPhone, iOS 5, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.