10 Popular Mobile Advertising Platforms to Generate More Revenue!

What are Mobile App Advertising Platforms.?

Mobile advertising platforms like Google’s ‘AdMob’ are designed specifically for mobile apps. These mobile advertisements can be effectively and easily used to make revenue by offering various mobile apps for free. Mobile advertising platforms in some form facilitate buying, selling or exchanging mobile traffic. But these mobile advertisements may be bothersome for users, as their free apps interrupted by advertisements.

Today, the mobile advertisement platforms serve for approx 90 percent of the top global advertisers and reaches 800 million unique mobile users. It is now analysed that social networking and games generate the most revenue. Moreover, in addition, the report also highlights that the mobile advertising is in a high growth phase and a lots of scope for mobile advertising is there in emerging countries.

It is always a difficult task for the developers to choose from either Android or IOS. Since past many years, Apple’s iOS has been their favorite, because apparently Apple users tend to spend more money than the Android users. Moreover, as compared to Android users, iPhone users are more lucrative to advertisers. However, the whole scenario is changing now, as huge base of Android users is starting to make the difference. This lets advertisers in generating more profits than the iPhone. Also, overall growing Android market size has given a significant boost to its platform.

As per report generated from first quarter of 2015 by Opera Mediaworks shows mobile advertising data, which confirms Android is expanding its wings in generation of traffic as well as on revenue by holding a 45.8 % of total revenue generated on the platform.

With ever growing mobile advertising market, a variety of ways have been invented by the developers and publishers to monetize their inventory. Numerous platforms have been developed since last couple of years that expanded beyond the typical ad-networks functionality. These platforms allow publishers to mediate ads from multiple networks and sell inventory directly to advertisers and take advantage of new sources of mobile advertising revenue.

Further, in this article we’re going to take closer look at 10 popular mobile advertising platforms and how to generate revenue using mobile advertising in a mobile App .?

The following list of mobile advertising networks facilitate buying, selling or exchanging mobile traffic in some form, are considered to be the most popular :

1. AdMob

AdMob is one of the most widely used tools, owned by Google, for mobile app monetization. It can easily integrate the needed features into user’s app, and helps to track earnings by getting relatively detailed reporting. In a single advertising platform, AdMob provides best-in-class technology for user’s app. It also helps users to maximize their revenue by gaining insights about customers to drive more in-app purchases.

Main Features

Grow your business with a trusted partner

Powered by Google’s ad technology : Google has helped millions of developers grow their digital businesses for over a decade.
Cross-platform capability : AdMob can be used with all of the top platforms: Android and iOS, with support for leading game engines such as Unity and Cocos2d-x.
Auto updates on Google Play : AdMob’s integration with Google Play services pushes automatic performance improvements to Android apps without additional SDK changes.

Understand Users

Analytics for apps : Analyze your app’s performance from within AdMob with Google Analytics . Discover where people are downloading an app, and the features they use the most in real time.
Flow visualization reports : In Analytics, see how people are navigating through an pp with graphical flow reports . View the path they take to making a purchase, and the point where they exit the app, plus much more.

Maximize Ad Revenue

Maximize earnings : Earn more with our industry-leading ad service, which includes free mediation to automatically improve your earnings, and access to all of Google’s advertiser demand from AdMob, AdWords and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.
Get paid fast : Get paid in local currencies quickly and reliably, with no wire fees charged by AdMob.
Easy and free : The SDK can be installed quickly, and there are no standard fees for using the platform.

Drive more in-app purchases and downloads

Sell more in-app purchases : Earn more revenue by intelligently promoting your in-app purchases to the users most likely to buy them.
Promote your apps for free : Cross-sell your other apps (or your friend’s apps) to your existing users, using free AdMob house ads .

2. iAd

It matter to be connected with consumers in moments.

It helps businesses find the right people and create the kind of advertising that captures attention and drives results.

It is the official Apple mobile advertising platform. It allows developers to embed advertisements in their apps that run on iOS devices. Developers can keep 60% of the total revenue generated from in-app advertising.

Main Features

• Reaches a global audience
• Helps to find an ideal audience among nearly a billion Apple users.
• Using exclusive insights and segmentation tools, get message to the right people.
• Makes it easy to engage customers across all their devices while they enjoy their favorite apps or listen to iTunes Radio.
• Advertises on user’s own terms.
• Gives users the flexibility to choose the price, audience, and ad formats that work best for them.

3. Flurry

  Optimized mobile experience through better apps and more personal ads is the Flurry’s mission. Our market leadership in mobile analytics means data is at the center of everything we do. Flurry helps users to  generate more advertising revenue with its largest app data set on consumer usage in the world with collections of more than 700 million mobile smartphones and tablets. Therefore,  Flurry is really confident about the power of its analytics, as proven through its detailed analytics promotion page.

Main Features

Flurry Ads:

• Banner Ads
• Fully Screen Ads
• Native Ads

  Analytics:

•  User Session
• Track User Events
• Error Logging

4. mMedia 

This network is the trusted independent leader in mobile advertising and used to monetize tens of thousands of mobile apps. It offers a self-service advertising program and allows developers to reinvest earnings into promotional campaigns if they like.

Main Features

In-App Advertising : Support for iOS, Android, Windows Phone & more, Put engaging video, rich media and banner ads in your apps.
Client Campaigns : Let advertisers compete for your inventory, Flexible campaign configuration including date range, targeting, pacing and pricing
House Ads : Serve ads promoting your apps on your inventory. Promote upgrades to paid versions of your apps.

5. Adfonic (byyd)

It is a self-service mobile ad network that claims to offer easy-to-use tools for publishers and advertisers. Offers CPC and CPM models. Adfonic cares not only about integration, it cares for the performance of user advertisement, with the promise of 95% average fill rates on both iOS and Android, and even up to 10x higher eCPMs with rich media advertisement. To achieve this, they are working directly with international agencies and brands such as Samsung, ESPN, BBS and Amazon Kindle to display their giant campaigns in user mobile app.On the publishing side, Adfonic offers flexible tools as well as real-time reporting so that developers/publishers can optimize the performance of their ad inventory. Adfonic offers both targeted and contextual advertising options to developers, and advertisers can bid for ad placement on the platform in an open marketplace

Main Features

• Run highly targeted campaigns across sites, apps and an open marketplace

• Full campaign management, including reporting and budget control and various targeting options

• Build and execute iPhone/Pad optimized campaigns

• Monetize apps and mobile sites with targeted or contextual ads

6. Chartboost 

Allows developers to engage in cross promotion, run direct negotiated deals and to monetize ad inventory tap into an ad network. It empowers play and with Chartboost video delivers the impact, transparency and intelligence for developers to build strong player connections and create monetization opportunities.

Main Features

Platform Transparency : Chartboost helps you to see everything that happens in your game: who are you promoting, where your promotions are running, and how each game is performing. No black boxes.

Control : You choose where, when, and how your inventory will be used. It’s easy to filter out categories or games you don’t want to show. You can switch between cross promoting your apps, or your direct deals, or earning network money at any time.

User Experience : It is a game developers too and understand that user experience is the #1 priority. Thats why it only promote games inside of other games with a customizable interstitial that looks and feels like your game.
Cross Promotion : Chartboost makes it easy for you to customize your interstitial and make the frame look and feel exactly like your game. This native experience makes the game promotion feel more like a suggestion and less like an ad.

Targeting : Chartboost automatically exclude users who have already downloaded your games, and let you target per country, device, OS, wifi only and any custom segments you might have.

Flexibility : You can turn campaigns on or off on the dashboard in real time. You can also easily switch between cross promotion, direct deals and network campaigns, or run them together with different priorities.

Direct Deals : You are the center of our world and we want to give you control. If you want to do a deal directly with another game developer, Chartboost will let you use our technology for that, and we will make the process seamless and transparent.

Remove The Middleman : You can keep 100% of the revenue on your direct deals. Chartboost can help you process payments for a 10% fee. You can also use our technology to give traffic to your friends for free anytime.

Transparency : Using Chartboost you’ll see what games are the best fit for your players. It is the only 100% transparent network where you can see who you are interacting with and how much each game pays and how it performs.

Game Network : Chartboost only show promotions to active gamers, leading to high quality downloads. Full transparency allows you to optimize your campaign for the highest value gamers. No incentivized behavior.

More Money : Chartboost network is completely opt-in and will help you make more money without extra effort. It gives you full control over when, where, and how often promotions are shown in your game.

Data and APIs : Data gives you the power to make better decisions. Chartboost give you access to all the detail you need to find the best users for your games and close the loop on how much money they spend.

Video : Layer in high-quality video to provide players with the best in-game interstitial experience or reward them with virtual currency or in-game items.

Free Video Technology : The industry’s first games-only video technology for developers to cross-promote their own titles or use in the Direct Deal Marketplace, completely free!

Custom Experience : Incorporate a video into a custom frame that matches the look and feel of the gameplay and fits the native environment of the game.

Smart Delivery : High-quality HD video for increased reliability and caching for instant playback.

5. Airpush

It is a data-driven mobile advertising for Android and iOS. It offers a variety of ad formats including standard banners, icons, and smartwalls. It also offers weekly payments and detailed analytics, including crash reports.

Main Features

Abstract Banners : These ad formats blend full motion transparent overlays with app content and result in high earnings
Next-Gen Mobile Ad Formats : SmartWall’s patent-pending technology automatically mediates between Rich Media, Video, AppWall, Dialog Ads, Advanced Overlays, and more based on yield and network connection type.
Developer’s Portal : Airpush developers access a portal to view near real-time stats on traffic and earnings across all ad formats, allowing deep dives into your data to see what is and isn’t working.

6. InMobi

It is the most advanced monetization solution for your games. It also works across various platforms and boasts a relatively easy-to-install program. It features an extensive range of ad formats, analytics and monetization tools for your app business.

Main Features

For Brands : Get ahead with InMobi data and decision sciences that predict the Moment of Maximum Opportunity (MoMo) for your brand.
Mobile Tracking & Attribution Partners : Work with any of our Mobile Tracking & Attribution Partners (MTAPs) to enjoy robust tracking, improved conversions and advanced targeting capabilities.
Guaranteed Outcomes : InMobi Guaranteed Outcomes, based on advanced machine learning algorithms and predictive sciences, offers you an industry-first guarantee on your mobile campaign’s outcome.

7. Madvertise

It claims more than 10 billion monthly ad impressions and a number of premium advertisers while Based in Europe. The features include real time reporting and advanced ad formats (i.e. Rich Media). It provides technically unique services for both advertisers and publishers, such as Real-Time Bidding and rich media ad formats. .

Main Features

For Advertisers:

• The delivery of display adverts to mobile website and mobile apps to over 50 countries (with an emphasis on Europe).

• Ad types include Pre-roll ads, shown prior to mobile video play, and Rich media and interactive ads offered in HTML5.

• Ad targeting offered includes device, platform, delivery timing, location, age and gender.

• Ad features include click-to-call, click-to-SMS and click-to-email.

• Production and hosting of campaign mobile landing sites.

• Campaign optimisation.

For Publishers:

• The self-service Madvertise ad network allows developers and publishers to connect to Madvertise ad campaigns via download of the iOS and Android SDKs.

• Campaign reports including ad impressions and CTRs.

• The KatAPPult tool guarantees the placement of free mobile apps in the relevant Top 25 ranking category list in Apple’s App Store within 1 to 3 days by means of a mobile display advertising campaign across the Madvertise network.

8. MoPub

This hosted ad serving solution offers advanced analytics, ad network mediation, and custom ad serving capabilities including their MoPub Marketplace. A truly strong advantage about MoPub is its advertisement format that could be summarized in one word: rich. Static images, HTML5 Ads, Banner, Landing Ads, Expand Ads, Interstitial Ads, Video and ORMMArich Media ads are always available for you to play creatively with your advertisement. It’s not just about ad format, MoPub helps to drive you more revenue, therefore they debuted ‘MoPub Marketplace’ that allows bidders to quote prices for your ad impressions the moment they’re available, and take advantage of data to optimize their bids in real time. This results in precise ad targeting that drives even better revenue for both parties.

So go ahead.. Grow your mobile advertising business with powerful ad management, optimization and reporting capabilities, and earn revenue by connecting to the world’s largest mobile ad exchange.

Main Features

Ad Serving : MoPub is a full featured ad serving platform, optimized for the needs of the mobile publisher. The SDK supports banners, interstitial and native ad formats.
Ad Network Mediation : Work with your preferred ad network partners to optimize fill and generate more revenue from your inventory.
MoPub MarketPlace : The MoPub real-time bidding exchange connects you to thousands of advertisers in a competitive auction without additional integrations. Increase eCPM with full control over price floors and auction rules.
DashBoard : See your entire monetization strategy on a single screen. The dashboard offers a single, comprehensive view of all your app revenue data — including ad networks, MoPub Marketplace, and direct campaigns.

 

9. PlayHaven

Eventhough to monetize users, this platform features an ad network option, still its primary feature is a virtual goods promotion function that helps to display special offers and targeted messages on devices that have downloaded app and even when the app isn’t open.

It features Mobile Gaming Monetization Platform with Deep User Segmentation

Main Features

Full-Screen Interstitial Ads : Maximize user engagement by capturing the full attention of your players with Playhaven Interstitial Ads
More Games Chart : Generate more revenue per ad impression with the user-initiated Playhaven More Games Chart.
Internal Cross-Promotions : Drive free installs by cross-promoting users between your games.

Download Link

10. Tapjoy

Instead of traditional ad networks, this system works a bit differently and by electing to engage with a particular advt, users are able to unlock items within their apps. It optimizes App LTV with a single intelligent platform.
Tapjoy Rich Media delivers industry-leading revenue with Premium Ads and Premium Payouts.

Main Features

Revenue opportunities : Rewarded ads incentivize the end user to engage in the ads you’re publishing. The end user is rewarded with your app’s virtual currency.
Easy Integration : In-App offerwall is an ad unit within a mobile application that provides end users with a plethora of offers to engage in.
Event and moments : Events are moments in your game that you can choose to monetize with full screen interstitials (FSI) or video ads.
Tapjoy.com is a Business-to-Consumer ad marketplace outside of the mobile application available through any mobile or PC browsers.

Comparison Chart

S No	Network	Platform	Known Model	Supported Ad Format	Mediation	House Ads
1	AdMob	iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7	CPC	Banner, Smart Banner, Interstitial, Search, Table	Yes	Yes
2	iAd	iOS	CPC, CPM	Apple Music audio, display or video, banners, full page ads	Yes	Yes
3	Flurry	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM, CPI	Banner,  Interstitial, Video, Takeover	Yes	Yes
4	mMedia	iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Symbian, Java, WebOS	CPC, CPM, CPA	Banner, Interstitial, Interactive Video, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
5	Adfonic	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
6	Chartboost	iOS, Android	CPC, CPI	Interstitial	No	Yes
7	InMobi	iOS, Android, Windows Phone	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Video, Text, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
8	Madvertise	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Overlay, Video Overlay, Flip, Engagement	Yes	Yes
10	MoPub	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Video, ORMMArich Media Ads, Landing Page	Yes	Yes
12	PlayHaven	iOS, Android	CPI	Interstitial, Offer Wall	No	No
13	Tapjoy	iOS, Android, Windows Phone	CPI	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Offer Wall	Yes	No

Suggestion 

In case of iOS apps, it is suggested to use ‘iAd’ supplemented with Admob. By default, iAd ads display with Admob advertisements which is used as a fallback in the situations where iAd does not have advertisements to display. This will cause a significantly higher fill-rate ensuring maximum revenue for developers.

For Android, ‘Admob’ is highly recommended. It has one of the highest fill-rate to provide the maximum revenue.

How can a Developer Generate Revenue using Advertising Platforms in Mobile Applications.?

As per reports, the global mobile app revenue has thrived to $15 billion in 2011. As per Distimo reports, the top 300 free apps generated over 3 million downloads, ten times more than the paid ones. Also, more than 80 percent of mobile apps are free.

If developers are offering their apps for free, then a question arises, how are they generating revenue with their Apps?

Developers can use commonly FOLLOWING models to monetize their app:

1. Per App Download Charge

It is the easiest ways to make money from an app that is created to charge each time, if someone wants to download it. As per Distimo report in November 2012, Apple’s App Store was generating $15 million per day in revenue, while Google Play generating daily revenue of $3.5 million.

But when there are so many free options are available out there, ofcourse it would be tough to convince customers spend money to buy an app. So, it requires a great planning, execution, and most importantly marketing to monetize your app.

2. “Freemium” App Development

In app stores, there is one more category beside the products are listed as either “paid” or “free” that lies in between and includes some of the most profitable of all apps. Most of these apps are free to download, and require an upgrade with payment to unlock the full features, to accelerate the progress of a game, or turn off ads.

This model requires a fairly large audience for its commercial success, as the prices charged for in-app purchases are often relatively small and in general, less than 5% of an app’s audience will ever pay special features or upgrade to a paid version of the app. A great example of a “free to play” app is Candy Crush that makes money by giving players an option to buy items within the game.

3. Advertising

It involves monetization technique by showing advertisements to users. Although rates for mobile ad inventory are much lower, still here is a major opportunity for apps that generate a significant number of pageviews or offer access to its targeted users.

Ads on mobile devices can be implemented into one of two categories i.e. Banner & Interstitial

4. Locate a Sponsor

Various non-game apps are better suited to be monetized through ads.

Developers can choose to give their app away for free with a major monetization opportunity to rely on users to engage with the ads that are served to them to drive revenue.

The revenue can be generated with the most predictable way, coming from an exclusive sponsor–an advertiser who display their messaging whenever someone uses an app.

Some of good examples with exclusive sponsorship features are Major League Baseball and Dunkin’ Donuts and “Beat the Streak” iPhone app.

5. Mobile Advertising Network Partnering

It involves including ads within the app. It involves direct sponsorship deals with advertisers, to sell ad space in the most lucrative way. So, many app-developers don’t have the connections or time to set up those arrangements. Partnering with an ad network is an easiest way to sell an advt inventory for developers and a mobile ad network take a portion of the total revenue in exchange for their services. Some of the biggest mobile ad networks are Adfonic, AdMob, iAd, Chartboost, madvertise, Millennial Media and many more.

6. Promotional Services

An app’s popularity and the revenue earned has a direct relationship. More downloads will most likely equate to more traffic, regardless of the exact chosen method to monetize an app.

On charging a fee, several companies can be hired as effective guns for app developers seeking attention. They’ll start promoting app to get some reviews, and start it off with a decent bump up the charts.

So, if developers have the budget and is interested to get some additional momentum behind their app, here are some of the services that may be considered i.e.  AppBrain, Appshout, APPSPIRE.me, Appversal, BombAppromotion and ComboApp.

7. Tools for Split Testing

Throughout the production and marketing process, Mobile app developers regularly utilize split testing, allowing users to tell them the optimal settings for some of the variables that are a part of this process.

Some of potentially useful tools can be considered, if developer is looking to bring a bit of the scientific process into an app development and maintenance plan i.e.  Apptimize, Arise.io, heatma.ps, Optimimo, Pathmapp and many more.

8. Free Memberships, Newsletters, Tools, and Forums

App developers and marketers may find a number of various free and paid resources. Some of publications and memberships for ongoing support and assistance during the app monetization process are mentioned here, i.e. App Developer Magazine, App Viz 2, Distimo FierceDeveloper Newsletter, Gamasutra, iPhone Dev SDK, Mobile Marketer Newsletter and much more.

 The enhanced advertising features offered by above popular platforms incorporated with network mediation and direct selling have the potential to give publishers and developers a real boost to their revenues.

Moreover, at TBI we are skilled for strategically implementing various monetizing techniques to generate handsome revenue with a mobile app.

If you have any query or want to consult with us for a suitable model for your app, then feel free to Reach us. We would be pleased to contact you soon.

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