Yesterday, Ting's app was unleashed on the App Store. It's a program that lets you turn your iPhone's flash -- a new feature for the iPhone 4 -- into an LED flashlight at will. While the app did solidly on its first day of sales, what impressed Ting most were the stats for the free, iAd-supported version.
Ting reports that the free app alone generated $1,372.20 in revenue on Day One. The app's eCPM (that's "effective cost per thousand," meaning the amount of revenue you earn per 1,000 impressions) was a whopping $147.55 -- for those of you who don't work in advertising, this eCPM is highly unusual.
Here are more of Ting's stats from the first day on the App Store:
[img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/153616/iad-day1.png" caption="" credit="" alt=""]
In an e-mail this morning, Ting told us that the free application was downloaded around 9,000 times.
We also asked him what kinds of iAds are being served. "It looks like the only iAds that are currently showing are from Dove and Nissan," he said. "I'm guessing they had pretty huge media buys."
iAds are still a very new phenomenon for iPhone users, so the high clickthrough rates -- and thus high revenues -- may not last forever. When you click on an iAd advertisement, it fills the screen. Once it's open, you can explore the ad interactively.
"I have a feeling that people are still enjoying the novelty of iAds," said Ting, "so I'm not sure if the high CTR percentage will stay up. But since the eCPM is calculated from a combination of impressions and clicks, I think there will be a decent stream just from the users who use the app but don't necessarily click the ad."