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Being a successful mobile app developer is no piece of cake. It takes next-level finesse and dedication to get through the whole process of first coming up with an idea, then developing the prototype, converting it into an actual working app, marketing it, and then monetizing it at the right moment.
The whole process is extremely anxiety-inducing, as gaining proper user adoption and finding the right balance of monetization in an overcrowded market is no joke. You could be the best out there at the development, and you can hire the best marketing facility to help with the marketing of the application.
However, your dreams of launching a successful app that would make money will go down the drain if you fall short of a monetization model. Even though there are several ways to monetize an app, one of the best ways to monetize your app is to use paid ads.
Other than in-app advertisements being one of the best ways to earn from a free app, it also makes up for 72% of the total US ad spending.
To understand how application monetization works, you need to get an idea of how advertisements work online. Therefore, here is a rundown of the types of advertisements that you can use on your application for monetization.
Banner ads are the most widely used type of software monetization models when it comes to the advertisement as they come in multiple different formats and sizes. Out of which, the most productive one is the expandable banners. Expandable banners are the ones that are present on the corner of the screen, and you can pull them out to view them.
On the other hand, they are not annoying at all, and they do not cover any content on the screen as well. They can be easily minimized and ensure a high conversion as only interested users check it out.
It has some pros and cons, which are that it has low Cost Per Mille (CPM), low Click Through Rate (CTR), and high fill rate, which means that the response to the ad was given irrespective of the eCPM of the advertisement. On the other hand, the banner might be the most annoying category of advertisement, according to a study by VentureBeat, as most prefer paid apps on this.
Native advertisement is one of the most powerful tools for monetization of an application and looks more like the content on the page rather than an individual advertisement component.
The picture above describes the two broad categories of native advertisements, newsfeed, and the content stream. The news feed is disguised as a normal post on your social media, such as Facebook ads, and the other one is more like a carousel, similar to the one that we find in-between our Instagram feed.
This kind of content monetization is available on various social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where you can put these ads up as posts. Here is how they usually look.
Revcontent is another platform for native ads. Revcontent customizes the content according to the application that they appear on so that they blend in with the content rather than standing out as a separate entity. This not only increases the views on the ad but also urges the user to click on it.
Revcontent can be in the form of a video, mobile ad, a desktop advertisement, or a display ad.
Video content is one of the most effective models of monetization for mobile applications. According to the statistics, 64% of the consumers on social media perceive video advertising to be a better form of advertisement and are more likely to purchase after watching it.
Video advertising is effective as you can retain the brand by seeing videos for even 2 seconds. There are various app monetization platforms, which have different forms of video ads, listed below:
The playable ads are one of the most recent additions to the monetization models for applications. You might have come across at least one of these in a game. They are not only fun to watch, but they are also an amazing tool to find new games.
You can play a demo version of the game via the ad and then download it if you think they are up to your alley.
The Rich Media comprises audio, text, video, etc., and is in the form of light boxes, pop-up windows, video stories. Various studies provide evidence that rich media ads are superior to regular ad posting, making it sufficient to add as a monetization plan.
Intel uses the Rich Media strategy to demonstrate their newly launched sleek laptop to catch the attention of busy consumers by applying 3D technology to show you how thin their laptop is.
Also showing a 360-degree video for their laptop launch, along with the hotspots, which showed the difference between their offerings of products. This campaign enabled them to generate more than 35 000 hours of brand exposure and around 413 000 viewers on the website.
Dynamic product ads are an excellent way of attracting clients. If you visit an e-commerce website and view different products but did not purchase anything, dynamic ads remind you of those products by appearing on your apps.
This helps the brand to understand that this is a potential customer, so if you see an ad for similar products in the newsfeed, which can be a social media website, you are more probable to buy that product later. For example, eBay is an eCommerce website where millions of products are present on the website, but they advertise similar products.
Monetizing an application with advertisements is one of the most profitable ways to make money with a free app. This is why you should invest proper time in finding the right ad network for your applications.
Here are seven of the best and most profitable ad networks specifically for mobile applications.
In 2010, Google purchased the AdMob network, which is one of the most popular networks for ad format and formatting, banner ads, video ads, interstitial ads, and native ads into mobile applications. AdMob covers over 40 billion mobile ads monthly, making it the biggest player in the mobile advertising space.
Regarding AdMob’s platform revenues on the lower side of the chart enables it to offer strong analytics to aid publishers for insight into advertisement performance. In Google, AdMob mobile apps monetize apps through in-app advertisements, which are exhibited through different formatting options.
You can register your iOS or Android application on the network and start making money today.
SmartApps India is a solution for Indian travel requirements, as it offers quick and efficient access to the Indian traveling system. They are avid users of the Google AdMob network and monetize their app on the platform.
Due to AdMob native ads, it has improved its CTR and witnessed a 55% increase in revenue.
App developing company called HeroCraft Ltd, which also happens to be the parent company behind Farm Frenzy, recently hit the 10 million downloads milestone. Their main monetization model is based on ads with the AdMod network, which helped them generate a whooping revenue of 200%.
When Farm Frenzy was developed as a free app along with the in-app purchases, they made $20 000 in the first quarter, however, their revenue in the second quarter was more than $58 900, all thanks to the Google AdMob.
Facebook's Audience Network influences the social media platform in giving the ad publishers an advertisement designed for growth and engagement. Facebook ads offer ads on a range, which includes an interstitial, native, banner, reward video ads, and in-stream videos.
Facebook utilizes its 1 billion users to create a network of ads as they gather a lot of data from customers, enabling publishers in Facebook Ads they focus on your demand based on factors including demographics, behaviors, interests, etc. more deeply than any platform.
However, the Facebook ad network is not limited to the social media app only.
You can use their services to advertise on your application as well, which is why we see Facebook powered ads on The Huffington Post or Shazam App.
Blink is a security camera wireless for home usage, which sends alerts to people, updating about home security. Blink made Facebook a part of its paid marketing option for its marketing strategy.
It used the Facebook option of dynamic Ads, prospecting efforts, and audience targeting as well as CPC to improve their sale and brand awareness, with impressive results, an increase in orders of 13.11%, ROAS increase to 63.2%, and an increase of 81.44% in Click-through rate (CTR).
TapJoy is in high demand for mobile game developers as it is attached to in-app purchases and made itself apt by the introduction of incentive-based downloading, providing you with virtual currency on completion of real problems. You can earn virtual currency while downloading a relevant game from the app store.
Tapjoy provides quality advertisement content for more than 20 000 games on the play store and collaborates with big names, such as Gillette and Epic Games. Also, Huuuge games have increased their digital rewards in its testing for a recent ad format that Tapjoy had introduced.
This new format, cost per engagement (CPE), allows the publishers of the ad to offer rewards to you from its same offer. This enabled the Huuuge games to increase their acquisition by 80%, which is more than twice their initial investments in ads.
Looma, a bed sheet start-up, wanted an early grip in a competitive market, by increasing its marketing while keeping in mind its budget. TapJoy offered Looma with its less risk model of CPA a perfect solution, leading to a 30% increase in its selling and an increase of 10% in consumer retention.
If you are a game developer, unity is not an alien concept for you. It is an incredible platform for both developing mobile games and monetizing them. It is an all-in-one platform to make powerful apps with next-level graphics. In 2014, they launched their advertisement platform for both iOS and Android applications.
This platform supports Android and iOS platforms, offering various formats for ads. Its main ability for advertising In-app purchases shown in videos goes either unrewarded or rewarded for you. It allows publishers to offer specific games based on downloads and game habits.
Leading mobile game companies are utilizing this app and Unity Ads for their ad base.
In 2018, Google wanted to strengthen its position for advertising in mobile by collaborating with Unity, as brands can target an audience that spends around 9 billion minutes every day playing Unity mobile games, resulting in huge revenue for developers.
In the same year, the unity ads network signed a partnership contract with Google to place ads strategically powered by Google in all games developed on the Unity platform. The main reason behind this was the fact that more than 50% of the total applications are now developed on the platform making it one of the biggest development platforms.
This essentially means that unity has access to all the ads on the Google database, making it easier for you to monetize in a wide range of countries.
RhythmOne is a multi platform for Ad Exchange helping in mobile app development and aiding web publishers with maximizing revenue. It enables publishers to access demanding partners in networks and provide solutions, through either server or client, which is proprietary tags and header bidder.
RhythmOne provided RhythmGuard in response to Google Exchange Bidding. RhythmGuard makes sure that its partners find higher value from its publisher partner inventory, leading to increased bidding rates, ad revenues, and CPMs.
Publishers utilizing Google's Exchange Bidding see an increase of 40% in its program revenue. RhythmOne, an online company of advertisements connecting you with brands through online quality content.
In Google Exchange Bidding’s case study for RhythmOne, in which its ad exchangeability has generated high revenue for ad publishers & advertisers. It is possible through a fine-tuned user matching method on Google’s exchange Bidding.
This study revealed that RhythmOne’s match rate is around 80%, which makes it among the top bidding exchange partners. While comparing with Google Exchange Bidding, which has generated a 40% increase in programmatic revenue for ad publishers.
Fyber is an ad Monetization Company, building a next-generation platform for monetization used by app developers, and provide their expertise in mediation and RTB for helping developers with the application and discovering efficient ways for monetization of mobile games.
This platform provides solutions for publishers including FairBid, which is a type of mediation that utilizes its header bidding in-app nature to run a transparent sale, leading to increasing pressure from the buyer to purchase that product.
Fyber’s ad monetization base for videos has driven programmatic demands for you people and at the same time monetizing with video formats for mobile-first.
Fyber collaborated with Verizon to increase VPAID (Program based video ad, on the demand-side policy) traffic in mobile apps areas, helping video campaign ads in running smoothly. Fyber was one of the first platforms, addressing our scaling issue in video campaigns for the mobile side, which we were striving to achieve.
Iron Source is a true example of filling in the market space. A group of five developers was working on an app of their own when they came across a study that it is incredibly hard to monetize a free app. This led them to develop an app, which focused on monetizing different apps to make money out of it.
Since that time, Iron Source is one of the most popular monetization ad networks for applications, with some huge names, such as Zynga, Ubisoft, Gameloft, and EA. The platform aims to offer multiplatform assistance for the usage in iOS, Unity, Android.
Iron Source offers ads in all leading formats, including video, interstitial ads, banners, and offerwall.
Iron source SDK is integrated in more than 500 000 million devices worldwide, which allows the publishers access high quality and global ad inventories, making sure that the best price is available for all entities and spaces.
In the provision of the technologies regarding monetization to engage media applications, IronSource powered for next generation advertisement is reaching millions of people.
Amanotes is a popular app publisher based out of Vietnam with a huge portfolio in games, such as Magic Tiles 3, Tiles Hop: EDM Rush, and Dunk n Beat. After they started working with Iron Source, they witnessed 22% increase in ARPDAU, 24% increase in eCPM, and 25% increase in overall revenue.
Conclusion
Advertisements are one of the best ways to make money online for both desktop and mobile applications. However, it can be quite tricky if you are not familiar with the best ad networks to use for your application.
This is why you should invest your time into looking for the one that is best suited to you and aligns with your financial goals. A strong monetization strategy will enable you to make a business out of your app and turn it into a full-fledged product.
Test out one network at a time and stick to the one that best aligns with your vision for the application!
