If you plan to implement in-app video ads, it's important to know what your options are and how to balance the revenue you generate with the app user experience. With video ads, app users have the option to skip them within five seconds. So it’s very important to make sure you are serving the right in-app video ads at the right time to users to generate the best results. Below are some best practices to help get started with in-app video ads.
1. Use ad filters
To ensure that your app users want to watch the in-app video ads, your first goal is to know who your users are and what kinds of content they would be interested in. Once you have that information, you can use ad filters to ensure that the video ads are shown to customized app users who are interested in watching them. For example, if you have an app for food lovers, you will want to adjust your ad filter settings to show video ads that are of interest to food lovers.
2. Optimize ad networks with mediation
AdMob Mediation enables you to mediate ads from third-party ad networks, including those that serve in-app video ads.
As far as revenue goes, you don't have to worry about adding in an ad network that may lower your overall revenue. AdMob Mediation has a feature called Ad Network Optimization (ANO). Once enabled, it will automatically adjust your mediation stack based on the most recent eCPM (estimated cost per thousand impressions) so that the highest-paying ad network will serve ads first, regardless of whether the ad is from the AdMob network or a third-party ad network.
Overall, adding in more ad networks means that you have a higher chance of filling in your ad spaces. You also have the option to set a minimum eCPM for your ad spaces so that your in-app video ads are not shown unless they meet a certain price. That may mean fewer ads are shown to your users, but the ads that are shown will result in higher revenue.
3. Choose the right placement
When you’re thinking about when and where to place in-app video ads, consider what’s most important to your users. For example, you don't want a video ad to pop up when the user is in the middle of gameplay in a gaming app, or if the user is at a critical part of the cooking process in a recipe app. You want to make sure that your video ad appears at a point where the user would be happy to engage with it, not when it will disrupt the user experience.
4. Use AdMob to generate revenue for your paid app
In addition to generating revenue via in-app video ads, you can use video ads to encourage free app users to upgrade to the paid version of your app that’s ad-free. This means no extra development costs or new features, just a free version with ads and a paid version without ads.
5. Increase app engagement with rewarded video ads
Rewarded video ads give your app users the option to watch a video in exchange for in-app rewards. If you show rewarded video ads to app users at the right time, for example, to help users unlock features or progress to the next level, they may be more likely to engage with those ads and to keep using your app afterward.
Sign in to your AdMob account and start trying out some of the techniques here. If your app has over 100,000 downloads, request a free consultation.
