Tag Archives: App Best Practices

The Importance of Test Ads in Your App

Whether you're just starting out on AdMob or already have several successful apps under your belt, you'll almost inevitably want to test ads on your app to see if they're working properly. Today, we're here to provide helpful tips to help ensure you're compliant with AdMob policies.

Ultimately, it is your responsibility as the publisher to ensure that the activity on your ads is valid. Publishers may not click on their own live ads, even for testing purposes, or use any other means to inflate impressions and/or clicks artificially. During app development and testing, please use test ads.

If you need to render live ads before launch, avoid clicking on them. If you're showcasing your app to friends, family and/or beta testers, ask them to avoid clicking on live ads.

Example of Test Ads

Your AdMob account may be suspended for invalid activity if one or more users are repeatedly clicking on live ads in your apps, including for testing reasons. If, after the designated suspension period has cleared, and invalid activity continues contributing low value traffic to our ads ecosystem, your AdMob account may be disabled.

Reference our developer documentation on how to implement test ads (Android or iOS). Additionally, the ad unit and samples in our developer tutorials (Android or iOS) return test ads. Test ads are always available for use, even if your AdMob account is suspended or disabled.

For more information about account suspensions, visit our AdMob help center.

Posted by Danielle Chang, Ad Traffic Quality team.

Source: Inside AdMob


[New eBook] Download The No-Nonsense Guide to Native Ads

Today we’re launching a new eBook called "The No-Nonsense Guide to Native Ads", the latest in our No-Nonsense series. This guide is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of native ads and share practical tips and best practices for implementing native ads in your app.

Over the last several years, app users have raised their expectations for a high quality app UX. To meet these expectations, ad formats have evolved accordingly. The most fitting new format that meets these higher expectations is native ads – ads that match the look and feel of the surrounding app content. And as spending on native ads is expected to grow to $21 billion in 2018, this presents a huge opportunity for publishers to enhance their user experience and tap into new revenues.

In the eBook, you’ll learn:

  • Guiding design principles that will help you better implement native ads 
  • Practical tips and best practices for implementing native ads with lots of examples 
  • Tips on how to set up a proper A/B test to begin testing native ads 
  • How AdMob can help you implement native ads

Download your copy here:

Vishal Kumar, Senior Product Manager, AdMob

Source: Inside AdMob


The Native Way: 4 Ways to Make UX a Priority with Native Ads

At AdMob, we know how important user experience is to creating a great app. Consistent patterns, refreshing simplicity and polished, thoughtful design make for happy users and potentially higher ad engagement rates. Native advertising is the next step in meeting user’s UX expectations. Native ads are less jarring than traditional ads and fit in with app content more naturally, providing a better user experience. Now, that’s smart business.

Here are four ways you can make UX a priority both within your app and ad experience.

1. Consistency

Sometimes it’s good to be predictable. By sticking to consistent UX patterns in your app, you can help users focus less on navigating and more on your app’s content and value. Don’t surprise your user with new elements – stick to a steady user flow like swiping left on a news app to exit an article or navigate the headline feed. Use consistent design elements like dedicated font sizes, colors, buttons, and screen sizes.

Same goes for your users’ ad experience. With reliable UX patterns, you’ll form clear breaks in your apps where users are expecting to see engaging ads. In the example of the news app, you might also want to use that swipe left feature to allow users to seamlessly dismiss ads. This also applies to ad styling. For example, if you use 14px, Lato, bold, dark grey for prominent text, then use that font for your ad’s headline, as well. The result? Users will expect that styling is dedicated to important text.

2. Clarity

Nobody likes clutter. Simplicity in your app says you’re not wasting your user’s time by throwing every possible option at them, without thinking about what they really need. Simplify your app by uncluttering your screen, writing concise copy, keeping design legible and well-spaced and providing single call-to-action buttons where possible. Likewise, clean, beautiful, single call-to-action ads will communicate that you understand your users and help gain their trust.

3. No tricks

Let’s be clear, a native ad is still an ad. Don’t try to distort or overlap ad components (there’s no quicker way to offend a user!). At Google, we care about building trust in the app advertising ecosystem. For instance, we have extended our accidental click protections to native ad formats (including fast clicks and edge clicks) in order to prevent users from a slip of the finger and deliver greater value to advertisers.

4. Thoughtful design

Thoughtful details in your app are important to let your users know you care. That means sharp imagery, curated fonts, specced margins and quick loading times. It’s important to use the same level of care and polish for small details in your native ads design. Simple, intuitive and well-designed native ads can help you say; ‘thanks’ to your valuable user base.

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


3 Developers Winning with Native

AdMob’s native ads express is a quick and simple way to set up and monetize your native ads effectively. Three developers share their success stories of switching to native and growing both their revenue and business.

1. Word Search by Pink Pointer

Word nerds all over the globe can’t get enough of Word Search (also known as Word Find, Word Seek or Word Sleuth), a Latin American word search puzzle game with more than 22,000 puzzles, distributed in 37 languages.

How they use native ads:

Native ads work well in content feeds, so Pink Pointer uses them in their feed of entertaining word search puzzles. When users log in to play, they see a list of all available puzzles. The native ad is embedded within this list, making it attractive, easy to spot, but never obtrusive.

Results:

By replacing banners at the top of the page, Thiago Lopes Rosa of Pink Pointer saw an increase of 50% in CTR and 90% in RPM - helping to maximize revenue, without compromising user experience.

Tip from developer Thiago Lopes Rosa:

“I recommend creating different ad units for each placement of native ads. This way you can analyze the performance for each one individually and take appropriate actions and gain insight on how to improve.”

2. Battery Doctor (also called Battery Saver) by Cheetah Mobile

330 million users have booked a consult with Battery Doctor, an app which measures the worst offenders in mobile phone battery usage and offers an optimization feature that stops power-guzzling apps with a single tap. The popular tool is the brainchild of one of the world's leading developers, Cheetah Mobile, who boasts over 600 million active monthly users.

How they use native ads:

Battery Doctor measures app usage and gives users a prediction of remaining power in a list of informational cards. Within this list, a native ad is seamlessly shown as its own card.

Results:

Using native ads gave a powerful charge to Cheetah’s revenue. According to Charles Fan of Cheetah Mobile, “our Battery Doctor monetization revenue went up 400% and those are pretty amazing results.”

Tip from developer Charles Fan:

“Look for areas where you can integrate native ads without disrupting app workflow or user flow.”

3. Chinese Calendar by Linghit Limited

Those needing a glimpse into the future turn to Linghit’s Chinese Calendar app, a divination guidance and calendar, based on traditional Chinese beliefs and lunar calendar. The app highlights optimal times and days to hold important events like weddings and also to plan holidays, renovations or relocations.

How they use native ads:

The app features facts about each day’s festivals, holidays, and lucky “five elements”, according to Chinese tradition. This daily rundown is presented as a card and provides the perfect spot for Linghit to display a native ad.

Results:

Native ads held all the luck for Jinnee Lee of Linghit Limited. “After implementing native ads, our ad impressions increased by 114% and ad income increased by 100%.”

Tip from developer Jinnee Lee:

“Native ads are more intuitive, so display them in more prominent positions within apps. We were able to view the effects on user click-through rates in real time based on the information in the ad backend. We could make quick adjustments to the native ad to maximize the effect of the ad.”

New to native ads? Check out our help center.

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


How To Test Your Native Ads

Have you started using AdMob native ads, but feel like you could be getting more out of it? We know it can be hard to get it right the first time, so we recommend A/B testing when implementing native ads in your app. Why? Because native ads give you so much more flexibility and even the smallest tweaks can make a huge difference in your app revenue or give you peace of mind that you’re improving your user experience. With that in mind, here are four steps to help you run an effective A/B test.

1. Start with a defined goal and a hypothesis

Step back and decide on a single hypothesis that has the most potential to improve your business and start there. So where should you start testing? One good place to look at is design elements on your ad template and how it can impact greater user ad engagement. For example, a simple variation like changing font sizes (10px to 13px) would lead you to hypothesize that a larger font size will increase user engagement with the ad and make the call to action more clear. Meanwhile, key metrics to look for would be click through rate, ad revenue, and app exit rates.

Example variables that you could test are:

  • Font size 
  • Image placement within ad 
  • Ad size 
  • Ad placement within app

2. Remember to test only one variation at a time for it to be a true A/B test

Go ahead and slip on your white lab coat. The testing stage will require two variations of your app screen – the original, current version and your new, re-designed version. When creating these variations, using an A/B testing platform will make it easy to design, run and monitor your tests.

3. Run the experiment

Time to test your results. Set up your app to randomly show your original set-up to half of your users (i.e., the “control group”) and the second variation to the other 50% (i.e., the “experimental group”). By using a control group, you’re collecting baseline data to compare against your results. Without it, you can’t tell the difference between the response to your new designs or other variables, like seasonal chance.

4. Make a decision

Once the experiment is done, it’s time to crunch the data, revisit your initial goal and hypothesis, and make that all-important final call on whether the new variation is worth changing in the long run. Don’t be too hasty to lock in a new look. If the changes are significant, it’s smart to run the experiment over several time periods to ensure the results aren’t due to seasonality, or other variables.

As you continue to run more tests, remember that even with helpful tools, testing takes time and resources. Don’t waste time testing elements that won’t significantly impact your goal. Use app analytics data (https://firebase.google.com/docs/analytics/) to help uncover spots in your app with a lot of opportunity and potential (think: screens with high traffic, high engagement, or large user drop off, for example). A good idea might be to have a devoted team member spend 25% of their time on monitoring analytics, identifying ad optimization ideas, and testing them.

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


The Native Way: How Native Ads Helped SmartApps India Grow Revenue 55%

Every day in India, millions of people jump on a train to get to where they want to go. SmartApps India created a must-have local app to make this journey easier. This fast, convenient app - Indian Railway IRCTC Train PNR - allows users to check the live status of their train, browse rail schedules, book seats and even order snacks and meals for their journey. Super handy.

Using native to boost revenue: 

Looking for an ad solution to closely match the look and feel of their app, SmartApps chose to monetize with AdMob native ads. After implementing just one AdMob native ad, SmartApps grew their ad revenue by 55%.

Smart placement: 

When scanning through train schedules and available seats, app users are shown a list of information cards. This feed presented SmartApps with a golden opportunity to show non-obtrusive, yet visible, native ads to users.

“We made good use of the various template customization options available on the native ad express dashboard,” says SmartApps India’s co-founder, Sagar Mutha. “With native, it’s a good idea to try to place the native ads where there is a natural fit, and keep iterating and A/B testing until you get the desired results and CTRs. If you’re trying native, make sure the ads are unobtrusive and deliver a good user experience.” 

UX wins:

AdMob native ads provided SmartApps with plenty of UX benefits. “User experience has been the biggest win after implementing native ads,” says Mutha. “We've received positive feedback from users and CTRs have gone up in comparison to regular banners.”

With such significant results, SmartApps plans on showing more native ads in the future as commuters scroll through their useful travel content.

New to native ads? Check out our help center.

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


The Native Way: Everything you Need to Know About Native Ads

Native is the next big thing in mobile advertising with spending on native ads expected to grow to $21 billion in 2018. This is a huge potential opportunity for app developers, but how can you use native ads to help boost your UX and monetize your app? Here’s a quick overview of what native advertising is, and how you can get started.

What’s Native?
Native advertisements match both the form and function of the user experience in which they’re placed. They also match the visual design of the app they live within. Native ads augment the user experience by providing value through relevant ads that flow within the context of surrounding app content. Put simply; native ads fit in.


Native advertising isn’t a new thing.
Since the golden days of wireless radio and daily newspapers, advertisers have looked for innovative ways to match up their brands and messages with the environment in which they’re served to consumers. In the digital advertising world, Google was one of the first “native” advertiser, developing search ads that directly matched the information on the search results page.

But today, consumers are everywhere.
And we’ve had to adapt; delivering higher quality content that can flex to different screens and sizes. For example, mobile-optimized websites now have big buttons and fonts and mobile apps let users scroll up and down or left and right, rather than having to click through to the pages they want to view. Native also understands that preserving that user experience is vital to successful advertising.

Our content has evolved, and our ads need to follow.
Nobody likes their app experience to be side-swiped by an obtrusive, ugly ad. Native advertising offers a simple solution: ads that fit the form and function of a developer’s content. We help you create ads that are beautiful and engaging, so consumers can maintain their good buzz.

Native ads are cohesive.
They never stand out like a sore thumb. They’re made to match the look and feel of the app, and are consistent with platform behavior, so that the viewer feels like the ad fits seamlessly with their content experience. In other words - they’re ads with UX in mind.

Get started - In 5 easy steps:
  1. Sign in to your AdMob account at https://apps.admob.com
  2. Click the Monetize tab/All apps/+ new ad unit/Native
  3. Choose from a variety of ad sizes,  templates and types 
  4. Customize them to fit within your app’s UI 
  5. Drop a few lines of code in your app to request your new native ads. Too easy!
For more on creating a native ad, check out our help center or head here.
Sign up for AdMob <Graphic>

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


The Native Way: Everything you Need to Know About Native Ads

Native is the next big thing in mobile advertising with spending on native ads expected to grow to $21 billion in 2018. This is a huge potential opportunity for app developers, but how can you use native ads to help boost your UX and monetize your app? Here’s a quick overview of what native advertising is, and how you can get started.

What’s Native?
Native advertisements match both the form and function of the user experience in which they’re placed. They also match the visual design of the app they live within. Native ads augment the user experience by providing value through relevant ads that flow within the context of surrounding app content. Put simply; native ads fit in.


Native advertising isn’t a new thing.
Since the golden days of wireless radio and daily newspapers, advertisers have looked for innovative ways to match up their brands and messages with the environment in which they’re served to consumers. In the digital advertising world, Google was one of the first “native” advertiser, developing search ads that directly matched the information on the search results page.

But today, consumers are everywhere.
And we’ve had to adapt; delivering higher quality content that can flex to different screens and sizes. For example, mobile-optimized websites now have big buttons and fonts and mobile apps let users scroll up and down or left and right, rather than having to click through to the pages they want to view. Native also understands that preserving that user experience is vital to successful advertising.

Our content has evolved, and our ads need to follow.
Nobody likes their app experience to be side-swiped by an obtrusive, ugly ad. Native advertising offers a simple solution: ads that fit the form and function of a developer’s content. We help you create ads that are beautiful and engaging, so consumers can maintain their good buzz.

Native ads are cohesive.
They never stand out like a sore thumb. They’re made to match the look and feel of the app, and are consistent with platform behavior, so that the viewer feels like the ad fits seamlessly with their content experience. In other words - they’re ads with UX in mind.

Get started - In 5 easy steps:
  1. Sign in to your AdMob account at https://apps.admob.com
  2. Click the Monetize tab/All apps/+ new ad unit/Native
  3. Choose from a variety of ad sizes,  templates and types 
  4. Customize them to fit within your app’s UI 
  5. Drop a few lines of code in your app to request your new native ads. Too easy!
For more on creating a native ad, check out our help center or head here.
Sign up for AdMob <Graphic>

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


The Native Way: Everything you Need to Know About Native Ads

Native is the next big thing in mobile advertising with spending on native ads expected to grow to $21 billion in 2018. This is a huge potential opportunity for app developers, but how can you use native ads to help boost your UX and monetize your app? Here’s a quick overview of what native advertising is, and how you can get started.

What’s Native?
Native advertisements match both the form and function of the user experience in which they’re placed. They also match the visual design of the app they live within. Native ads augment the user experience by providing value through relevant ads that flow within the context of surrounding app content. Put simply; native ads fit in.


Native advertising isn’t a new thing.
Since the golden days of wireless radio and daily newspapers, advertisers have looked for innovative ways to match up their brands and messages with the environment in which they’re served to consumers. In the digital advertising world, Google was one of the first “native” advertiser, developing search ads that directly matched the information on the search results page.

But today, consumers are everywhere.
And we’ve had to adapt; delivering higher quality content that can flex to different screens and sizes. For example, mobile-optimized websites now have big buttons and fonts and mobile apps let users scroll up and down or left and right, rather than having to click through to the pages they want to view. Native also understands that preserving that user experience is vital to successful advertising.

Our content has evolved, and our ads need to follow.
Nobody likes their app experience to be side-swiped by an obtrusive, ugly ad. Native advertising offers a simple solution: ads that fit the form and function of a developer’s content. We help you create ads that are beautiful and engaging, so consumers can maintain their good buzz.

Native ads are cohesive.
They never stand out like a sore thumb. They’re made to match the look and feel of the app, and are consistent with platform behavior, so that the viewer feels like the ad fits seamlessly with their content experience. In other words - they’re ads with UX in mind.

Get started - In 5 easy steps:
  1. Sign in to your AdMob account at https://apps.admob.com
  2. Click the Monetize tab/All apps/+ new ad unit/Native
  3. Choose from a variety of ad sizes,  templates and types 
  4. Customize them to fit within your app’s UI 
  5. Drop a few lines of code in your app to request your new native ads. Too easy!
For more on creating a native ad, check out our help center or head here.
Sign up for AdMob <Graphic>

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


India-based Neurosurgeon Mohan Noone Builds Popular Travel App and Grows it with AdMob

“This experience has been life changing. From a hobbyist, who would have at most written apps used by a few friends, I have now an app used by millions, every day! It is just unbelievable... I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, and it has been the defining story of my life!” - Mohan Noone
Dr. Mohan Noone is a neurosurgeon who was interested in programming. In 2011, he came across a service that provided live updates on train schedules and envisioned bringing that information to mobile devices. With that spark of inspiration, Noone purchased an Android book to start learning code. As he was building his app, he made sure that it was simple, functional and compact to create the best user experience. After listing his app on the Google Play store, he saw his app Indian Railway Train Status grow to over 5M downloads in just 3 years. Today, the app has over 500K daily active users.

The problem
Several months after the app was released, Noone looked for ways to monetize his popular app. He decided to implement banners, but didn’t see great results at first due to poor ad placements.

The solution
Noone then decided to move the banner ad to the homepage and saw his revenue skyrocket about 10X. Afterwards, Noone decided to add interstitials, which helped him triple his revenue overnight. He believed that it was important not to overwhelm users with ads. Instead of showing interstitials in every session, he randomly triggered the loading, which meant fewer ads for the users.

The results
Over the years, Noone’s dedication to creating a positive user experience helped Indian Railway Train Status achieve over 5M downloads.

Indian Railway Train Status’ banner ad
To check out Mohan Noone’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, LinkedIn and Google+ page.

Posted by Henry Wang, AdMob Marketing

Source: Inside AdMob