How to Increase Ad Revenue For Your Mobile App

We’re at the dawn of the mobile ad market, which is great as it means mobile ads are only beginning to come into their own. They’re young, hungry, and when used well mobile ads can bring revenue for lots of different businesses in the ad chain: marketers, advertisers, and publishers. 

But we at Appodeal noticed an issue: publishers weren’t making the money they could in the mobile ad space. So, we went on the hunt for the problems publishers were facing, and made it our mission to create solutions and increase publisher revenue. And we discovered there was a lot hindering publishers!

Location, Location, Location

Where you are in the world matters. Mobile ad network performances vary greatly from one market to the other based on location. So before publishing an ad in a mobile application, it’s essential to analyze the geographical areas where the users are located. The most powerful advertising network for each area can then be chosen for displaying ads in that region.

That’s why when we built Appodeal, we made it so you automatically get reports from advertising networks. In fact, Appodeal analyzes them based on the country of usage, type of application, advertiser, and dynamically builds a sorted list of networks for every advertising request based on the expected eCPM.

When Your Fill Rate is Low, So is Your Revenue

If ads aren’t being delivered, then ads aren’t being clicked on. The result: any chance of income on the ad is lost. You need to diversify your network base so if one cannot provide a mobile ad, the request will be sent to another.

As a fix for this issue, Appodeal created a waterfall effect to ensure maximum fill rate. Each request moves on until a provider is found who can fill your ad request.

Making the Wrong Partnership Will Cost You

Publishers don’t always attract top-converting advertisers (because let’s face it, ad networks care about their own income first, and the money a publisher makes well…lower than first). And some ad networks rely on algorithms that take money into account, rather than campaign length, quality of banners, or an advertiser’s general conversion rate. In this scenario, a publisher can display an ad 10,000 and get 0 conversions.

To waylay this mistake, publishers need to do due diligence and download reports from ad networks with detailed info about advertisers (and those who don’t pay a cent for 1000 should be sent to the blacklist!). In networks that allow it, Appodeal automatically analyzes advertisers and adds them to blacklists when necessary.

Pro Tip: Good Conversions Depend on Context. An ad for the «Alarm Clock» app will probably have a good conversion rate from the «Weather» app – but no conversions at all from Angry Birds. Your ad network should have an independent list of «wrong» advertisers (and it must be updated regularly!).

RTB Exchanges: It’s a Trap!

Sure, RTB exchanges are a great tool in some respects: they have info about each user, and allow advertisers to pay more for users they know. However, they’re not always in a publisher’s best interest. It’s an unpleasant and lengthy process to connect to an RTB (try two months of begging!) – and once you do, you’ll discover low fill rate and bad user interface. Developers will tell you about unstable SDKs meaning they’ll be writing their own plugin. And maybe the worst offense: a typical RTB exchange is net 60 – and that’s after the month of ads, meaning you’ll wait three months for your first payment.

Rather than go down the RTB road, why not try integrating with an exchange on you own? If you are not a solid developer, work with a developer who has exchange access, and discuss possible sharing their account. Or enlist the help of Appodeal: you’ll get instant access to the biggest RTB exchanges (Rubicon project, OpenX, Nexage, MoPub, Smaato, etc). Thus, you’ll show advertisements while being paid for every display.

Do You Know Your User Behavior Patterns?

Some users click on everything they see, but never install anything, while other users install everything that is suggested. And some, hands down, never click on an ad, closing it as soon as possible. Collecting stats about every user gives you a leg up on what ads to show them (and what ads might generate revenue for you).

Pro Tip: How to Solve for X. If the user often installs advertised applications, then show them CPI campaigns. If they click very often but never install anything, then show them CPC campaigns. If the user passive, show them CPM/CPV campaigns paid for every display.

Appodeal tracks your user behavior, so we dynamically detect which type of advertisement – CPI, CPC or CPM – is the most suitable for each individual user.

Developers should focus on the creation of unique and interesting mobile apps, not suffer the headaches that can come from mobile ad optimization. You didn’t go into business to market your app – you did it to be creative and challenge yourself. Why not delegate publishing mobile ads to somebody else. (Hint, hint: like Appodeal).