Tag Archives: App Best Practices

Grow your app business with Google’s new education program for Universal App campaigns

Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog.
Today, we’re launching a new interactive education program for Universal App campaigns (UAC). UAC makes it easy for you to reach users and grow your app business at scale. It uses Google’s machine learning technology to help find the customers that matter most to you, based on your business goals — across Google Play, Google.com, YouTube and the millions of sites and apps in the Display Network.

UAC is a shift in the way you market your mobile apps, so we designed the program’s first course to help you learn how to get the best results from UAC. Here are a few reasons we encourage you take the course:
  • Learn from industry experts. The course was created by marketers who’ve been in your shoes and vetted by the team who built the Universal App campaign.
  • Learn on your schedule. Watch snackable videos at your own pace. The course is made up of short 3-minute videos to help you master the content faster.



  • Practice what you learn. Complete interactive activities based on real life scenarios like using UAC to help launch a new app or release an update for your app.

 


So, take the course today and let us know what you think. You can also read more about UAC best practices here and here.

Hope to see you in class!

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, VP of Product, Mobile App Advertising at Google

Source: Inside AdMob


Use ad content filtering to help improve your users’ ad experience

Optimizing the ad experience on your app for a varied audience can be difficult. Showing users ads that are a better fit can improve their overall ad experience and help maximize your app’s revenue.

AdMob has launched a new feature that allows you to specify the content rating for Google ads served in your app. With the new max_ad_content_rating signal, you can now choose the content rating of Google demand that you want to deliver on a per-request basis.

Four content rating choices offer you the granularity you need to provide users at each level with a better user experience.

The four new content rating choices are:

  • G: Content suitable for general audiences 
  • PG: Content suitable for most audiences with parental guidance 
  • T: Content suitable for teen and older audiences 
  • MA: Content suitable only for mature audiences 


You can start sending the new max_ad_content_rating signal in the AdMob SDK by following these Android and iOS guides.

 To learn more about the new signal and the content rating choices, visit the AdMob help center or contact your Google account team.

Source: Inside AdMob


Get your ads ready for iPhone X

Every interaction a user has with your app matters. That’s why we’re constantly evolving our advertising recommendations and policies to ensure that no matter where and on what device users are engaging with your apps, they have good experiences.

With the launch of the iPhone X, app developers now need to plan for new design considerations as the rounded corners, notch, and home screen indicator on the extended screen can obscure content and lead to poor ad experiences for users when ads are placed in these areas.

Example of ad appearing outside of “safe area” on iPhone X
That’s why we’ve put together a guide to help you adapt your ad strategy for iPhone X. This includes guidance for how you can shift placement of banner or native ads to designated “safe areas” for this new device.

We’ve also updated our policies to indicate that ads must not be placed where objects may interfere with the user's typical interaction with the ad or app, such as under the home screen indicator on the iPhone X.

Please review these policy updates and our suggested implementation guide to ensure you’re compliant by November 20th.

If you have any questions, visit the AdMob Help Center or contact your Google account team.

Posted by Pablo Alvarez, Product Manager, AdMob

Source: Inside AdMob


Preloading Interstitial Ads

In today’s topic, we’re exploring how you can help stay compliant with AdMob policies when using the AdMob interstitial ad format. If you have ever received a policy message for “Layout encourages accidental clicks - Interstitial Ads”, or have had trouble with implementing interstitials to trigger on time, read ahead for our best practices.

App layouts that encourage accidental clicks are a common policy issue for publishers. When implementing interstitial ads within a mobile app, there may be a slight delay in when the ad gets triggered after a user selects an action. In the example below we can see that an interstitial ad launches unexpectedly with a delay on the second screen after the page has already loaded. This delay can occur due to carrier latency when requesting the interstitial ad.

Carrier Latency causing a delay in the interstitial ad

Pre-loading your interstitial ads will allow you to avoid latency when the ad is displayed to the user.
In the corrected example below, the user now clicks on a transitional button and an interstitial ad is shown immediately on action. Once the user closes the interstitial ad they will now be on the next loaded page.

Pre-loading the interstitial ad to trigger on action

To learn more about how to preload your interstitial ads, please follow the AdMob Interstitial Ad developer guidelines for apps developed for Android and iOS.

Implementing these ads in the right way is better for your users, advertisers and for you. AdMob policies are designed to create a positive user experience. For further tips on AdMob Interstitial Ads and Best Practices, check out our official best practices video.

Remember to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

Posted by: Zac Campbell, AdMob Publisher Quality Team

Source: Inside AdMob


Optimizing App Monetization with Google AdMob

All views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author, and not that of Google. This guest post is from Sreeraman Thiagarajan, a Google Developers Expert in the app marketing and monetization space and a published author on the Economic Times. Sreeraman is featured as our guest blogger to share insights and tips from his experience to help AdMob developers grow their earnings. If you’re new to AdMob, be sure to sign up here.

In the introductory post we saw how AdMob lets app developers take control of monetizing their apps - here’s the second part on optimization and measuring.

Optimizing revenue and volume: A counter question I often get goes like this “But other networks offer better eCPM (more dollar for every one thousand impressions served), why must I choose AdMob?” Answer for this lies in understanding two metrics and the two respective fundamentals behind each of these metrics.

The first metric is ‘fill rate’ which means how many relevant ads can the ad network fulfill as requested by your app? A simple demand-supply equation is the fundamental behind this metric, because there are a lot of advertisers on Google, nearly 1million plus advertisers who want to show their ads (demand) to a potential audience who could be using your app (supply). This equation generates a very high amount of ‘ad requests’ of 200 billion per month, globally. With AdMob on your app, you can join the supply side.

The second metric of eCPM is how much money per thousand impression your app can earn? eCPM differs from network to network, however a simple multiplication of eCPM with fill rate answers this question. If network A offers $1 at a fill rate of 85% then you get 85 cents revenue per thousand ad request (aka RPM). Now if network B offers twice as much at $2 but with a lower fill rate of 30% then you only get 60 cents of RPM. That’s a 25% loss on potential earnings.

Choosing the type of ads to show: There a few standard types of ads, namely Banners, Interstitials, Rewarded, and Native. There’s no fixed formula for which type of banner to use, but one principle developers must strongly adhere to is to ‘preserve user experience’ by integrating ads as unobtrusively and as natively as possible.

Game developers have an advantage in using rewarded ads, this a form of interstitial ad units that enables you to reward users with in-app items such as an extra life, a level jump, a feature unlock, etc., for watching video ads.

Native ads is a boon for publishers and content based apps. It is a component based ad format that matches the look and feel of the app where the ad is being displayed. This makes the ads look like they  are  a part of the app and reduces obtrusiveness. A simple example of this is a promoted tweet on Twitter or a promoted post on Facebook. It is essentially a tweet or post like any other, but an identified sponsor has paid to promote it.

Banners and interstitials are pretty standard formats. Apps can choose to display banners at fixed positions on screen like the top or bottom. The full-screen ads are called interstitials, these are displayed at natural transition points in the user journey such as between two levels in a game, between two news articles, etc.

Stop guessing and start testing: App developers often suffer from the curse of knowledge, that is, they assume their users know and use the app the way it was meant to be. But more often than not, this is not true and building the app’s advertising strategy on gut feel is bad for business. Optimal monetization happens when users’ journey from acquisition to retention is deeply understood. Thanks to the integration of Google Firebase with AdMob, app developers can use Firebase’s free & unlimited analytics solution for deploying intelligent ad monetization strategies.

Importing Firebase SDK into apps requires no complicated coding. Once integrated, developers can get details like sessions, demographics of users, revenue from in-app purchases, etc., from Firebase Analytics. Besides this, AdMob’s own reports will give you a ringside view on how revenue is generated.

To optimize monetization, it is imperative developers inculcate a habit of continuous testing and tweaking their product strategy based on data and hard insights.

In conclusion, ads are above fifty percent of total revenue generated by apps. According to data point by App Annie and IDC, in-app ads are projected to grow at 3.2X in next two years1. As stated by Gartner, this year, over 268 billion apps are expected to be downloaded worldwide2; apps have no boundary and you never know audience from which country maybe your biggest fans.

Successful app monetization happens when there’s a mind-set of growth. Grow your audience base, preserve user experience, integrate AdMob, and ad revenue will start taking care of itself. Thus giving developers bandwidth to build more products or enhance existing features.

Google has made a lot of resources available on AdMob and if you are a developer with apps that has over 100,000 downloads you can request a free consultation. Both the resources are free of cost. Godspeed and love to see India rise up in charts for generating app revenue.

1 - https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.appannie.com/reports/App-Annie-IDC-Mobile-App-Advertising-Monetization-Trends-2013-2018-EN.pdf 
2 - http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2654115 

Source: Inside AdMob


How Gaming Apps Can Increase Monetization Through Creative Strategies

Many game developers use other successful titles (whether their own or from another developer) as examples of how to best design a game or monetize. This can be a smart move, especially when it comes to user interface elements like control scheme, player progress, and currency economics. However, when it comes to knowing what is the best way to monetize your app, copying other apps may leave you with money on the table.
It's tempting to look at how successful titles in the app market are making money and mimic it. If it works so well for those games, you might say, it should work just as well for my game. While true in some cases, not all titles can bank on the exact same rhythm of in-app purchases and a sprinkle of rewarded video ads to meet revenue targets.
So what can you do? Focus on what makes your game different-- from the art design to the leveling-- and experiment with in-app purchase and ad placements to fit to amplify this experience. Oh, and here’s where a little out of the box thinking can come in handy-- new ad formats can be very effective in holding user attention without breaking the core loop.  Be sure to test how these work in your game-- they could offer a whole new level of return for ads, and even build the suspense for the player journey.
Fantasy world; real solutions - 4 steps to get you started
Let’s travel to a parallel dimension, a place where a strategy game called Collision of Tribes is not doing that well from a monetization standpoint. In fact, it is just one more app in the store. Its core mechanics have great balance, the user base is engaged, but for some reason the revenue isn’t quite there. Here are some steps to consider as to how an uplift in revenue can be achieved using AdMob:

  • Consider new ad formats - the transition point between a battle report and town management screen is a perfect spot to use an interstitial ad. An even better practice would be to target only users that had success on their raid. Combining an ad with a positive experience in-game will increase it’s effectiveness.
  • Test it - there is no need to release the new ad feature to all users. Developers can choose a small segment of their user base (say 10%) to make sure the effect in revenue is positive. 
  • Gauge user response - just as you would when changing a game mechanic or implementing a new one, look at your engagement metrics to see if there is any wanted or unwanted effect. Reading store reviews will give a more personalized understanding of how users perceive the change.
  • Back to the drawing board - even when things are going well, there’s always room for improvement. Use the data you have to balance and rebalance frequency capping, floor prices and placements. On the other hand, if interstitial ads don’t bring the expected results, how about trying native ads or other formats instead?

Following the above steps can help not only for Collision of Tribes’ developers, but hopefully you as well. If following the leader only got you so far, try something new to take that extra step forward.
Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.
Posted by Omri Dolev, Strategic Partner Manager, AdMob.

Source: Inside AdMob


How to Resolve Google Play Policy Issues

From time to time, you may encounter Google Play policy issues with your apps. The Google Play policy team has been working hard to provide you with the resources and support you need to resolve policy issues.

If the app review team notices a policy issue with your app or app update, you’ll receive an email with the subject line “Notification from Google Play.” (If you didn’t receive this email, make sure to update your email address on the account details page in your Developer Console.)

The policy notification email includes the policy your app violated and the steps you need to take to resolve the issue. If your app is rejected, you can fix the issue and submit the app again for another review - you don’t need to reach out to the policy support team.

If you disagree with a policy violation, or if you’d like help resolving your policy issue, you can always contact our support team. Simply use the contact details in the notification email or click on the question mark at the bottom of each page in the Developer Policy Center.

For the quickest response, make sure to include your package name. As soon as you submit the form, you’ll receive an automated response with a case number in the subject line. This means your appeal has been submitted successfully. A specialist will review your case and respond to you within 72 hours.

If you’d like to learn more about Google Play policy, check out the “10 tips to stay on the right side of Google Play policy” video on the Android Developers YouTube channel or below.

Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

Posted by Chris Jones, Social Team, AdMob.

Source: Inside AdMob


10 Tips to Stay on The Right Side of Google Play Policy

In a previous blog post, we introduced the Google Play Developer Policy Center. To go along with making the policies more accessible and useful to developers, the policy team has created an engaging video to help developers stay on the right side of Google Play policy.

Here are the 10 tips to stay on the right side of Google Play policy;

Review the Policy Center: It’s recommended that you review the Policy Center whenever you're unsure if your app violates policy.

Describe your app appropriately: Take the time to describe your app appropriately in order to avoid metadata policy violations. Remember that every translation of your app description needs to be compliant with the metadata policy.

Use images you have the rights to: Your app icon and any graphic assets in your Store Listing should only include images you have the rights to use. If you have been granted permission to use assets owned by others, you can notify the app review team using this form. Make sure that all text and images used in your Store Listing are appropriate for app lovers of all ages.

Rate your app accurately: When answering the content rating questionnaire, it’s important to provide accurate responses in order to receive an accurate rating.

Handle user data with care: User data can include information provided by a user, collected about a user, or collected about a user’s interactions with the app or device. If your app is collecting personal or sensitive user data, you’ll need to handle it securely and include a privacy policy in your Store Listing and in your app.

Make sure ads in your app are policy compliant: Ad behavior should be straightforward - it’s against policy to show ads that are disruptive or deceptive, including ads that pose as system notifications, ads that aren’t dismissible, or ads that appear after a user closes the app. Additionally, ad content in your app should not include adult images, violence, or anything else that would violate the restricted content policy. You may want to check with your ad provider to learn about filtering options.

Don’t forget the restricted content policy: Check your app and your Store Listing for any restricted content, such as adult content, violence, or drugs. If you're concerned about any content in your app, read through the restricted content policy for more details and examples. If any content in your app is user-generated, you’ll need to take additional precautions in order to provide a policy compliant app experience. Check out the user generated content policy to learn more.

Update your email preferences: Make sure to update your email address on the account details page in your Developer Console. That way, if a policy issue does come up, we can contact you with the steps to address it.

Fix any policy issues found in review: Even though you’ve checked your app against the policies, it’s always possible that your app gets rejected or suspended after review. If your app or app update gets rejected, keep in mind that many violations can be fixed! Just follow the steps in the “Notification from Google Play” email you received.

Reach out to us for support: If you disagree with a policy violation, or if you’d like help resolving your policy issue, you can contact our policy support team.

In the next blog post, we’ll talk more about our enforcement process and policy support resources.

Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

Posted by Chris Jones, Social Team, AdMob.

Source: Inside AdMob


Explore the Google Play Developer Policy Center

To maximize your app’s revenue potential, you’ll want to make sure your app is compliant with Google Play policies. If your app violates Google Play policy, ad serving can be disabled, so it’s a good idea to regularly review policy updates.

The Developer Policy Center (found at play.google.com/policy) was launched earlier this year and includes:

  • Policies organized by themes, such as Monetization & Ads, Privacy & Security and Restricted Content
  • Visual examples and detailed guidelines for the most common violations
  • A simplified layout to help you navigate more intuitively on mobile or desktop
  • An Updates section to help keep you informed of recent additions to Google Play policy 

You can select a specific policy to learn more about it.

Stay tuned to learn more about policy best practices - we’ll be posting a short video highlighting 10 tips to stay on the right side of Play policy.

Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

Posted by Chris Jones, Social Team, AdMob.

Source: Inside AdMob