Curious to find out how much the mobile ad market was worth this year? How does $31.5 billion sound? As ridiculously high as you may think it is, this is how much money we’re actually talking about, thus explaining the overwhelming number of mobile app companies that seem to have popped out of nowhere.
2014 was a fantastic year for mobile app development, so no wonder mobile ads experienced a massive boom as well. Which means if you own a mobile app, you should probably pay more attention to the ads integrated in your software development kit, because they are bound to bring you a lot more money than you imagine.
Now, mobile ad companies bring forward something what looks like an exhaustive list of monetisation models that promise big bucks, but you should only keep your eyes peeled for some of them, the ones that actually work:
Banner Ads have been a classic success, ever since they’ve emerged (and they have been amongst the first means of mobile advertisement). Banner ads usually occupy the top or bottom of an app, are prominently visible and enable a variety of info display options, from videos or downloads to simple pop-ups with text.
Reward Ads are, as the name goes, very rewarding for the user. Reward ads are used for apps that involve reaching levels, such as game apps, and they usually imply a pop-up announcing the user that s/he has reached a certain level/achievement and will be gratified with a special something, like a coupon or a discount. The nice catch about this type of ads is that you, as the app owner, will get a share of the profit, so everyone wins.
Native Ads are dedicated to content based apps and usually appear in the news feed of the app. Some of the most well-known mobile advertisers that engage in native advertising are AdRoll, Sharethrough and PubNative. If you have second thoughts about native advertising, just think about how well Facebook’s been working with it.
Offer Walls. You might be familiar with providers such as TapJoy, Fiksu or StartApp, which would also mean you’re into game apps. Offer walls are mostly encountered in the sort of games that sell virtual goods for real money (starting with the Candy Crush Saga and beyond). What the offer wall does is provide the player with the option of grabbing more virtual goods by performing certain actions (such as subscribing to a certain channel) on the wall.
There are, of course, plenty of other ways to boost your app’s profitability by incorporating mobile advertising. However, the most advisable thing to do is do your homework thoroughly in terms of mobile ad models and make sure that your app’s design is fit for your ad model of choice.
