3 Easy Steps To Monetize Android Apps With Ads

You’ve probably spent sleepless nights time perfecting the design and mechanics of your freemium iOS or Android app and put of any thoughts about monetization. The thought of strategizing a return on your investment turns your stomach. But you’ll be glad to know that if you’re reading this eBook you’re already onestep ahead of your competitors. You’ve recognized that you need to weigh all available monetization options and identify the strategy that works best for your app. Say that your app is available for free on Apple’s App Store, Google Play, or an alternative Android app store and generating a few thousand, or even tens of thousands of downloads. You might not realize it, but your app is primed to make money. All that’s left to do is to fgure out how to convert these free users into paying users. There’s plenty of talk centering around freemium monetization strategies like inapp purchases and afliate marketing. While these are options you can explore, advertising is making a strong case regardless of its bad rap. As more smartphones and mobile devices enter the market and more apps are downloaded per phone, time spent on mobile devices is skyrocketing. In fact compared to 2012, U.S. mobile device owners in 2013 will spend 30.3% more time on mobile reports eMarketer. Combine this a 31% In fact, advertising is the best option for new developers. Not convinced? Here’s why. growth of smartphone subscribers globally in 2013, the supply of mobile advertising inventory continues to grow despite not having enough advertisers to fll this inventory. Digging deeper, we can look at Mary Meeker’s 2013 Internet Trend report to identify the opportunity cost of mobile advertising

3 EASY STEPS

TO MONETIZE ANDROID APPS WITH ADS

DEVELOPER’S GUIDE

Monetizing your app 1

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Intro to mobile advertising

Breaking down ad formats

Identifying your goals

Ad Format Examples

Analytics

Optimization

Integrating Ads

Step 1 - Intro to Mobile Advertising

Step 2 - Goals & Choosing Ad Formats

Step 3 - Analytics & Optimzation

INDEX

Need-to-Know Terms

Monetizing your app 1

Where do I begin?

Developers would argue that developing the app was the easiest part The hard part comes

after the realization that making the app was only the first battle

The only problem now is that you’re probably asking yourself, “I want to monetize my

freemium app, but where do I begin?”

Fortunately, we can help with that

You’ve probably spent sleepless nights time perfecting the design and mechanics of your

freemium iOS or Android app and put off any thoughts about monetization The thought

of strategizing a return on your investment turns your stomach But you’ll be glad to know

that if you’re reading this eBook you’re already one-step ahead of your competitors You’ve

recognized that you need to weigh all available monetization options and identify the

strategy that works best for your app

If you’re unsure about any mobile advertising terms discussed in the eBook, check out

AppFlood’s “Need-to-Know Terms” in the “Index” page

Monetizing your app 2

Why mobile ads?

Say that your app is available for free on Apple’s App Store, Google Play, or an alternative

Android app store and generating a few thousand, or even tens of thousands of downloads

You might not realize it, but your app is primed to make money All that’s left to do is to figure out how to convert these free users into paying users

There’s plenty of talk centering around freemium monetization strategies like in-app

purchases and affiliate marketing While these are options you can explore, advertising is

making a strong case regardless of its bad rap

As more smartphones and mobile

devices enter the market and more

apps are downloaded per phone,

time spent on mobile devices is

skyrocketing In fact compared

to 2012, U.S mobile device

owners in 2013 will spend

30.3% more time on mobile

reports eMarketer

Combine this a 31%

In fact, advertising is the best option for

new developers

Not convinced? Here’s why

growth of smartphone subscribers globally in 2013, the supply of mobile advertising inventory continues to grow despite not having enough advertisers to fill this inventory

Digging deeper, we can look at Mary Meeker’s 2013 Internet Trend report to identify the

opportunity cost of mobile advertising

According to Meeker’s findings, the time spent on mobile devices in the United States heavily outweighs the $4 billion ad spend in 2012 The result is a $20 billion opportunity cost in unspent Internet and mobile ad spend.

In other words, for the time that people spend on their mobile devices, advertisers must

collectively spend nearly $16 billion if they want to fill all the empty mobile ad inventory As more advertisers recognize the value of mobile and hop on board on the mobile ad bandwagon, mobile advertising will heat up But from the publisher’s perspective, you can look at the ad spend

opportunity this way: $20 billion is the total pie that you can get a cut of once advertisers pick up their mobile ad spend

Monetizing your app 3Why mobile ads? (cont.)

Step 1

Intro to

Mobile

Advertising

Step 1 - Intro to Mobile Advertising 4

There’s no such thing as a universal app Likewise there’s no such thing as a universal ad

format So to retrofit the variations in app designs, ad networks have come up with different

ad formats to choose from For example AppFlood offers interstitials, panels, banners, app

lists, customized ads, icons, and notification ads

But wait a minute What the heck are “interstitials,” “lists,” and “panels?” The jargon that we’re suddenly throwing around might be confusing, we know, but don’t worry

We’ll walk you through the major ad formats that you need to know and familiarize you with

the mobile advertising industry Eventually, you’ll be able to quickly identify the ad format that best suits your app and become a publisher in no time

But before we delve into the nitty gritty details, we’ll go over the

basics starting with eCPMs

5

What is eCPM?

eCPM is a core concept in advertising and it’s important enough that we’ll take a moment to

dig deeper into its meaning

“eCPM” (also known as “effective cost per thousand impressions”) is a widely used benchmark

in advertising that’s used to measure how much money you’re making from each advertiser per 1,000 impressions Generally speaking, eCPM is a measurement unit that gauges the quality of

an advertiser

Let’s take a look the eCPM formula so we can get a clearer picture of what eCPM actually

means

total number of impressions that advertiser’s ad has gotten, shows you how much you’re

earning for a single impression Since CPMs are measured and paid out per 1,000 impressions, the result is multiplied by 1,000 to give you an eCPM value, or in other words how much you’re

46

eCPM =

Total Earnings Total Impressions

x 1,000

Step 1 - Intro to Mobile Advertising

Learn more about why the eCPM metric isn’t as simple as it appears

average for every 1,000 impressions

Theoretically if you want to generate

more revenue, what you want is to

maximize your eCPM

Word of caution: As great as the eCPM metric is, you should know that it’s not a foolproof

standard for measuring your ad’s performance One advertiser with a high eCPM might generate less revenue for you than a lower eCPM advertiser simply because you’ve distributed more

impressions to the lower eCPM advertiser

Banner ads are inescapable and we’ve all seen them on our favorite websites before If

you’re a developer who’s looking for a quick advertising solution, banner ads slide up or pop

up at the top or bottom of the screen The simplicity of deploying a banner ad makes it a

popular choice among developers, despite its negative reputation

What is a Banner Ad?

The interstitial advertising format in a mobile app

takes over the app’s screen, which might remind you

of a pop up ad No one likes pop up ads But you’ll

be surprised to learn that because of its full-screen

nature, interstitials can sometimes generate high

CTRs compared to other ad formats – some more

than 25% or even 40% as we’ve seen on AppFlood’s

network

But interstitials can be considered spammy if

What is a Full Screen Interstitial?

47

balance between showing the ad often enough to generate impressions (the number of times the ad is displayed), without annoying users

Step 1 - Intro to Mobile Advertising

Developers earn more money with interstitial ads Here’s why

Interstitial

790 x 470

Panels are an ad format often embraced by

game publishers The ad format displays five

ads with the largest ad panel at the top of the

screen, followed below by four thumbnail ads

More importantly, panels offer your users an

unobtrusive user experience Publishers can

implement a custom button, somewhere within

the app’s navigation bar, that can trigger the

ad should the user tap on it Either an ad list of

“More Games” or “More Apps” can be displayed

What is a Panel Ad?

An app list displays ads in list form The app list

was designed keeping in mind that smartphone

users are familiar with this ad format You might

recognize that app lists resemble app store lists

At the same time, the layout of the app list is

inherently designed to pack in as many ads as

possible into a mobile screen So somewhere

down the list, an app is bound to catch the

What is an App List?

8

user’s interest Like panel ads, this format can also be triggered from a custom button

The catch is that the app’s creative (the image advertising the app) has only enough retail

space to display a single icon for each app On the other hand ad formats like interstitials and panel ads reserve a larger surface area for larger creatives

Step 1 - Intro to Mobile Advertising

MoreGames

454 x 222, 182 x 89

App List

Icon ads are pushed to the user’s home screen

and displayed within an app’s icon When the

user taps on the icon, the ad format opens up

either a panel or list ad format depending on the

publisher’s choice

Because icon ads are banned from Google Play

we’d recommend Android developers to avoid

integrating this ad format However alternative

Android app stores continue to accept apps that

use icon ads

What is an Icon Ad?

Push notification ads push ads to the

smartphone’s system notification dashboard

With Google’s developer guideline update, push

notification ads have also been banned from

Google Play, but the format can be integrated

into apps published to alternative Android app

With custom ads you can opt to creatively display ads in customizable formats of your

choosing Since custom ads aren’t a default ad format on AppFlood, implementing this

requires some extra leg work from you or your development team However since you’re in

control of how you want to style this ad format, you can mix and match two existing ad

formats if you wish, reskin an existing format, or even design a brand new format that displays ads natively in your mobile app

What is a Custom Ad?

10

Step 1 - Intro to Mobile Advertising

If you have additional questions about any of AppFlood’s ad formats, feel free to reach out to AppFlood and we’ll answer any questions

Custom

Step 2

Goals &

Choosing

Ad Formats

Step 2 - Goals & Choosing Ad Formats

We’ll start off by saying that there’s no such thing as a “rule of thumb” for identifying the ad

format that fits best for your app That “Ah ha!” moment when you identify the combination

of ad formats that works for you won’t come on day one You have to factor in what your

advertising objectives are and the type of experience you want your users to enjoy

Seeing as how there’s no one solution-fits-all even with the preset ad formats that AppFlood

provides, there’s plenty of room for creativity To find the ad format that works best for your

app, you’ll have experiment

But with that said, we’ve outlined a few strategies based on your monetization objectives to

help guide you as you determine a suitable ad format for your app

What’s your monetization objective?

12

Are you looking to balance revenue with a tolerable user-experience?

Do you want minimally invasive ads?

Do you need to monetize quickly?

Is your app a mobile game?

Do you want to maximize your earnings?

1 Looking to balance revenue with a tolerable UX?

Now if your focus is to create a user-experience that balances UX with revenue, most

publishers will opt for interstitials Taking a look at AppFlood’s network of publishers in the

month of August 2013, 58.52% of publishers opted to integrate this ad format because it’s

easy to deploy and tends to generate the most revenue for advertisers Of course, how an ad format is deployed and the number of impressions you’ve given an ad affects revenue

Ad Format Usage on AppFlood

You’ll see from the chart “Impressions by Ad Format,” impressions from interstitials on

average are higher than other ad formats Because the full-screen takeover encourages

enough users to click-through, we’ve found that earnings also tend to out-earn other ad

formats

one (or more) of the following four scenarios: the user enters the app, exits the app, the ad

displays in between game levels in lieu of a loading screen, or it displays in conjunction with

a “Game Over” screen

Impressions by Ad Format (Aug 2013)

List ads are a close second favorite if you want to minimize the chances of annoying your

users, but maximize revenue It generates the highest eCPMs on AppFlood’s network, and the second-highest CTRs We’ve also found that list ads will best all but the interstitial ad format in earnings List ads can be deployed to trigger at the user’s volition or it can be customized to

show up, like interstitial ads, before an app’s start and exit screens

Despite its good reputation, list ads are underutilized with just 2.07 percent of developers

using the format The issue with list ads is with the ad’s design, which in many cases is a

problem of user-experience compatibility For instance news readers, calendars, and games can display list ads without interrupting the app’s user experience, since these apps may display

content in a list style, but the ad format isn’t suitable for every app

1 Looking to balance revenue with a tolerable UX? (cont.)

15

Step 2 - Goals & Choosing Ad Formats

Have you already settled on an ad format? Here’s how to get started

2 Do you want minimally invasive ads?

If your number one priority is the user experience, panel and list formats are discrete and

your best bet If you have the resources to spare, you can opt for a custom ad

The benefit as we’ve explained already is in the freedom to design a format that fits within the design scheme of your mobile app Ideally the ad might not even feel like an ad to the

user Custom ads however require extra developement and design resources, which can be time consuming

Panels and lists can be formatted to be accessed through a button that sits within the

app’s navigation bar, effectively giving your users the choice to open up the ad From a

user-experience standpoint, you’re not forcing an ad on the user so the chances of annoying

On closer inspection, panels command the second highest eCPMs and among the highest

CTRs, but the impressions are comparatively low so don’t bank on panels being your

cash cow List ads have eCPMs that are 2.22 times higher than panels, nearly twice the

impressions, and you’ll find that earnings are higher with list ads

If it were left up to us, we’d recommend using list ads, but keep in mind that not all

developers’ apps are the right fit for the ad format All-in-all, both of these formats are a

great way to supplement your earnings, but we wouldn’t rely solely on them if earnings is a concern

2 Do you want minimally invasive ads? (cont.)

17

Step 2 - Goals & Choosing Ad Formats

Here’s how to decide between app lists or panel ads

For those of you that have an unexpected wave of new users flooding

into your app, each day that passes without ads in your app is

another day that you’ve missed out on revenue If you’re in

this boat, you’ll be glad to know that the solution is

actually quite simple

If time isn’t on your side, deploy banner ads or interstitials

The sheer ease with adding these two ad formats makes them great short-term

solutions Both generate high impressions So, as long as people are seeing ads, you can

tinker around with the ad format’s placement or design to figure out how to boost clicks or

installs Banners and interstitials may have unremarkable CTRs, with a modest 5.70% CTR

for interstitials and a 0.23% CTR for banners, but that doesn’t go to say that interstitials and

banner ads aren’t useful

3 Need to monetize quickly?

Click-Through Rate by Ad Format (Aug 2013)

Step 2 - Goals & Choosing Ad Formats

If fast money is on your mind, there’s no time to waste

Get started with installing interstitials or banners

Even if these formats are a short-term fix, click-through rates aren’t end-all solutions that

determine how much you earn As a matter of fact, these formats can generate the highest

revenue