Part-1; Find the best mobile Ad Networks for your App and Make Money

With so many mobile ad networks available in the market, selecting the right option for your app may not always be an easy task.

Although it may be tempting to find a unanimous response to the question “what is the best mobile ad network out there?”, keep in mind that there is no such thing. The reason certain ad networks claim to be better than others is their specific abilities of serving the right ads to the right people at the right time. Nonetheless, different ad networks will work better with certain types or app, depending on their structure, traffic and target audience.

Finding the one that suits you best is the key to achieving a profitable monetization strategy, capable of generating a steady revenue.

Distinct networks offer additional services such as app analytics and control panels. Since all platforms do some things better than others, comparing and contrasting their deals, strengths and weaknesses may be an efficient method to determine which aspects are more important to your specific needs.

Therefore, instead of questioning what is the best mobile ad network available, what you should be questioning is “will my app work well with the ads being served by this specific ad network?”

To make this process a little easier, let’s take a look at some top mobile ad networks that are consistently recommended by both publishers and developers:

1.Admob
Google’s mobile ad network offers an ample selection of tools and solutions for advertisement and promotion and is one of the top choices for app monetization. AdMob connects publishers and advertisers to provide well targeted ads and consequently generate higher profits.

Greatly advised to beginners in the mobile industry, the tool is simple to use and is much less aggressive and intrusive in comparison to other choices.

Although AdMob has been criticized for generating lower revenue than some of its competitors, the company is known for offering outstanding fill rates. An interesting strategy may be to combine Admob with an alternative network and take advantage of a higher revenue platform, while still optimizing all available advertising spaces.

2. Chartboost
A great choice for gaming apps, Chartboost offers creative solutions regarding app marketing in a professional style.

The shown ads are primarily cross promotions and targeted towards encouraging downloads of new games. Publishers usually opt for promotion of their new apps in their existing games as a powerful solution to maintain their current fan base. As their target audiences are already playing a game and are often seeking for new and fun alternatives, Chartboost ads can be very efficient in being in the right place at the right time.

Both interstitial and video ads are available on the platform and the Chartboost SDK can be easily integrated with only ten lines of code!

If you are interested in this advertising approach and are looking for an ad hoc cross promotion tool, make sure to check out Tapdaq as well.

3. Unity Ads
Unity Ads is a very popular network due to the fact that it allows developers to monetize their entire player base via ads that are native to Unity-built games. The mobile ad network targets players that are most likely to be interested to try a particular game.

They offer interstitial videos, which can be rewarded or not. Integrating rewarded videos has proven to be quite a profitable strategy for some developers. If you would like to learn more about this, take a look at this informative case study: http://response.unity3d.com/ads-case-study-next-games

Another great advantage of this network is that if the Unity Engine is already being used for development, no additional ad SDK is required, which makes the process as easy as possible.

Still, some users complain about the low fill rate Unity Ads provides.

4. Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads, known as the Audience Network, stands out for being a personal, relevant, and easy to measure platform. The company counts on targeting custom audiences, core audiences and lookalike audiences to optimize user engagement.

Facebook Ads prides themselves in having high standards for advertisers to ensure that content matches user’s’ profile and interests. Furthermore, a strict review process is also done with publishers, to ensure advertisers that their campaigns will be seen in high-quality environments.

Although the Audience Network is relatively new in the market, it has demonstrated to be a premium tool in user targeting and has shown substantial growth rates since its launch.



5. Fyber
Fyber is a a full stack mobile SSP with an Ad Server, Exchange and Mediation products that empower thousands of the world’s leading app developers and publishers to generate business-critical revenue streams and serves over half a billion monthly active users globally. One of their main offers is an autopilot feature which allows developers to automatically optimize ad revenue sources, without needing to manually control the priority of mobile ad networks. Fyber’s solution managing features assist publishers to enhance direct deals and refine monetization strategy.

On the down side, some users have criticized about difficulty in initial setup and issues regarding customer service.

German group RNTS Media, Fyber’s parent company, has also purchased adtech startups Heyzap and Inneractive. Their combined expertise is sure to bring technological improvements in the near future.

6. Vungle
The Vungle platform strives to boost app monetization by integrating cutting edge localized video ads. Their noteworthy Vungle Creative Labs studio counts on skilled designers, artists and filmmakers to assist advertisers to make great ads for their games. The company’s in-house video production strategy is aligned with their mission of showing ads that mobile users will enjoy.

App Marketing via video is a key element of App Monetization. Studies showed that visitors who came to a company’s website after seeing a Vungle ad stayed significantly longer than the average user.

Still, some users claim that ad revenue is not as high as they were aiming for.

7. AdColony
AdColony is a mobile ad network specialized in delivering innovative high-definition pre-roll videos, regardless of user’s mobile device quality or internet speed. The platform is known for driving high engagement due to rich selection and quality of ad content.

Their premium service offers interesting monetization solutions to developers and publishers, while providing advertisers with a well-targeted and responsive audience. The company’s global reach ensures advertisers the possibility of targeting users by demographic or geographic data, contributing to a higher conversion rate.

AdColony has faced complaints regarding low rates of eCPM and having users watch mandatory videos before exiting apps. However, the company who owns the mobile ad network since 2014, the Opera Group, was recently purchased by two China-based financial firms. We may expect interesting changes from them in the coming months.