This sponsored post is an excerpt from the TapSense eBook, A Complete Guide to Mobile Game Ad Monetization. Download it here.
It’s one thing to get a game burning up in the app store charts. In fact, it’s huge. But monetizing that success is a whole other challenge.
Mobile advertising has some unique twists and turns to it. To truly capitalize on your brilliant idea, you’ll need to understand how to navigate through the various ad options and best practices.
1. Superior Monetization With RTB (Real-Time Bidding)
RTB technology is designed to make buyers compete in real time and maximize the value of a gaming app’s advertising inventory. It also simplifies the buying process and creates more efficiency, eliminating the need to do insertion orders (IOs) for each buy. RTB platforms in mobile have scaled significantly over the past two years. All mobile game developers should have an RTB strategy and look for a platform that allows them to sell in real time. As more dollars migrate to RTB, mobile game developers without the right technology will miss out on a big segment of buyers.
2. Mediation of Top Ad Networks
In order to maximize fill, mobile game developers need ad network mediation that supports all top mobile ad networks, including the recently launched Facebook mobile ad network. With a mediation layer in place, mobile game developers are guaranteed to maximize revenue and ad fill by running multiple networks at the same time, favoring the impressions with the highest CPM.
3. A Private RTB Marketplace Option
Having RTB technology and mediation is a great start, but RTB by itself will not get you the highest CPMs. Look for partners who can implement a private RTB marketplace solution. The private option allows gaming apps to have total control over how their inventory is sold. They can develop tiers, white-list specific buyers, and set CPM floors. This helps maximize the value of their inventory and prevent the “race to the bottom” CPMs seen in public RTB.
4. First-Party Data Control
Gaming apps that make first-party data available in public RTB run the risk of losing control over how it’s used. This puts the mobile game developer and their users at risk. Unscrupulous ad networks, buying platforms, and other third parties can scrape that first-party data. They can then combine the data with other data, cross-reference it, and resell it, all without the mobile game developers’ control. This has sometimes resulted in the data being used in ways that can violate the mobile game developers’ own terms of service. A private marketplace mitigates all this risk. It allows mobile game developers to define rules over how first-party data is used and limits buying access to reputable partners only.
5. Innovative Ad Formats
Banner ads are clearly not enough. In fact, the popularity of video and native ads this year shows that the banner ad in mobile could have a limited life span. While banners are simple for mobile game developers to implement and easy for advertisers to create, they don’t add much value. Seek out a platform that supports new technology such as rich media, audio and video through standards such as VAST (Video Ad Serving Template) and MRAID (Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions). Also, work with the platform to develop new and interesting formats that are unique to your inventory to differentiate yourself from competing mobile game developers.
For further reading on mobile game ad monetization, download our eBook here.
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