Having earned a whole $1 this week by downloading and reviewing two iPhone games using AppRebates, I thought it was a good opportunity to find out more about the app promotion system.

Luckily co-founder Francis Duong was on hand to provide some more details.

Pocket Gamer: What was your inspiration for AppRebates?

Francis Duong: We started off as app developers, blowing thousands of dollars on traditional CPC advertising trying to promote our application.

To say it was a money down the drain would be an understatement. Since there was no accountability on the ad network side, we really didn't know if any new installs had resulted from our ad spend.

We went about building AppRebates with app developers in mind - known cost and accountable results so they can promote their applications, and a win for users getting paid applications to try for free.

What sort of response have you been getting from developers?

Developers have been extremely happy with us. About 50 percent of our campaigns are from repeat clients.

What's the most important thing for your developers - driving downloads, gaining reviews or general promotional activity?

Gaining reviews definitely help legitimise your application to potential buyers. Nobody wants to take a risk and buy something that no-one else has used before.

The most successful way of driving downloads is to get featured by Apple. Short of that appearing in the top 25 of your category doesn't hurt either.

What sort of apps work particularly well?

Games and general purpose utilities do best with AppRebates. Anything too niche is harder to find an audience to drive the download volume.

How many developers and users do you have?

At this time we don't disclose our developer or user stats for competitive reasons.

What plans do you have to expand the service in future?

We have exciting plans to expand the service and drive even more volume. There's nothing we can announce at this time but would love to share when we are closer to launching.

Thanks to Francis for his time.

You can find out more about AppRebates via its website.