Tag Archives: Product Announcement

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


Understand Active View to Increase the Value of Your AdMob Ads

We’ve been advancing measurement standards across the ad industry with Active View, Google’s ad viewability measurement solution, for some time. Introduced in 2012, we’ve been extending Active View reporting across our ad platforms, including DoubleClick, so publishers can get an accurate measure of ad viewability.

Now available in AdMob for the first time, Active View metrics in the AdMob Network report help you understand what portion of your AdMob ads are viewable long enough to potentially be actionable by users. With this data you can increase the viewability of your ads by optimizing how they appear in your app. At this time, the Active View metrics in the AdMob Network report are only for display ads, with metrics for video ads coming soon.

What is ad viewability?
Generally, viewability is the percentage of ads considered viewable by users out of the total number of ads measured. It’s important because it helps advertisers to understand what percentage of their ads are potentially actionable. Google’s Active View metric counts an ad as viewable if a minimum of 50% of the pixels of the ad are on screen for at least one continuous second for display ads, or two continuous seconds for video ads.

Think about this experience on your mobile app. If you place your ads near the bottom of a long screen where users are unlikely to scroll, then your total number of viewable impressions is likely to be lower than if you had placed the ad higher up the screen.

In the report, metrics include the percentage of measurable impressions (eligible impressions that could be measured with Active View), and the percentage of viewable impressions (the percentage of measurable Active View-eligible impressions that were viewable). You can find more details about additional metrics in this AdMob help center article.

View Active View metrics for your app in the AdMob Network report (top right) 
What are the benefits for the ad industry and app developers?
More insights into viewability provide benefits for the ad industry overall. Advertisers get an accurate picture of what percentage of their ads are being seen by users. Based on this knowledge they can create better ads which are more engaging to users, and also gain insight into which apps are providing the most value to them. For advertisers who are paying by the impression, this can result in more efficient ad campaigns.

Developers stand to benefit by being able to create well-integrated ad experiences in apps to improve user experience which can lead to higher monetization. For example, developers can use this data to place ads in positions where they are more viewable, while still keeping app content engaging and easy to access.

Explore and stay tuned
We invite you to check out the new Active View metrics in your AdMob account, and come back to the Inside AdMob blog next week for the start of a new five-part series on ad viewability.

Until then, for more tips on app monetization, follow our Twitter and Google+ pages.

Posted by Sarah Faulkner, Product Manager, AdMob

Source: Inside AdMob


SDK-less Mediation: An easier way to mediate


Publishers have long used mediation to maximize revenue by showing ads sourced from diverse ad networks. However adding new networks required integrating and testing new SDKs - which often led to wasted development resources, app updates, bugs and bloated code. With SDK-less mediation it is now possible to simply add new networks server side without updating their apps.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’re adding SDK-less mediation to the AdMob and DoubleClick for Publishers platforms. SDK-less mediation is a feature that lets developers add new ad networks without having to integrate additional SDKs or adapters. This is great for developers who are concerned with SDK size or who simply do not want to deal with the hassle of adding and updating new ad network SDKs. With SDK-less mediation, developers can conveniently add new ad networks to their mediation stack.

"AdMob SDK-less allows us to test new networks without updating binaries. It means we can get more expensive traffic from new networks and increase our overall eCPM (and overall income) just by adding new networks and finding most optimal mediation settings (and all these don't require any programming!)." - Victor Negrutsa, CEO, 1C Wireless

As with AdMob’s existing SDK-based mediation, SDK-less mediation will support all existing mediation features including ad network optimization, Live CPM, and country-specific CPM values. Developers using SDK-less will still be able to leverage SDK-based integrations and the two can be combined in the same mediation waterfall. SDK-less networks will have the ‘SDK-less’ suffix on the AdMob interface.
To launch SDK-less, we’re happy to announce our first round of partners: Aarki, Drawbridge, MdotM and Smaato with more coming in the near future.

For more information on technical integration for SDK-less mediation check out our help center. Not mediating yet? It’s easy to set up and takes very little time to manage. With AdMob, you can focus on building great apps while we do the hard work for you. Here’s how you can get started.
For more about AdMob Mediation, visit our help center, and to stay connected on all things AdMob, follow our Twitter and Google+ pages.



Posted by Arun Balaraman, Group Product Manager

Source: Inside AdMob


Introducing new interactive ads to drive app installs

Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog.

We’re launching two new immersive ad formats to help advertisers drive app installs. As an AdMob developer you may start to see these new formats appear in your apps. If you opt into ‘Image’ as an ‘ad type’ in your account, you’ll be eligible to show the Interactive Interstitial format, and if you opt into ‘Text,’ your app can begin to serve the Trial Run format. At this time, Interactive Interstitials show on Android and iOS apps, and Trial Run Ads show on Android apps only.


Developers are constantly looking for new ways to bring users to their apps. But because people’s attention on mobile is becoming shorter and more intent-rich, finding engaged users of your app is an ongoing challenge — both before and after an install. In fact, we found that one in four installed apps is never even used. We’ve focused our efforts on offering developers advertising tools that engage users and showcase an app at its best. We recently redesigned one of our in-app ad formats, and are building on our desire to create beautiful app ad experiences. That’s why today we’re introducing two new rich, immersive ad formats to our growing suite of creative app install solutions.

Play a game within an ad with Trial Run Ads
Trial Run Ads are an app ad format that lets a user play a game for up to 60 seconds by streaming content from the app before downloading. The immersive demo increases the likelihood that an install is coming from someone who enjoys playing the game. Users get a taste of the game before going through the download process,  and the app developer attracts better qualified users who’ve chosen the game based on their experiences in the app.

Trial Run Ads provide:
  • Ultra-immersive and delightful ads designed for games
  • The opportunity for gamers to trial before download 
  • More relevant ad clicks, app downloads, and pre-qualified app users
Cookie Jam's Trial Run Ad
Get ultra-creative with customized mobile ads
We’re also launching a beta for Interactive Interstitial ads, which are HTML5 ads that offer a completely customized user experience tailored to each advertiser's app. They give advertisers creative freedom to use HTML5 instead of standard templates and pull in data dynamically. Diversity potential is high with this format and it's not limited to just gaming apps. Interactive Interstitials offer a truly custom experience that can include your app’s value proposition and the functionalities you want to highlight, all painted in your personal branding strategy. This is particularly valuable for advertisers who are looking for higher user engagement in installers.

Interactive Interstitials provide:
  • A beautiful and flexible canvas for the advertiser to become truly creative
  • Unique testing and optimization capabilities
  • The opportunity to bring a piece of the app experience to the user before download
  • Unique brand building possibilities
Marketers are already taking advantage of these engaging ads to drive app installs. Zalora built a an ad that allowed users to swipe to discover an exclusive offer.
Zalora's Interactive Interstitial allows users to use a finger to
swipe a screen to discover a special promotion.
Customization can be as big or small as you want — from adjusting standard templates to developing a fully custom creative. Marketers can also use their live app content to create compelling, real time ad formats. With more control over layout and interaction, you can A/B test creatives and try various CTAs to increase conversions. Rather than just telling a user about your app, you can offer them an experience unique to your app that inspires them to want to spend time with your app.

Advertisers can use Interactive Interstitials to showcase their latest product offerings through galleries, highlight elements of their personal branding, and to more powerfully demonstrate the value of their app before someone installs.
Zalora showcases a gallery of products that users can
swipe through in its Interactive Interstitial ad.
We understand that experiences on mobile need to be made for mobile, and an ad is no different. We’re continually exploring new and better ways to build out interactive formats for the small screen.

Trial Run Ads and Interactive Interstitials are currently in beta and available to a limited set of advertisers. Reach out to your account manager if you are interested in joining the betas.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product, 
Display and Pasha Nahass, Product Manager, Display

Source: Inside AdMob


Beautiful New Designs for Full-Screen In-App Ads

Nearly 60% of smartphone users expect their favorite apps to look visually appealing. We’ve always believed that in-app ads can enhance an app’s overall experience by being well designed. So today we’re announcing a completely new look for our interstitial in-app ad formats - also known as full-screen ads - that run on apps in the AdMob network and DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Inspired by Material Design, the new app install interstitial comes with a beautiful cover photo, a round install button, and matching color schemes. Technology called “color extraction” makes the ads more consistent with the brand's look and feel -- we extract a dominant color either from the cover photo or app icon and apply it to the footer and install button. We found that having a greater variety of designs and colors can improve conversion rate.

Other features include the app’s rating, and a screenshot gallery which appears when a user taps ‘More images’, so users can learn more about the app without leaving the ad.
New Version of Full-Screen In-App Ads
The previous design of our app install ads on the left, and our new version on the right.
Different Examples of Color Matching for Full-Screen In-App Ads
Different examples of color matching.             
Our app install formats have driven more than a billion downloads across Android and iOS. You can use these new designs automatically when you run a mobile app install campaign on the AdMob network in AdWords. That’s right, no extra work required!

Next, our new text-based ads are easier to read, and contain a larger headline and a round call-to-action button that clicks through to a website.
prev_wayfair.png               new_wayfair.png


On the left, the previous text ad interstitial design, and the new version on the right. 

As with other ad format innovations, our ads UI team test multiple designs - ten in this case over the course of a year - to find final versions that increase clicks and conversions for advertisers, and a positive experience for users. Both app install and text ad formats appear within the app and can be closed easily, so users can return to what they were doing with a single tap.

As we announced at Google I/O this year, the volume of interstitial impressions has more than doubled across AdMob since last July, so now’s a great time to get your business in front of more app users.

If you’re a developer looking to learn more about earning with in-app interstitial ads in your app, visit AdMob now. These new designs will also be available to developers monetizing their apps with DoubleClick Ad Exchange.















Posted by Pasha Nahass, Product Manager

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1) Mobile App Marketing Insights: How Consumers Really Find and Use Your Apps, Google & Ipsos Media CT, May 2015

Source: Inside AdMob