70 per cent of developers are frustrated with the current state of app marketing, according to a new survey of over 1,000 independent small, medium and large developers by mobile advertising and cross-promotion network, AppFlood.

A key area of the survey was how developers chose which advertising firm to use for their app launches. The most important factor was not cost (chosen by 37 per cent of respondents,  regardless of the size of their ad budget or the size of the company).

The key factor, chosen by almost half the developers surveyed, was their ability to trust the advertising partner to deliver effective results at a reasonable price. The number of different ad networks, formats and mechanisms contributed to a sense of confusion as to which approach is best. When asked if the developers felt that the users they had acquired from their investment in mobile marketing were good value for money, 48 per cent of respondents felt the acquisition cost was too expensive.

Small developers (those with 15 or less employees) expressed the highest degree of dissatisfaction regarding value for money, with 53 per cent saying user acquisition was too expensive, compared to 33 per cent of large developers ( those with 50 or more employees). This, says AppFlood, may be explained by large developers having extra budget to enable larger-scale customer acquisition campaigns as well as greater in-house capability to analyse customer usage data and act upon it to drive more efficient campaigns.

In addition, 71 per cent of all respondents said they believe that ad networks often exaggerated their eCPM (effective Cost Per Thousand impressions) claims. Overall, medium-sized developers are the most dissatisfied with the eCPM claims of ad networks, with over 80 per cent saying they felt that eCPM figures were exaggerated, compared to 70 per cent of small developers and 60 per cent of large developers.

This dissatisfaction is unsurprising, says AppFlood, given the limited marketing budget that many developers have to work with to promote their app. 78 per cent of developers surveyed have a marketing budget of $5,000 (£3,300) per app or less. 12 per cent have a budget of between $5000 – $10,000 per app, and only 10 per cent of respondents can draw on more than $10,000 to support an app launch.

With trust and cost such integral issues, the survey also reveals that most developers are happy to adopt a ‘do it yourself’ approach to their app marketing, with 73 per cent of all respondents preferring to buy their own media for campaigns rather than hand it over to a specialist media planning agency.

“Currently, developers instinctively gravitate towards big name ad networks and service providers in the belief that they can trust these brands to offer an effective app marketing service,” said Si Shen, CEO of AppFlood owner, PapayaMobile. “However, the fact that the vast majority of developers – especially smaller ones – are also unhappy with the results achieved relative to the cost, suggests a gulf in expectations between themselves and the ad network providers.

“To properly earn the trust of today’s cost-conscious developers, for whom meaningful results and a positive ROI on their marketing investment are a priority, ad providers must be prepared to be more transparent with their app marketing offerings – especially around campaign planning, reporting, and measurement.”