Courtesy app data is severely restricted. Anything beyond global and regional rankings is restricted to high end professional paid plans. App Annie is considered #1 for app data and it would cost $599/mo to try to do a comparative analysis. No thanks.
Correct. Staff likely considers the app the future of Tapas because desktop usage is in continual decline.
As much as we hope for a desktop redesign, it seems highly unlikely one will happen. The reality for new series on Tapas -- in absence of any changes to the current Tapas build -- will have to resort to advertising in order to be found. Unless they update with high frequency or manage to land in New & Noteworthy, how else will an excellent series be found if it has no readers? The app is designed such that those who already have a huge following are the first listed under each genre, making a situation where those on top will do increasingly well and everyone else will fall further behind. After all who scrolls all the way to the bottom?
We've really been struggling to grow after spending four figures in July 2017 on a major marketing campaign. Each month adds fewer subs than the month before. The only months with a pop (November 2017 and January 2018) are those we did ad campaigns for. All of this seems counter intuitive. As more subs join a series one would think that readership would exponentially grow but its the opposite. However when you look at Tapas' stats, it seems to make more sense.
Traffic at Tapas.io is essentially sideways the last six months and app ranking has not substantially changed during the same period. If Tapas isn't growing then series should see a taping off of new subs, which is what we are experiencing. Our solution is to continue to ramp up advertising and bring in new external readers rather than hope for current internal Tapas readers. Other creators are likely doing the same.
The big concern is, if many creators are advertising, spending a combined $1,000s in the process, yet Tapas isn't growing, then there's a significant attrition of readers that is counteracting anything creators do to try to grow Tapas.
Webtoons doesn't have this problem. Their traffic continues to escalate.
So why the difference? Is it solely the Patreon pledge program that is spurring creators to update more frequently so there is more traffic? Or is there something else Webtoons is doing which prevents the attrition? A better homepage experience? Easier to find relevant content?
So many questions.