Inside AdMob
Google’s official blog for news, tips, and information on the AdMob developer platform
[NEW VIDEO SERIES] Watch App-etizers, Bite Sized Insights for App Developers
August 3, 2015
Today we’re launching the first episode of a new YouTube series called App-etizers, bite sized insights for app developers. For this first episode, watch Max (Google AdMob Specialist) share the secret to growing your mobile app.
To learn more about app growth, download our eBook,
The No-Nonsense Guide to Growing Your Mobile App
. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
page.
Posted by Raj Ajrawat
Product Specialist, AdMob
Meet AdMob at Casual Connect SF #AdMobCC15
July 30, 2015
The Google AdMob team is excited to attend the Casual Connect conference in San Francisco this year. If you’re attending, be sure to visit the Google booth. We’d love to hear about your game and share ways that you can supercharge monetization with AdMob.
We’ll be hosting two sessions at the conference. First, Google's US Gaming Partnerships Lead, Alejandro Manchado, will talk about how to use Google Analytics and AdMob to build data-driven monetization strategies for your game at 11am on Wednesday, August 12th.
Secondly, Sampada Telang, Strategic Partner Lead, will talk about native ads and how they have impacted free-to-play games at 5pm on Wednesday, August 12th.
We’d also like to invite you to Google's workshops on how to monetize using
native
ads and
in-app purchase ads
with AdMob. There are limited seats at the workshop, so if you’re interested, please fill out this
form
, and we'll follow up with details.
If you can’t attend the event this year,
sign up for our mailing list
now and we’ll send you exclusive content filmed live at Casual Connect.
We’ll also be live tweeting and sharing our app-themed musings on
Google+
and
Twitter
, so stay in the loop with what’s happening with #AdMobCC15.
So see you there or online,
The AdMob Team
[New eBook] Download The No-Nonsense Guide to App Growth
July 27, 2015
What’s the secret to rapid growth for your app?
Play Store or App Store optimization? A sophisticated paid advertising strategy? A viral social media campaign?
While all of these strategies could help you grow your user base, the foundation for rapid growth is much more basic and fundamental—you need an engaging app.
This handbook will walk you through practical ways to increase your app’s user engagement to help you eventually transition to growth. You’ll learn how to:
Pick the right metric to represent user engagement
Look at data to audit your app and find areas to fix
Promote your app after you’ve reached a healthy level of user engagement
Download a free copy
here
:
For more tips on app monetization, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
pages.
Posted by Raj Ajrawat,
Product Specialist, AdMob
AdMob Story: DivMob
July 16, 2015
Founded in 2012 in Vietnam, DivMob has produced over 10 gaming apps, garnering over 23M downloads worldwide. Watch their story on how they partnered with AdMob to grow their company.
To check out
DivMob’s success story
, or any other of our other success stories, visit us at at the
AdMob website
. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
page.
Posted by Henry Wang
AdMob Marketing
Going global with AdMob: CocoPPa
July 10, 2015
Japanese company United’s
CocoPPa
app has been a huge hit internationally, with over 37M downloads and 80% of those downloads coming from outside Japan. CocoPPa enables smartphone users to customize their homescreens and share their customizations with others. Watch United’s story on how they used AdMob to identify valuable markets and grow their revenue with users across the globe.
To learn more about
CocoPPa
and our other app stories, visit Success Stories on the
AdMob website
, and stay connected to all things AdMob and more by following our
Google+
page.
Posted by Henry Wang
AdMob Marketing
AdMob Story: Backflip Studios
July 8, 2015
We recently did a case study with Backflip Studios, a wildly successful gaming company with over 300M downloads of their popular games Paper Toss and Ninjump. Founded in April 2009 in Boulder, Colorado, Backflip Studios started out with the idea that mobile was going to change the landscape and ecosystem of gaming. They created free engaging games and grew a huge user base but weren’t sure how to build a sustainable gaming business. Watch their story on how they built their company with AdMob.
To see more stories like this, visit Success Stories on the
AdMob website
, and stay connected to all things AdMob and more by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
page.
Posted by Henry Wang
AdMob Marketing
The App Developer Business Kit: Now available in 10 more languages
July 6, 2015
Today we’re excited to launch
The App Developer Business Kit
in 10 more languages. The website includes tips for new app developers on building, promoting and monetizing your app. Check out the Business Kit in your language:
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Spanish
British English
To help you make decisions about growing your app business in other regions, we’ve added 6 new market reports providing great insights about app users in Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil, France, and Russia. Did you know that Brazilian smartphone users engage with ads more frequently than users in the US and Japan? Or that while nearly 2/3rds of French users exclusively download free apps, only 31% of Brazilian smartphone users do? Check out statistics like these about exciting regions around the world
here
.
Stay connected on all things mobile apps by following us on
Google+
and
Twitter
.
Posted by Sean Meng
Marketing, AdMob
[New Video] AdMob Ad Formats
June 25, 2015
It’s important to have a monetization plan in place before building an app. How you monetize depends on the type of content you’re offering and how users engage with it. If you plan to monetize with ads, AdMob offers various ad formats that are easy to integrate with your app. Find out what they are and which ones are most suitable for your app by watching our video.
To learn more about monetization, sign up for our free
App Monetization Playbook
, and stay connected on all things AdMob and more by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
page.
Posted by Henry Wang
AdMob Marketing
[New eBook] Download Making Money: The App Monetization Playbook
June 17, 2015
The future is bright for mobile apps and their developers, but the road to success isn’t always smooth. With challenges all along the way – in designing, developing, growing and monetizing mobile apps, the process can be overwhelming without the right tools and resources to help.
In a survey Google conducted last year, 25% of app developers had a hard time finding quality resources and support around monetization. That’s why we’re releasing a new eBook today called
Making Money: The App Monetization Playbook
.
We are thrilled to help bridge that gap for app developers like you by providing a detailed map of Google's tools and resources. Whether you’re part of a large company building multiple apps or you’re just getting started building your first app on your own, you’ll find helpful tips and best practices that you can use right away. Download a free copy
here
.
For more tips on app monetization, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
page.
Posted by Shirley Bartov,
Content Marketing Manager
[Infographic] Why Going Global Can Do Wonders for Your App
June 10, 2015
The biggest opportunities to grow your app’s user base may lie outside your home country. People from over 190 countries download apps onto their devices every day. Check out this infographic, featuring just how much potential exists around the world and our top 3 tips on how to grow your app business in other nations.
For other localization tips, check out the
Android Localization Checklist
, and be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Twitter
and
Google+
page.
Posted by Shirley Bartov, Content Marketing Manager
AdMob at Google I/O: Catch Up on Our Announcements
June 4, 2015
We hope you had a fun time tuning into Google I/O this year. If you weren’t able to yet, be sure to check out our talk on Smarter Monetization with AdMob and Google Analytics. In the video we share how AdMob helps you not just earn revenue from your app, but earn the most revenue. The talk covers many of our new features that puts this logic into action. Features such as targeted
In-App Promotion ads and Custom Audience Targeting
, which enables you to segment users of your app and determine who sees ads and who doesn't. If you’re interested in being a beta tester for this feature, please
sign up here
.
Posted by Mike Schipper
AdMob Marketing
New AdMob tools help you build a smarter, faster mobile app business
May 28, 2015
There are many different ways for developers to make money from mobile apps. Paid downloads have been a popular choice among developers, but with only a third of users willing to pay
1
,
increasingly apps are free Now, more and more developers are making money with
in-app advertising and freemium models, with revenue for both growing over 70% from 2013 to 2014.
2
That’s why today, at our annual I/O conference, we announced a set of tools to help you create smarter ways to monetize through segmentation, scale your business through reservations and integrate rich ad formats into apps more easily.
Smarter tools for greater success
As a developer, you want to know your most valuable users and be able to create different experiences for them in your app. Recently we launched the
Audience Builder tool
, powered by Google Analytics, that enables you to segment users based on how they are using your app. Now we’re announcing a new smart feature in beta, that enables you to
define a list of users and show ads to them, while hiding ads from the rest of your users. For example, you might show ads to casual users, but hide ads from highly-engaged users who love sharing your app with their friends on social networks. If you’d like to be considered for this beta, please sign up
here
.
Targeting ads to an audience in AdMob
Smarter monetization should mean earning the most revenue possible, and AdMob’s free
mediation tool
has helped many developers run other mobile ad networks through the AdMob platform to simplify management and improve competition. Today we announced that AdMob mediation now supports
40 mediation partners
, with 15 networks added in the past year alone. We're pleased to welcome
Tencent GDT
as our newest mediation partner, one of the largest mobile ad networks in China.
Helping you scale your app faster
Many app businesses with global reach and scale are growing very quickly in the ecosystem. These apps have dedicated sales teams who work with large advertisers to sell their inventory. Today, we announced a beta to support mobile app sales teams called AdMob Reservations. These sales teams will be able to take ad campaign bookings from advertisers they work with directly, upload ad creatives, and manage the delivery of these campaigns for free, using the AdMob platform.
Fast-growing app developers are choosing AdMob to monetize. Last week, Etermax, who created one of the world’s most popular trivia games in
Trivia Crack
, became one of our
newest partners
.
Making ad integration easier
We want to bring
native ads
to more app developers in a scalable way and with minimum fuss, so we’re improving our ability to serve these types of ads. In the coming months, we’ll be introducing Native Ads Express, a new way to take advantage of native ads that requires no custom engineering work by you.
We know there are many developers who don’t have the resource to design a custom native ad that matches their app, but still want the flexibility that native ads offer. With this feature you can simply define the style of your ad using CSS, and AdMob serves the ad adhering to your specs. You can update the ad’s appearance on the fly by adjusting the CSS, so there’s no need to change your app’s native code when you want to test a different look. We have ads from millions of advertisers that can be styled in the way you want.
We’ve already made great strides to help you integrate AdMob ads across platforms with plugins for games engines such as
Unity
and
Cocos2d-x
. Now, we’re excited to announce the integration of AdMob into
Android Studio
. This powerful new feature will let you quickly and easily create AdMob ad units as you build your app.
AdMob Ads Activity in Android Studio
At Google, we’re passionate about fostering successful app developers, and as the AdMob platform continues to grow, with over 650,000 apps, we’re continually working to give you the tools you need to build your app business, intelligently. Visit
the AdMob website
to get started, and put our new monetization tools to work in your apps.
Lastly, if you’re interested in driving app installs and measuring campaign performance, see the latest exciting I/O announcements from our
AdWords
and
Google Analytics
teams.
Posted by Jonathan Alferness,
Vice President, Product Management
______
1.
eMarketer, February 2015
2. App Annie, App Annie & IDC Mobile App Advertising and Monetization Trends, March 2015
Almost time to share your feedback on AdMob
May 22, 2015
To improve our product and service, we send out a survey to our developers every 6 months. The next survey will be released over the coming weeks and we’re looking forward to getting your responses.
Thanks to your suggestions from our last survey, we’ve launched new features to improve our product and help you grow your earnings. These include launching in-app purchase house ad formats, allowing developers to create audience lists for re-marketing, introducing TrueView video ad interstitials and native ad formats.
Provided we have the right email address for you and you’ve opted in to ‘occasional surveys’, you could get an email giving you access to complete the full survey. Please double check that:
You’ve
updated
your contact details
You’ve
opted into
receive ‘occasional survey’ messages
Whether you’ve completed this survey before or you’re providing feedback for the first time, we’d like to thank you for sharing your valuable thoughts.
We’re excited to get your feedback!
Posted by
Rachel Barrett
AdMob Developer Happiness Team
Register to see Jonathan Alferness' app monetization livestream at Google I/O 2015
May 14, 2015
Google I/0 2015 is just around the corner (May 28-29th), and we’ll be there. There’ll be more than 200 talks centered around some important topics which matter to you:
Design & Develop
, to help you build beautiful, powerful apps;
Earn & Engage
, where we’ll cover tools to grow your user base and create sustainable, successful businesses; and
What’s Next
, a peek into Google’s emerging platforms.
Be sure to tune into our session featuring Jonathan Alferness, VP of Product Management and Global Head of Mobile Display Ads Products for Google on Thursday, May 28, 2015 at 2pm PDT . He’ll be discussing how AdMob brings the power, scale and innovation to app developers who want to monetize effectively through tools like ad mediation for higher fill rates, new formats like native ads, and Audience builder with Google Analytics for list building and targeting. In this talk, we will also be unveiling some new features that will help make things simpler for developers.
Click here to register for the livestream
.
Posted by the Google AdMob Team
Refer a friend and be eligible to win
May 4, 2015
Great developers know other great developers. Starting today, you can refer developers to sign up for AdMob through our AdMob Referral Program. Both you and your eligible referral* will have the opportunity to win a trip to Google Headquarters to meet the AdMob team.
Registering for the program is simple. Just fill out our
referral form
by June 30, 2015 to invite your friend. Both you and your eligible referral will be eligible to win a round-trip flight to Google Headquarters to meet the AdMob team, an opportunity for your app to be features in the AdMob App Spotlight video series, a Nexus 6, and more!
Ready to refer? Submission deadline is June 30, 2015. Multiple referrals are welcome. Send any questions to
admobreferrals@google.com
.
Posted by the Google AdMob Team
*Qualified developer referrals exclude existing AdMob developers. For more details, review the full terms and conditions for the
AdMob Referral Program
and the
Referral Program Contest
, including additional details about eligibility.
Shoot for the stars: 6 principles to optimize app quality
April 30, 2015
As an app developer, you know that improving your app’s rating to 4 stars or more could increase discoverability and convince more users to download it.
Google Play research
also shows that higher rated apps earn more revenue:
* Revenue includes all app business model on Play: IAP, paid app, ads advertising
But how can you achieve that 4+ star score? Once you have set up your regular cycle of collecting, reviewing and actioning feedback from user reviews and ratings, the next key strategy is to optimize the quality of your app.
6 principles to improve app quality
1. Stability: no crashes.
Read user error reports often, and take action quickly to help you improve stability and eliminate bugs.
2. Responsiveness: speed matters.
Minimizing the complexity of your layouts is a simple way to improve your app speed.
3. Usability: be thumb friendly.
Two common, easy-to-fix problems are addressing small tap targets and fonts that are too small. Make sure links are easy to tap.
4. Appearance and aesthetics.
If you don't have the luxury to work with a designer, try using Photoshop, GIMP and other image editing tools to make your app look better.
5. Less is more: launch the right features.
Listen to your users by collecting and responding to feature requests, but remember, you don’t always need to build every suggestion.
6. Integrate with the system and third-party apps:
make users happy by including system features like
Home screen widgets
,
rich notifications
,
global search integration
, and
Quick Contacts
; or leveraging other apps’ functionality.
Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Google+
page and
Twitter
page.
Posted by Amelia Walkley
Marketing Communications Specialist, AdMob
3 steps to earn higher user ratings
April 20, 2015
Need to raise your app’s ratings and increase downloads? Gimmicks and hacks to get higher ratings and more reviews won’t get your app meaningful long-term growth. Instead, the best way to get better ratings is to build authentic relationships with your users–truly listening and responding to their feedback. This leads to a better product experience, loyal users, and ultimately sustainable growth.
Here are three steps to use reviews and ratings to improve your app and increase user engagement.
Step 1: Read and address ratings comments
Book an hour in your calendar each week to read through ratings comments.
Reply to user reviews to help address their concern or gather more detailed feedback.
Pay extra attention to those who gave you 1 or 2-star ratings as their comments will give you more insights for improvement.
Step 2: Create user friendly opportunities to collect feedback
To make sure you’re getting feedback from the most appropriate users, define the signals that prompt your target audience like “reached Level 10”, “completed the first booking”, or “opened 3+ times in a week”
Choose a placement in your app where you don’t interrupt user experience. Unexpected pop-up messages asking for a rating can bother users. Instead, place the review request after a user has had a positive interaction with your app, like successfully completing a task or level.
Ask about the user’s happiness level first. Depending on their happiness level, provide different channels to escalate their feedback:
Step 3: Analyze and act on user feedback
Apply filters to see feedback by rating, written language, app version, and/or device.
Understand your user better by interpreting comments against user-related metrics such as download sources, retention rates, and in-app behavior.
Update your app with users’ feature requests and fix issues they have raised. Be sure to respond to the comment directly in the Play Store, sharing the positive changes you’ve made.
The hard work of building relationships and responding to user’s concern won’t pay off instantly, but it can lead to longer term success. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Google+
page.
Posted by Amelia Walkley
Marketing Communications Specialist, AdMob
Lowdown: Best ways to monetize your messaging app
April 13, 2015
Lowdown is a regular series that brings you tips and tricks on how to best use AdMob to grow your app business, directly from members of the Google AdMob team.
It’s a fantastic time for messaging apps. Massive company valuations, global user bases, and strong demand for wifi-based communication have incentivized mobile developers to throw their hats into the messaging arena. We’ve seen the features and functionality for these apps become more sophisticated, expanding to delivering virtual goods, coupons, app-discovery, and even social networking. As functionality has expanded, so have the monetization potentials. Here are a few ways to best monetize your messaging app and tips to optimize your setup.
Banner Ads:
The nature of messaging apps make it very conducive for banner ad units. User spend large quantities of time on their menu, contacts and messaging pages, making it easier for users to interact with ads and drive higher engagement from anchored banner units. AdMob’s strong global coverage and year over year eCPM growth in this format can help monetize the market your users operate within.
Interstitials Ads:
Interstitial ads are not just for gaming apps. Messaging apps also have natural transition points within their user’s flow, perfect for eCPM-driven ad units like interstitials. For example a perfect place for an interstitial ad may be the moment once a user completes a phone or video call and the app transitions back into the main screen. See examples below.
Targeted In-App Purchases
Messaging apps could offer In-App Purchases (IAPs) in the form of more minutes, credits or virtual goods. Although the traditional conversion rates for these offers have been very low, AdMob automatically figures out which of your users are likely to spend, based on Google’s proprietary data and models. AdMob offers robust IAP functionality, making it easy for you to create IAP offer units and target high potential spenders. You can learn more about this feature
here
.
A diversified, metrics driven approach can help you to better monetize your messaging app. Visit our
website
to learn more about how AdMob can help you grow your app business. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Google+
page.
Posted by Jeff Salvitti
Strategic Mobile Partner Manager
How FGL helped indie game developers increase their revenue by 50%
April 7, 2015
Adam Schroeder
Co-Founder, FGL
FGL
is not your average app company. They don’t build apps themselves, instead they help independent game developers grow their business and generate more revenue. So far, they’ve earned over $20M in revenue, guiding over 30,000 registered developers from 105 countries around the world. Using AdMob well is one of the secrets to their success. We recently got to discuss their business with co-founder Adam Schroeder. To check out
FGL’s success story
, or any other of our other success stories, visit us at
http://www.google.com/admob/success.html
. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our
Google+
page.
Posted by
Desiree Motamedi
Product Marketing, AdMob
Our AdMob Support Team is Here for You!
March 19, 2015
We get it - it’s not easy being an app developer. From being inspired to create an app to the final moment of pushing it live to the app store, there are already plenty of challenges for you to overcome. That’s why our global AdMob support team is here to make monetizing your apps with AdMob as breezy as possible.
Over the past year, we’ve worked tirelessly to create and improve content on the
AdMob Help Center
so that you can easily find answers to your questions. However, we also understand that sometimes you just want to communicate with a real person.
That’s why beginning of this year we launched a new
Contact Us
flow. Anyone with an AdMob account that’s making more than $25 a week can reach us for assistance via the Help Center. Simply click on the “Contact Us” button (upper right hand corner). This applies to
AdSense
too. If you don’t qualify and can’t find that “Contact Us” button, don’t worry! You can still reach us via the issue-based troubleshooters found throughout our Help Center.
To give you a better idea of what we do, here are a few common questions we get:
When am I getting paid?
What happens to my AdMob account if I’m moving to another country?
Why was there a difference between my estimated earnings and my finalized earnings last month?
Of course, that’s not all. We support up to 650k apps across
35 different languages
via our email support, and we make it our top priority to answer your questions as quickly as we can. Our average response time is less than 1 business day, and last month, we achieved an 80% survey satisfaction rate through our support interactions with developers!
Here are a few more resources to help make your life easier!
AdMob Quick Guide
Help Center troubleshooters
Help Center “Contact Us” button
Google Mobile Ads SDK Developers
AdMob website
AdMob blog
Admob Google+
AdMob twitter
Don’t be shy in reaching out to us- we’re excited to hear more from you and see how we can improve your experience with AdMob!
Posted by Pauline Wang
Partner Support Specialist
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