A Demand-Side Platform (DSP) is an integral part of the digital advertising landscape and one of the major players in the online ad-serving process. However, their definition and roles aren’t always well-understood and can sometimes be confused with other actors. Learn everything you need to know about DSPs and why advertisers use them.

Definition of a Demand-Side Platform (DSP)

A Demand-Side Platform (DSP) is a type of advertising technology (adtech) software employed by advertisers and other buyers to facilitate the bidding and purchasing of ad inventory from selling entities.

DSPs help advertisers buy ads using two specific technologies: programmatic advertising and real-time bidding (RTB). These are the same technologies employed by the seller entity equivalent of the DSP, the Supply-Side Platform (SSP).

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising refers to the use of automated technologies to facilitate buying, selling, and trading media, such as ad inventories and ad spaces. Programmatic advertising exists in contrast to traditional advertising, which requires publishers and advertisers to contact each other and reach agreements manually.

Understanding programmatic advertising requires knowledge of other common adtech terminology, including:

• Real-time bidding (RTB): Real-time bidding is a technology designed to facilitate the trading of ad inventory through an automated auction system. RTB is one of the most efficient ways to buy and sell media to large audiences.
• Programmatic direct: Programmatic direct refers to the practice of selling ad inventory to advertisers directly and without using an auction system. Programmatic direct is the best way to guarantee premium-quality ad placements (e.g., a top-ranked publisher’s website).
• Programmatic advertising ecosystem: This term refers to the collective of buying and selling entities using programmatic advertising to trade media and ad spaces, such as DSPs and SSPs.

Importance of Demand-Side Platforms

Demand-Side Platforms are essential in the digital ad-serving process because they allow advertisers and other buyers to automatically and conveniently buy large amounts of high-quality traffic.

They enable advertisers to reach and set up ad campaigns with hundreds, if not thousands, of different publishers and selling entities without manually contacting each one, freeing user acquisition agents for other tasks.

Additionally, DSPs allow advertisers to monitor and manage each ad campaign’s performance in real time. An advertiser using a DSP can, for example, adjust a specific campaign on the fly even after it started, improving its key performance indicators (KPIs) and scaling it up or down depending on its current performance.

How Do Demand-Side Platforms Work?

The best way to understand how Demand-Side Platforms work is to view them as the digital advertising equivalent of a stockbroker. Just as investors use stockbroking platforms to buy stock from a stock exchange, advertisers use DSPs to buy ad inventory from an ad exchange.

Basic Processes

DSPs and Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) operate on two sides of an advertising exchange, a platform designed to connect buyers and sellers using DSPs and SSPs. To understand how a DSP works is also critical to understanding how SSPs work and how the two interact.

Here are the basic steps of the process:

• First, publishers and other selling entities use an SSP to connect to the ad exchange and send an ad request.
• The ad exchange receives and lists the ad request from the publisher, making it available for bidding.
• Advertisers connect to the ad exchange through the DSP and bid on the ad request using real-time bidding (RTB).
• The highest bid wins, allocating the advertiser’s inventory to the publisher’s request. The advertiser’s ad is then served on the website the publisher has ad slots on.

Although the essential purpose of a DSP is to serve as an intermediary between an advertiser and an ad exchange, the DSP also provides many other valuable functions.

For instance, DSPs can help advertisers create and manage multiple simultaneous campaigns with different ad exchanges and SSPs, all from a single interface.

User Targeting

DSPs also perform crucial targeting tasks and ensure users see relevant ads. Each DSP can be configured to meet specific user targeting parameters, such as a visitor’s age, gender, geographic location, and interests.

For instance, suppose a website has detected that a specific user is a 25-year-old male from Miami, Florida, interested in technology and computing. The website will send a personalized ad request to an SSP with these targeting parameters. The ad exchange then attempts to match the request with a DSP that most closely matches these parameters.

The DSP will then compare its own targeting parameters with those of the request, and if at least one criterion matches, send a bid. The more matching parameters, the more the DSP stands to gain, meaning they are more likely to bid higher and become the auction winner.

If an advertiser’s DSP wins the bid, the ad exchange completes the transaction and sells the publisher’s request to that advertiser. The publisher’s website then begins displaying the ad.

The process takes less than 0.1 seconds (100 milliseconds) to complete, allowing ad exchanges to match publisher requests and advertiser inventories hundreds of thousands of times in a single day.

Why Should You Use a DSP?

If you are an advertiser with large quantities of ad inventory for sale, using a Demand-Side Platform offers numerous benefits:

• One platform, multiple campaigns: A DSP helps you centralize all of your ad campaigns in one place, regardless of the number of ad exchanges, SSPs, and publishers you can reach.
• Real-time performance metrics: DSPs provide real-time information on your ad campaigns’ performance, letting you adjust and change them without waiting for an end-of-campaign report.
• Ad relevance: Using a DSP is a great way to ensure your ads are shown to your target audience, maximizing the relevance of your ads to website visitors.
• Cost-efficiency: Although DSPs bid for ad space on your behalf, they will only bid more on requests that best match your targeting parameters, where they stand the most to gain.

Main Components of a Demand-Side Platform

Although every DSP has different features, services, and specifics, all use the same essential elements and components. Here is a breakdown of each and how they help a DSP function.

Integrations with Other Tools and Entities

Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) are designed to integrate with multiple other elements of the programmatic advertising ecosystem. For instance, they must be able to communicate with ad exchanges and Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) to respond to ad requests.

However, DSPs also integrate with other valuable tools and functions to assist the advertiser. For example, most DSPs integrate with analytics platforms, providing actionable information on ad campaign performance. They can also connect with payment gateways to facilitate the safe transfer of funds.

Other integrations include data management platforms, brand safety technologies, and other risk management options.

User Interface

The user interface (UI) is the first thing a user sees when discovering new software. The UI of a quality DSP organizes every functionality it offers, making it possible for the user to navigate it and find the functions and utilities they need quickly.

Well-designed user interfaces don’t just have good visual design; they organize the DSP’s functionality efficiently and help improve the user’s workflows.

User Profile Archive

A DSP’s user profile archive or user profile database is a data repository containing multiple types of information about the users that viewed ads. The primary purpose of this archive is to obtain and categorize data regarding an advertiser’s audience, such as age, gender, geographic location, interests, and ad viewing frequency.

The archive then organizes the information and provides actionable data to advertisers, helping them adapt an ad campaign to reach the audience more efficiently. For example, an advertiser can use the data to identify potential issues, such as inefficient audience targeting or over-exposure to the same ads, and implement changes to the campaign, such as re-targeting or frequency capping.

Reporting Database

The reporting database is the element of a DSP that collects data from ad campaigns, stores them, and organizes them to create complete end-of-campaign reports. The primary purpose of this database is to serve as an archive of past campaigns, which advertisers can use to assess their long-term performance.

Campaign Spending Controls

Campaign spending controls, colloquially known as the “banker” or the “cashier,” are specialized functions and features designed to help advertisers visualize their budget and avoid overspending on ad campaigns.

Due to how Real-Time Bidding (RTB) functions, using a DSP can result in a high frequency of bids per second, making it easy to exceed your budget. Overspending issues can be further compounded by delays between bid placements and receiving an auction-winning notice from ad exchanges.

Campaign spending control features include overall budget management, maximum daily spending limits, and visualization of the most cost-efficient pricing models. These functions ensure that you spend no more than the allotted amounts, even during periods of heavy bidding and ad inventory purchases, providing efficient campaign budget management. 

Campaign Tracker

A campaign tracker is a function of a DSP that collects and organizes data about an ongoing ad campaign’s performance. It provides actionable information in real-time, letting an advertiser change a campaign’s details and configuration even after launch.

Data collected includes the number of clicks, views, impressions, installs, user demographics, and many more. After a campaign ends, the data collected by a campaign tracker is then sent to the reporting database to summarize it into an end-of-campaign report.

Ad Server

Ad servers are crucial elements of a DSP and the primary component responsible for serving ads to website visitors. The purpose of an ad server is twofold:

They are the storage space for your ad creatives and markups, ensuring your ads are available in the correct sizes and formats for different devices. They communicate with the website containing the ad space to deliver the ad to the user, ensuring its delivery and the generation of impressions.

Depending on how the DSP is configured, the ad servers used may be internal or external. Internal ad servers are owned or managed by the DSP. External ones are managed by a third party on behalf of the DSP.

Bidding Systems

A bidding system is the component of a DSP responsible for placing bids on behalf of the advertiser during RTB auctions. These systems are typically hosted in a server or data center in a specific world region. 

The further the distance between two Internet-connected computer systems, the higher the latency (lag), meaning more time passes between one system sending data and the other receiving it. Latency is detrimental during RTB auctions because a delayed bid or response means other, faster bidders have better chances of winning.

To counteract the effects of latency, most DSPs have access to multiple bidding systems in different world regions to respond to ad requests and place bids more quickly. Acceptable latency is usually under 200 milliseconds, although the faster, the better.

Types of Demand-Side Platforms

Demand-Side Platforms can be categorized into two groups: self-serve DSPs and full-service DSPs. Understanding the difference between the two types is crucial because they do not offer the same range of functions and services.

Self-serve DSPs

A self-serve DSP is little more than a software platform that provides tools and functionality but leaves the specifics of ad campaign creation and management to the users (e.g., advertisers, ad agencies, and other buying entities).

While a self-serve DSP may have staff and provide support resources, they are generally limited to maintenance and troubleshooting. Users of self-serve DSPs have complete control and responsibility over their ad campaigns, performance monitoring, and reporting.

Full-service DSPs

While a full-service DSP (also known as a managed-service DSP) provides the same essential features as self-serve DSPs, their primary advantage is the range of additional services and support they can offer advertisers.

Most full-service DSPs offer access to account managers and dedicated teams to help you manage and configure your ad campaigns. Although full-service platforms are more expensive and slightly less flexible, they provide unparalleled convenience, letting you focus on other tasks.

(Pros) Advantages of Using DSPs to Media Buyers

Media buyers looking to take advantage of programmatic advertising technologies can use a DSP to gain multiple benefits. Here are the most significant pros of using a DSP.

Marketing Efficiency

The primary benefit of a Demand-Side Platform is automation. Using DSPs lets advertisers and media buyers bid on hundreds of different impressions within minutes. They eliminate the need to manually contact and sign agreements with the owners of each ad space and centralize all ad campaigns into a single, unified platform and interface, significantly increasing efficiency.

Easy Data Management

Most DSPs come with various data management components and features designed to help media buyers improve ad campaign performance. They can not only collect and aggregate audience data but also analyze and organize it for multiple purposes, from retargeting to building post-campaign reports. Regardless of the media buyer’s intent, making data management easy is a core benefit of most DSPs.

Optimal Targeting

The data management features of a DSP provide media buyers and advertisers with the information they need to configure, adapt, and optimize their audience targeting strategies, ensuring they display the most relevant ads to viewers. Targeting optimization increases the impression and click-through rates, resulting in more revenue.

Improved Reach

A DSP is an essential element of programmatic advertising. Its automation capabilities allow a single advertiser or media buyer to contact numerous ad exchanges, SSPs, and websites simultaneously. Consequently, they can reach more viewers by displaying creatives in more ad spaces.

Support Resources

DSPs offer a range of support resources and documentation to help media buyers make the most of all available features and improve user experience. While most DSPs may provide essential resources for general support and troubleshooting, full-service DSPs go the extra mile. They can provide live personnel, such as account managers or teams, to assist you, help you configure your campaigns, and provide additional support services.

Real-Time and Easier Bidding

DSPs are essential for participating in Real-Time Bidding (RTB) and auctions on ad exchanges. The average ad exchange auction, from the moment an SSP posts a request to the final sale and transaction, is completed in less than 0.1 seconds.

A DSP can make several bids across multiple exchanges on your behalf in this timeframe. It is the only way to place bids on time, win these auctions, and display your ads to the viewers.

(Cons) Disadvantages of Using DSPs to Media Buyers

Although DSPs present many advantages, media buyers considering them must also be aware of their drawbacks. Here are the primary concerns of using a DSP.

Usage Costs

One of the most common conditions for using a DSP is to sign up for a monthly subscription, the costs of which do not necessarily include other services. Media buyers must pay careful attention to the total amount they spend when using a DSP’s services, as the additional service fees and other charges can add up and drive the overall ad-spend costs up.

Complexity

Although the complexity of a DSP can be mitigated by a well-designed user interface and comprehensive documentation, many DSPs have numerous functionalities and options that can be challenging to navigate and fully understand.

Additionally, each DSP is built differently and has its own unique workflow. If you use multiple DSPs simultaneously or switch from one to another, you may need additional time to adapt and get used to the new pace.

Benefits of Creating a Customized Demand-Side Platform (DSP)

Most demand-side platforms available to advertisers and media buyers are essentially third-party services. They require payment or a monthly subscription to access, and you must abide by the DSP provider’s terms and conditions.

A significant percentage of the world’s top-performing brands develop in-house programmatic advertising strategies, keeping as much of the process internal to their company and processes as possible. DSPs are a critical element of these strategies: instead of relying on external DSPs, they build 100% custom platforms.

Although building a custom DSP is a significant investment, there are many benefits to adopting this strategy. Here are the top 3 benefits of 100% custom DSPs.

Ownership of Data and Technology

Building a custom DSP means creating, owning, and maintaining the infrastructure it needs to run, including potential new intellectual properties (e.g., backend software) during the building process. This factor grants an undeniable advantage to the advertiser or media buyer: they have complete control and ownership over the data and technologies used to run the DSP.

Elimination of White-Label Fees and Commissions

Although the upfront costs of running a custom DSP are steep, if the advertiser’s media budget is sufficiently high, it may be more financially advantageous to build their own than continue to use third-party solutions.

With a custom DSP, you own the infrastructure, meaning you don’t need to pay service fees, commissions, and other charges to use the DSP’s functionality and services. Besides using it to contact ad exchanges and run ads on publisher websites, you can also become a third-party service provider of your own and rent the technology to other advertisers, creating an additional revenue stream.

Control of the Product’s Roadmap

As the owner of the infrastructure needed to run a DSP, you have total control over the product roadmap. In practical terms, operating a 100% custom DSP allows your team to develop and implement bespoke features and solutions, creating a unique value proposition and allowing you to fine-tune your DSP’s capabilities to your exact needs.

14 Examples of Demand-Side Platforms

Here is a list of the top 14 best-performing Demand-Side Platforms currently available.

1. Adobe Advertising Cloud (formerly Adobe Media Optimizer, Efficient Frontier, and TubeMogul)

Adobe’s premier programmatic advertising solution traces its roots to TubeMogul, a programmatic advertising platform launched in 2011 and the first DSP of its kind for video ads. After its acquisition by Adobe in 2016, the company rolled the DSP’s technologies into Adobe Media Optimizer, and as of 2022, it now forms part of Adobe Advertising Cloud.

Adobe’s DSP is one of the world’s only ad platforms to offer a fully unified and automated solution for all advertising channels, from paid search results and native ads to video and TV creatives. Advertising Cloud is also designed to integrate with other Adobe tools and software, such as Adobe Analytics, Audience Manager, and Adobe’s brand safety and fraud protection measures.

2. Adform

Adform is a global adtech company based in Denmark and founded in 2002. One of their primary products is the Adform DSP, a global-reach, self-serve DSP providing access to numerous media and inventory types: display, video, and native ads on mobile and desktop platforms.

The Adform DSP supports both open exchanges (real-time bidding) and programmatic deals, providing multiple avenues to sell ad inventory more efficiently.

3. Amazon DSP (formerly Amazon Advertising Platform)

The online eCommerce giant has its own demand-side platform, Amazon DSP, previously known as the Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP) until 2022. Amazon DSP is the newest iteration of Amazon’s programmatic advertising technology, offering improved flexibility and new functionality over the previous-generation AAP.

Depending on the options package and the desired degree of control, Amazon DSP may either be a standard self-service platform or a full-service managed DSP.

The platform can serve numerous display and video ads on Amazon-owned digital properties, including the primary Amazon website, Amazon-powered devices (e.g., FireTV), websites managed by Amazon (e.g., IMDb, Audible, Twitch, etc.), and across the web.

The Amazon DSP takes advantage of the company’s technologies to provide unique, highly-accurate audience targeting options, including audience lifestyle, behavioral targeting, and contextual advertising (targeting users that visit websites thematically related to your product)

4. Beeswax (Owned by Comcast)

Although FreeWheel, a Comcast company, purchased Beeswax in 2020, the company retained the Beeswax name for its programmatic advertising software.

Beeswax includes both a standard self-serve DSP and what the company refers to as a Bidder-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution, a bidding platform with DSP-like functionality offered to advertisers using a similar business model as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.

Beeswax DSP’s unique value proposition is a technology that offers advertisers and media buyers much greater control over data and algorithms than standard DSP offerings. In practice, this means Beeswax DSP provides part of the benefits of building a custom DSP solution for a fraction of the costs.

5. Verizon Media DSP (formerly BrightRoll)

Headquartered in New York, the Verizon Media DSP started as BrightRoll; a demand-side platform initially launched in 2006. Previously operated by an independent company, the Brightroll DSP was purchased by Yahoo in 2014 and then by Verizon Media in 2017. Although the company initially kept the Brightroll name, it was renamed Verizon Media DSP in 2020.

Verizon Media DSP is an omnichannel platform supporting a wide selection of media types: display ads, video ads, native ads, CTV, audio ads, and digital out-of-home (DOOH) ads. These media types can reach numerous platforms, from traditional desktop and mobile devices to more unusual ones, such as smart televisions and city billboards.

The Verizon Media DSP is part of Verizon’s wider ecosystem of programmatic advertising products and leverages the company’s first-party data for ad serving and audience targeting.

6. Basis Technologies (formerly Centro)

Previously known as Centro before a name change in 2021, Basis Technologies was founded in October 2001 by Chicago-based digital advertising specialists. The Centro DSP, now known as the Basis Technologies DSP, has ranked among the top-performing demand-side platforms for many years.

The Basis Technologies DSP is a demand-side platform powered by artificial intelligence offering both self-serve and managed-service packages. Basis DSP features an easy-to-navigate user interface with access to high-quality inventory. The company’s use of AI technologies makes the Basis DSP easily scalable and adaptable for ad campaigns of any size.

Basis also provides comprehensive documentation, support resources, and training materials, ensuring users always have an opportunity to make the most out of the platform.

7. Criteo Commerce Max

Criteo is a digital advertising and adtech company founded in 2005 and headquartered in Paris, France. Criteo has designed multiple adtech solutions for the digital advertising industry, including the Criteo Artificial Intelligence Engine and Criteo Commerce Max, a demand-side platform.

Criteo Commerce Max is a new self-service DSP powered by what the company refers to as open-internet programmatic inventory, providing media buyers and advertisers with the opportunity to reach audiences even outside the websites displaying the ads.

Commerce Max’s alpha version launched in 2022. Although it is currently in limited availability mode, Criteo’s current customers include high-profile names such as Best Buy and GroupM. The company is aiming for a full release of Commerce Max in 2023.

8. Demandbase

Demandbase is an account-based marketing company specializing in business-to-business (B2B) solutions and services. The company’s internally-developed demand-side platform, Demandbase DSP, was explicitly designed with the company’s expertise and customers in mind.

Unlike most other demand-side platforms available today, Demandbase DSP is an exclusively B2B platform designed to target other businesses instead of a traditional consumer audience. This DSP includes numerous B2B-specific features, such as strict brand safety measures, account-based audience targeting, account-level data reporting, and multiple pricing and ad spend optimizations.

9. Google Marketing Platform (Google Display Network, DV360)

Like most other tech giants, Google operates its own next-generation demand-side platform, the Google Marketing Platform (GMP).

Google launched GMP in 2018 by combining or integrating multiple Google features and services, such as the Google Display Network (GDN), an advertising network managed by the tech giant, and Google Display & Video 360 (DV360), the company’s previous DSP, specialized in display and video ads.

As a DSP, Google Marketing Platform builds upon and improves over its predecessor by unifying numerous features previously spread across different Google services into a single, easy-to-use platform.

GMP offers more efficient data analysis and reporting over its predecessors, API and ad server integrations suitable for all users, including smaller and mid-sized clients, and many other advanced functionalities for larger, higher-budget customers.

10. InMobi

InMobi is the leading Indian advertising company and a global leader in the adtech industry. The company specializes in mobile advertising and primarily serves the Asian and African markets.

The InMobi DSP is a demand-side platform specialized in mobile marketing and reaching audiences through mobile devices, especially in markets and regions where significant percentages (>75%) of Internet traffic is mobile. This DSP includes a bidding system that uses machine learning to build user acquisition and retention rates on mobile devices.

The DSP’s algorithms are optimized to drive up customer lifetime value and performance indicators most relevant to mobile ads, such as app installs and Cost Per Install (CPI) pricing.

11. Quantcast Platform

Quantcast is a digital advertising firm specializing in real-time marketing driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The company’s demand-side platform product is Quantcast Platform, powered by Quantcast’s Ara AI/ML engine.

Quantcast describes the Quantcast Platform as an “intelligent audience platform,” a next-generation DSP. Although it can perform every task expected of a standard DSP, Quantcast Platform offers additional benefits due to its AI/ML focus.

Unique features include access to complete insights regarding ad campaigns and audiences within seconds, automated ad campaign execution, ML-powered interpretation of consumer intent data, and many more.

12. The Trade Desk

The Trade Desk is a Californian adtech company specializing in developing new programmatic marketing solutions focused on personalized content delivery.

One of the company’s most popular products is the Trade Desk DSP, an independent demand-side platform with global reach and a high-transparency policy.

This platform opens advertising opportunities to virtually every channel and device, from standard display, native, and video ads to connected TVs (CTVs), audio and podcast advertising, and digital out-of-home (DOOH).

The Trade Desk DSP allows advertisers and media buyers to categorize audiences into defined segments and create personalized ads for each segment, maximizing ad relevancy and user experience.

13. Vertoz

Vertoz is a New York-based adtech and marketing technology company aiming to help new and emerging businesses expand their digital presence as efficiently as possible. All Vertoz products and services are developed in-house to achieve this objective.

The Vertoz DSP is one of the primary services offered by the company and is powered by 100% internally developed programmatic advertising technologies. Due to Vertoz’s focus on new and smaller-sized businesses, this DSP is easy to use and highly scalable.

14. Xandr Invest (Purchased by Microsoft, formerly AppNexus)

Xandr was founded in 2018 as a subsidiary of AT&T, then known as AT&T Advertising & Analytics. In June 2018, it acquired AppNexus, alongside its technologies and products, including the AppNexus DSP. Following a renaming of the company to Xandr in September 2018, the AppNexus DSP was rebranded to Xandr Invest.

Although it has changed hands multiple times due to several mergers and acquisitions, the Xandr company currently serves as a subsidiary of Microsoft and continues operating and maintaining the Xandr Invest DSP.

This platform specializes in high-relevancy, high-efficiency video ads for desktop, mobile, and connected TVs. The company also maintains an API and a learning and documentation center, providing advertisers with robust automation features and complete control over their video ad campaigns.

DSP vs. SSP: What is the Difference?

Although they are on two sides of the same process, it is critical to distinguish a demand-side platform from its publisher-side counterpart, the supply-side platform.

The primary differences between a DSP and an SSP are each platform’s intended users and objectives. Though both platforms contact each other and use ad exchanges, a DSP facilitates bidding on available ad space and is primarily intended for advertisers, media buyers, ad agencies, and other buying entities.

An SSP is designed to facilitate listing available ad spaces and posting ad requests. Consequently, SSPs are mainly intended for publishers, media owners, and other selling entities.

DSP vs. Ad Networks: What Are the Differences?

An ad network is an adtech platform that aggregates buying and selling entities onto a single unified platform. The primary purpose of an ad network is to help broker deals between buyers (e.g., advertisers) and sellers (e.g., publishers) by collecting, presenting, and facilitating the sale of ad inventory.

Ad networks are intermediaries for both publishers and advertisers. Both sides of the ecosystem can use an ad network, either representing themselves or through an ad agency.

In contrast, a DSP is exclusively intended for use by advertisers because the primary purpose of a DSP is to represent the demand side of the ecosystem and facilitate the needs of buying entities.

How to Choose a DSP

Although numerous demand-side platforms are available to today’s advertisers, it is critical to know how to choose the DSP that best suits your needs. A DSP that correctly fits your business and marketing goals will generate a much higher return on investment (ROI) than a DSP that only partially matches your needs.

Below are the top 3 features and criteria to look for when choosing a DSP.

Ad Inventory and Target Audiences

The core of a successful ad campaign is serving the right ads to the right audience. Consequently, it is crucial for an advertiser to choose a DSP that carries quality, high-relevancy inventory, targets the correct audiences for your business, and delivers the ads using the best possible media types.

For example, a company primarily targeting consumers on mobile should use a DSP that primarily targets this combination of audience and device type. A DSP specializing in B2B or serving ads to devices other than mobile (e.g., connected TVs, DOOH devices) does not meet those requirements.

Geographic Areas Served

Programmatic advertising occurs in real-time, making it crucial to ensure that the ad creatives are not only available in the right languages but also relevant to the correct geographic areas. To ensure your DSP always lets you reach the best audiences, check the depth of its geolocation targeting features, even if the DSP has a global reach.

For example, if you need to serve ads to customers in a specific area of Mexico, you must ensure your DSP can target Spanish-speaking audiences located in the correct state and country.

Data Integration Features

Although many DSPs offer built-in features to enhance the quality of your ad campaigns, you may sometimes need more, especially if you have access to quality data and information.

One of the best ways to ensure your ad campaigns are as successful as possible is to use a DSP’s data integration features, such as first-party data uploading, data management platform integrations, and data measurement and reporting features.

These integrations enable additional strategies, such as retargeting, account-based marketing, new audience acquisition, and real-time reviewing of campaign metrics and KPIs.

Monetization and Pricing Models

Depending on the DSP you choose and the ad types and formats your campaign employs, you can use one of multiple pricing and monetization models. The top 4 models are Cost per Click (CPC), Cost Per Mille (CPM), Cost per Action (CPA), and Cost Per View (CPV).

• Cost per Click (CPC): The CPC model is a performance-based pricing format where an advertiser pays a specific amount to the publisher when a user clicks on an advertisement. The value of a click on a CPC ad varies depending on the website or ad space’s prominence. For instance, a CPC ad on a high-performing site usually charges $0.20 to $0.40 per click.
• Cost per Mille (CPM): The CPM model is one of the most popular ways to monetize a website because payment depends on impressions (views) instead of other, more specific actions. The word “Mille” is Latin for “one thousand,” meaning the advertiser pays the specified amount for every 1,000 impressions recorded.
• Cost per Action (CPA): Under the CPA model, an advertiser rewards a publisher for every user that successfully completes a specific action. In this context, “Action” can have multiple meanings. For instance, it may be a user installing an application on a mobile device, subscribing to a specific product, or making a purchase on an eCommerce platform.
• Cost per View (CPV): The CPV model is typically only employed in video advertising, as the word “view” refers to a user viewing a video ad instead of the more general “impression” used on other ad types. A common condition for CPV pricing is that advertisers only pay publishers if the user has viewed the ad in its entirety without skipping it early.

Find Top-Performing DSPs with CodeFuel

At CodeFuel, we make it our priority to help you monetize your digital assets as efficiently as possible as efficiently as possible for your online advertising too. Whether you are an advertiser, media buyer, or another buying entity, contact our team today and let us find the best demand-side platforms and other monetization avenues for your digital properties.

FAQs

Video marketing is one of the most efficient ad delivery methods in today’s adtech environment. According to the latest known statistics, the digital video advertising market in 2022 is estimated to be worth $180 billion, with an annual spending growth rate of approximately 20%.

As a publisher and depending on your monetization strategies, video advertising may be the backbone of your ad revenue. Consequently, finding the best video ad network is crucial for publishers who need to maximize their earnings. Here’s everything you need to know about video ad networks and how to select the best one.

What is a Video Ad Network?

As with any other ad network, the essential purpose of a video ad network is to serve as an aggregating platform facilitating deals between publishers and advertisers. Ad networks collect ad space from publishers and unsold ad inventory from advertisers, then handle transactions between both parties to ensure the most relevant ads fill available ad spaces.

Where a video ad network differs from a standard ad network is the type of ads they handle. As the name implies, a video ad network specializes exclusively in video ads. Consequently, they only accept ad inventory in video format and will only match these ads to compatible ad spaces.

Why Do You Need a Video Ad Network?

As a publisher, a video ad network is a highly efficient method of filling any unsold ad space for video creatives and maximizing your earning potential. Video ad networks ensure that you can find advertisers with the creative types and relevant ads you need to monetize your website, app, game, or another digital property with video ad content.

These networks also use automation to manage each transaction, eliminating the need to manually contact each advertiser and broker deals for each of your ad spaces. These features make video ad networks the ideal solution for cost-efficient monetization.

Types of Video Ads

Although functionally similar, there are two primary methods to serve video ads: in-stream delivery and out-stream delivery.

In-stream Video Ads

An in-stream video ad is a type of ad integrated into video content displayed on a dedicated player. These ads typically take the form of a segment within a video posted to a video-sharing platform (e.g., YouTube).

The length of these ads usually ranges from 5 to 60 seconds, typically giving the user an option to skip the ad after a set period (after 5 to 30 seconds).

In-stream video ads may be linear or non-linear. A linear ad briefly pauses the content the user is currently watching to display the ad, whereas a non-linear ad is an overlay that partially obscures the content with a banner.

Linear ads are further categorized by when the ads appear relative to the video content’s runtime. Three categories are distinguished: Pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll.

• A pre-roll linear ad plays as soon as the user starts the video or clicks the Play button, displaying the ad before the content. This format is ideal to ensure ads reach the user but comes with an increased risk of skipping.
• Mid-roll linear ads play at a specific point in the middle of the video content, usually determined by the publisher. The primary advantage of mid-roll ads is their positioning; users are less likely to skip them as they are already engaging with the content. However, if not placed correctly, they risk interrupting the content with poor timing (e.g., mid-sentence)
• A post-roll linear ad plays at the end of the video content. This type of linear ad is the least disruptive but also has the lowest reach, as many users click away from the video before reaching the very end.

Out-stream Video Ads

An out-stream video ad is a self-contained video ad that is not played into or over existing video content. Instead, it appears to the user as a video player built into a webpage without using an existing video-sharing platform.

Initially designed for the mobile market, out-stream video ads also proved to be a powerful advertising tool on desktop devices. Today, out-stream video advertising is one of the most widespread website monetization methods.

There are three categories of out-stream video ads: in-slide ads, in-banner ads, and in-content ads.

1. In-slide ads are a type of video ad displayed in the corner of the page, usually inside a miniature video player (mini-player).In-slide ads are intended to attract the visitor’s attention without obscuring the content from view. They achieve it by using a mini-player that follows the user as they scroll up or down the website (scroll follow). Although every aspect of an in-slide ad is configurable by the publisher, a typical example is an auto-playing ad that starts muted and offers an option to skip or close after a few seconds.
2. In-banner ads are a type of video ad that uses the ad space of a website’s banner. That space will display the video creative instead of a standard banner ad when configured to accept an in-banner video ad.While in-banner ads do not possess the scroll follow feature of in-slide ads, this format helps publishers reuse existing spaces and can provide added interactivity to users.
3. In-content ads place video ad content into a website’s editorial content, popping open after the user has reached the page position where they have been embedded.Typically, these ads are designed to load but not auto-play until the user scrolls to the correct point. In-content ads are popular on websites with high amounts of editorial content due to the seamless experience they provide.

In-content ads function using one of four models:

1. 0% Visibility: Although the ad loads alongside the rest of the page, the mini-player remains hidden from view until the user scrolls to the exact point where it is embedded in the page. Auto-playing only begins when the mini-player is active.
2. 50% Visibility: When the page loads, the mini-player immediately activates and pre-loads the ad creative. However, it delays auto-playing until the user has scrolled the page enough to bring at least 50% of it into view.
3. Over 50% Visibility: Similar to the 50% Visibility model but with one difference: the player begins auto-playing only when over 50% of the player is visible. In other words, auto-play doesn’t start if the player is exactly 50% visible.
4. 50% Scroll-Past Visibility: This model is similar to 50% Visibility but with reversed visibility conditions. Instead of starting auto-play when 50% of the player enters the user’s window, it begins when at least 50% of it leaves the view, inciting the user to scroll back to the video.

Difference Between In-stream Video Ads and Out-stream Video Ads

The primary difference between in-stream and out-stream ads is the type of video player required to play each ad type. In-stream ads need a dedicated platform’s video player, whereas out-stream ads can play on any website.

Which is the Most Popular One?

Although in-stream ads were once dominant, partly due to the prevalence of YouTube and the video-sharing features of specific social media platforms (e.g., Twitter and Facebook), out-stream ads have become the most popular type of video ads.

The primary reason behind their popularity is their versatility: they can be played on virtually any website without relying on dedicated video platforms. Additionally, they can be configured by publishers with no prior experience in video advertising, making them more accessible.

What to Look for in a Video Ad Network

If you are a publisher seeking a video ad network to monetize your website or digital property, here are the most helpful features and functionalities you should look for to optimize your revenue.

1. Full-featured Analytics

A full suite of performance measurement features, such as an analytics dashboard, numerous Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and comprehensive data reporting, is critical for any publisher seeking to gather data about every aspect of a video ad campaign.

A quality video ad network should offer these features out of the box and let you change or modify your ad campaign even while it’s in progress, allowing you to adjust to the changes and measured fluctuations in performance as they happen.

2. Wide Range of Video Formats

A wide range of video formats is crucial to ensure that the video ads have the means to reach the highest possible number of website visitors. Users employ numerous device and browser combinations, requiring publishers to ensure their chosen ad network has access to ad creatives that are compatible with as many of them as possible.

3. Precise Audience Targeting

One of the best tools an ad network can provide to its publishers is robust audience targeting functionality. The more precisely the network allows a publisher to target its audience, the more likely the served video ads will be relevant, increasing the likelihood of views, clicks, and conversions. In other words, high-precision audience targeting tools are crucial for improving the revenue-earning potential of your digital property.

4. Brand Safety Tools

Two critical elements of brand safety are eliminating low-quality ad inventory from view and maintaining a high level of quality and relevancy when serving ads. Quality ad networks should commit to combating fraud by providing publishers with a curated selection of security features and other brand safety tools.

Common examples include block lists and allow-lists to let publishers control which advertisers and ad creatives appear in their ad spaces. Another example is the possibility of implementing brand-safe ad formats.

5. Robust Customer and Tech Support

Many ad networks contain numerous features and options that can be challenging to use and fully understand. High-performing ad networks should provide multiple avenues to help customers use the full extent of their functions.

Essential tech support should at least include free access to comprehensive documentation detailing each function. Other, more advanced forms of customer support include a helpdesk system or a live tech support platform, providing customers with a way to contact trained staff that can help and guide them into using the ad network’s features.

6. Technology and Backing Infrastructure

No matter how many features an ad network claims to offer, it is critical to ensure they have the technology and infrastructure required to provide high-quality services. Video ad creatives need significant amounts of data storage to keep each ad creative in as many different formats as possible.

Additionally, video ad networks must also be able to reliably serve ads to each ad space, with as few errors and service interruptions as possible and rapid remediation of any issues preventing ad serving.

16 Best Video Ad Networks for Publishers

Below is the list of the 15 highest-performing video ad networks for publishers. Discover what each network has to offer and why they are reliable choices.

1. Vidazoo

Vidazoo is a leading video content and yield management platform that offers publishers some of the industry’s most comprehensive automation tools to help manage multiple video placements as well as optimize demand, all under the same platform. This video vendor is a certified Google Video Technology Partner and provides leading video solutions to more than 200 publishers worldwide, delivering over 6 billion unique impressions monthly.

Among the many features offered to publishers on Vidazoo, the most significant include its fully customized video player solution to monetize video content, fully managed services, and direct and marketplace demand for optimal monetization.

Payment features:

2. Xandr (previously AppNexus)

Although the platform changed its name to Xandr in 2018, it was previously known as AppNexus and is one of the oldest and most trusted names in the video ad network industry.

In operation since 2007, Xandr is one of the top video ad marketplaces, with access to over 175 supply-side platforms (SSP) as partners, integrations in over 80 demand-side platforms (DSP) worldwide, and an optional sub-platform to facilitate direct deals between advertisers and publishers.

Xandr also offers publishers access to a highly sought-after feature: video header bidding, opening their video ad unit inventory to multiple buyers simultaneously, allowing them to sell their ad space more efficiently. Although video header bidding primarily benefits larger publishers with high quantities of unsold ad spaces, this feature is available to all platform members, regardless of size.

Payment features:

3. Primis

Primis is a leading video discovery platform offering publishers some of the industry’s most comprehensive video ads and features. This ad network is trusted by hundreds of top-performing publishers worldwide and serves over 350 million unique impressions monthly.

Among the many features offered to publishers on Primis, the most significant include its extensive library of ad units, compatibility with in-stream and out-stream ads, and a wide array of brand safety measures and technologies, including ad fraud protection systems.

Payment features:

4. OpenX

OpenX is both an ad network and an ad exchange with access to hundreds of partners on both sides of the advertising ecosystem: SSPs and DSPs. OpenX’s platform allows publishers to monetize property on all types of devices: desktop computers, mobile devices (phones, tablets), and televisions (CTV, streaming TV ads).

OpenX is renowned for its highly comprehensive real-time analytics engine, advanced infrastructure, and support for virtually any video player and ad format (both in-stream and out-stream). Publishers looking to improve their reach, create audience profiles, and serve high-relevancy ads can also use the platform’s natively-developed OpenAudience customer targeting solution.

Payment features:

5. SelectMedia

SelectMedia is a full-stack video ad network specializing in cross-platform out-stream advertising in the Asian markets. SelectMedia offers all types of out-stream ads (in-slide, in-banner, in-content) plus video ads for connected TVs.

Over 650 premium customers trust SelectMedia for their advertising needs. The platform offers real-time bidding (RTB), a fully-featured ad server, and numerous brand safety and anti-fraud mechanisms, ensuring safety for both publishers and advertisers by combating bots and other forms of invalid traffic.

SelectMedia is primarily intended for medium and large customers. The platform imposes a minimum traffic requirement of 10,000 unique visitors per month to publishers looking to join. However, customers that meet the requirements benefit from low minimum payout requirements and multiple convenient payment models and methods.

Payment features:

6. AdPlayer.Pro

AdPlayer.Pro is a newer ad network founded in 2016 specializing in web-based video ads powered using HTML5 player technology. The platform aims to be a comprehensive ecosystem suitable for publishers, brands, companies, ad agencies, and other entities.

AdPlayer.Pro offers a built-in, HTML5-powered video player that can support numerous ad formats for both in-stream and out-stream ads, compliant with all modern industry standards (VPAID, VAST, Google IMA).

The network also offers a comprehensive analytics and reporting engine, providing publishers with real-time, daily, and weekly measurements of ad performance KPIs. The report generator is also fully configurable, opening the possibility of creating 100% custom performance reports.

Payment features:

7. Unruly

Unruly is a British adtech company and one of the world’s leading video ad networks. The company was founded in 2006 in Shoreditch, London. Initially a 3-person startup, Unruly is now a world leader in ad technology with access to hundreds of DSPs and a comprehensive library of video ad creatives.

Unruly provides solutions to ensure even publishers with no video content can use video ads to monetize their digital properties. The platform and its ad library are 100% compliant with consumer protection and brand safety standards, including the Better Ads Standards (BAS) and the GDPR, ensuring a high-quality, high-relevancy, fraud-free experience.

Payment features:

8. PubMatic

PubMatic is a California-based online advertising firm with access to over 200 worldwide DSPs and media buyers.

PubMatic’s video ad network is a world-leading programmatic advertising solution offering publishers an easy-to-use interface, consistently high-quality ad creatives, highly competitive payouts, and an option to access a private marketplace (PMP) for premium deals.

PubMatic has offices in seven locations across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. The company’s services are trusted by some of the world’s largest publishers, including eBay, the Huffington Post, and other high-ranking ComScore firms.

Payment features:

9. Adsterra

Launched in 2013, Adsterra is an advertising network with a global reach and a long history of successful partnerships with advertisers and publishers of all sizes. Adsterra’s services serve over 30 billion ad impressions per month, with over 70% of ads served on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. Over 13,000 brands and 21,000 publishers work using Adsterra.

Signing up on Adsterra’s platform allows publishers to benefit from one of the easiest-to-use dashboards and interfaces available, ensuring a high-quality user experience (UX) and a high degree of control over ad campaigns. All ads served through the platform are protected against malware, ad fraud, scams, and other threats to brand safety using internally developed security software.

As an additional benefit to publishers, Adsterra offers one of the industry’s lowest minimum payment thresholds, short payout frequencies for more frequent payments, and a plethora of payment methods, from standard bank transfers to cryptocurrency.

Payment features:

10. Magnite (previously Rubicon Project)

The advertising platform known as Magnite today is the result of a merger between the Rubicon Project and Telaria, announced in December 2019 and completed in March 2020. The resulting platform is the world’s largest independent SSP.

Although Magnite is an omnichannel SSP, the company’s video ad network services serve over 65% of the world’s top publishers, from Bloomberg Media and CNN to ESPN and the Economist. The platform is primarily intended for large publishers, with a minimum requirement of 5 million monthly pageviews to qualify.

Magnite lets publishers deliver all types of video ads on numerous device types, from in-stream and out-stream ads to in-app interstitials, rewarded video ads on mobile games, and many other formats. The platform also offers unique monetization options, such as ad podding, an ad serving grouping multiple ads into a single segment, similar to a television ad break.

Payment features:

11. Fyber

If you are a publisher primarily seeking monetization avenues on mobile platforms, you may have heard of Fyber. Formerly known as RNTS Media, Fyber is a German, mobile-first adtech company specializing in all types and formats of video ads.

Fyber allows publishers to monetize mobile applications and other mobile digital properties through VPAID ad tags. Developers and publishers can easily integrate Fyber into a mobile application with the Fyber SDK, supported by highly comprehensive documentation.

The Fyber ad network has access to over 180 trusted DSPs and serves ads in the following formats: in-stream, in-app videos, rewarded videos, interstitials, and rich media.

Payment features:

12. Meta Audience Network / Facebook Audience Network

The Meta Audience Network, better known as the Facebook Audience Network (FAN), is the social media giant’s dedicated ad network.

Publishers looking to monetize their properties using video ads on Facebook can use FAN. The platform allows publishers to join Facebook’s in-stream video ad system. Although FAN works on all platforms supporting Facebook, revenue streams are best optimized on mobile due to the prevalence of mobile traffic on the social media platform.

Payment features:

You’ve created the ultimate app and are now looking for ways to monetize it. Here at CodeFuel, we have created this guide to help you plan your monetization strategy and select the best networks. It’s going to be a handful, so let’s get started.

Short in time?
Here you have a table of contents to help you.

What Is In-App Advertising?

First, let’s start with the basics. In-app advertising is a monetization strategy in which application developers — publishers — get paid to show ads within their mobile apps. The type of ads you find in mobile apps may include banners, videos, and images displayed right when you play the app.

Using this monetization strategy helps developers offer their apps for free download while earning an income from advertisers.

How In-App Advertising Works 

To use In-app advertising, you dedicate a portion of your app’s digital real estate, installation, or workflow to advertising. To do this, you pair up with an advertising network specialized in in-app advertising.

To understand how in-app advertising works, first, we need to understand the mobile ecosystem: 

There are many actors in the mobile ecosystem, both on the buyer’s and seller’s sides.

The mobile ecosystem has two sides: the buy and sell sides.

On the buy side: you have the app developers, agencies, and marketers buying the in-app ad space. You also have Demand-Side platforms, which help advertisers reach the inventory of multiple publishers.

On the sell side: you have the app owners selling ad space. You also have Supply-Side platforms, which help publishers to offer their inventory to multiple buyers.

Orchestrating all these buy and sell movements is an ad network. The ad network receives requests from the apps offering space to display ads, and by using advanced algorithms, it identifies the right advertisers.

All these happen in a matter of seconds, thanks to programmatic advertising. So let’s explain this briefly.

How Does Programmatic Work for In-App Advertising? 

Programmatic advertising is an automated way to connect buyers and sellers of advertising space. Buyers bid on ad space, and the programmatic system conducts a real-time auction when it is time to display the ads. The highest bidder gets the ad space.

Mobile programmatic buying offers several options:

• Open Auctions: Regular, second-price auctions in real-time with all buyers.
• Private Auctions: Closed, private auction, usually invite-only. Publishers can select the advertisers they want to participate in the auction.
• Preferred deals: These are direct deals between publishers and buyers before the auction.

Programmatic advertising offers more transparency for buyers and helps publishers reach more advertisers.

Three Easy Steps To Monetize Your App

There are three key steps to monetize your app using in-app advertising:

• Choose an ad network: this is perhaps the more critical step. You need to choose the mobile ad network that caters to your niche and can bring you to the right pool of advertisers.
  Learn more: Best Mobile Ad Networks for Publishers
• Select the type of ad: there are several types of ads you can leverage for your application. You can place the ads at the start of the application, in between stages, or at the end. Be careful that the ads won’t disrupt the user experience. Learn more: What Are In-App Ads?
• Choose the right pricing model: Depending on the ad network, you can work under a CPM, a CPC, or a CPA model.
  Learn more: CPC vs. CPM Bidding: What’s the Difference in 2022?

What Are the Benefits of In-App Advertising?

In the U.S., as much as 88% o mobile time is spent in-app. It allows publishers to maximize their gains and advertisers to reach more customers. Here are some of its benefits:

It Improves User Engagement

Since users seem to be on all the time on their phones, placing the right ad, one that enhances the user experience when they’re using the apps, increases the user’s engagement with the application. 

For instance, gaming apps usually give rewards for watching in-game video ads. Duolingo, the popular language learning app, rewards with points needed to continue learning every time a user watches an ad.

It Increases In-App Purchases

App owners can double their revenue sources by combining in-app advertising with in-app purchases. Users that are served in-app ads tend to view more products per session. Offering in-app purchases in addition to in-app ads can increase the chances of conversion.

Helps Monetize Freemiums

Free apps have few ways to monetize their content. Usually, app owners don’t make enough revenue from in-app purchases alone.

Gaming or gamified applications have an ideal interface to insert ads without disruption. Users served in-app ads see more products from inside the apps and have higher conversion rates.

In-app ads are useful for all types of applications if done right. Platforms like CodeFuel, leverage user intent and behavior to serve relevant ads that enhance the user experience.

What challenges can you face with In-App Ads?

In-app advertising is not exempt from challenges. Here are some.

You need to stand out against thousands of competitors

Since over two-thirds of brands use in-app advertising to expand their brands, advertisers look for applications that carry their ads. With over 3 million apps in the Google Play Store and the Apple Store, your app needs to stand out if you want to catch the eye of high-paying advertisers.

What can you do? Check your app provides a great user experience and attracts and engages users and downloads.

Poor ad formatting

The wrong ad format can push users away. Also, publishers may have to test several formats until they find the format that works.
What can you do? Test in the early stages, and check your competitors’ ad formats – no need to reinvent the wheel.

Lack of Customization Options:

In theory, you can customize an app, but the options are limited, especially when you want to monetize the app. The ad network can limit your options for customization.
What can you do? You can refine your targeting as much as possible and offer in-app preferences to your users.

Types of Ads You Can Find in an App

The right ad can make or break your monetization strategy. According to the ad type you choose, you can drive clicks or annoy users. You can use video or image ads, text, and interactive. As we saw above, native and interstitial ads perform better than banners. Let’s see which types of ads are the most popular.

Pop-up ads

You can include these ads in any kind of app. They can appear at pre-defined moments when the person is using the ad or during transitions. You can set them to appear triggered by opening the app or doing a specific action.

Despite the detractors, pop-up ads work. According to a study by SumoMe:

Image source

Transitional ads

These ads appear when the user transitions between screens. For instance, if you enter your breakfast data in your calorie counter, you may get an ad promoting healthy receipts.

Text ads

Text ads can appear everywhere in the app when the cursor hovers over a text or at any place on the app screen.

Banner ads

A mobile screen is too small to fit a full-size banner ad. However, you can be creative and use these ads strategically. Place it at the header or the footer, whichever it stays more visible to the user.

Search Feeds

Adding a search feed to your app gives users a useful tool to improve their experience. In-app search ads allow your users to search from inside your app. The more active the users of your app, the more you generate ad revenue.

In-App Advertising Formats

Maybe you are wondering which is the right ad format or a mix of them that will give you results. To do that, first, you need to understand how the different types of ads work. Here we explain the most popular types:

Interstitial Ads

Cover the entire mobile screen, generally at a size of 320 x 480 pixels. This size allows more content to be displayed, and the call to action becomes visible. Other sizes include 300 x 400  or 300 x 250 pixels.

They are good for catching a user’s attention and to place in games in between levels, as they minimize the disruption for users. Beware of interrupting the user experience, so don’t push an interstitial ad in the middle of a game.

Source: Amazon appstore

Best For 

Linear experiences, appear at natural stop and start points within the app.

Video Ads

Video ads are increasingly popular, as they catch and retain the attention of the user when engaged with the device. However, if the video is intrusive, it may backfire. It’s important that the video ads are short (less than 30 seconds) and placed at natural breaks in the user experience.

Best For 
Applications that have stages or stops, so it doesn’t disrupt the user experience.

Native Ads

Native ads can be of different forms and sizes, but they have in common that they are presented in a way that fits the publisher. Therefore, the ad blends with the app content.

They appear as part of the app’s content, and thus are not intrusive or interrupt the user experience. The ad is relevant to the context of the app, making them highly effective.

Best For 
All types of apps when not obscuring the app content.

Expandable Ads

This type of rich media ad is a combination of a banner and an interstitial ad. It starts with a 320 x50 pixels banner as a teaser, and then when the user taps on it, it displays in full screen. It has the advantage of being less intrusive than full-screen interstitial ads, but presenting too many can be annoying for the user.

Best For 
All types of apps.

In-App Pricing Models

The pricing model is almost always determined by the ad network. The most common are Cost per Click, Cost per Mille, and Cost per Install. Here is a brief overview:

Cost per Mille

Also called cost per thousand, it refers to a pricing model where the advertiser pays for every thousand times the ad gets viewed. 

Who is this for? It works well for publishers and ad networks.

Cost per Click

In this pricing model, the advertiser pays based on the number of clicks the ad receives.

Who is this for? While this model has advertisers in mind, and in theory, they only pay when the ads get clicked; advertisers may lose money through fake clicks.

Cost per Install

Popular when introducing a mobile app in the market. The advertiser pays based on the number of installations they get. Advertisers should be careful with fake installations, checking that installations appear in the Google Play Store, not only on the attribution platform.

Who is this for? New apps.

Best 5 In-App Advertising Networks For Publishers

Choosing a network is one of the critical steps to ensure your success with in-app advertising. Here we did the hard work for you and listed the five best in-app advertising networks for publishers.

1. CodeFuel 

CodeFuel is a complete platform that allows you to monetize all your digital properties effectively. You can leverage search, ads, shopping, and news to monetize your app by using intent-based monetization. 

This excellent ad platform is geared specifically with publishers in mind. There are over 1.1 k publishers with 9 billion annual searches, so you’re sure your digital property will be monetized.

Key features

• Presents relevant display ads inside your app.
• You can add a search feed based on user intent that presents shopping ads
• Enhances the user experience.
• Increases conversions by keeping the user engaged.
• Integrates with Microsoft Bing, Google AdSense, and Yahoo.
• Performance tracking and analytics.
• CodeFuel also offers search mediation if you want to link to other networks.

CodeFuel is a versatile ad network that gives you the flexibility to monetize your app with search feeds and relevant display ads while enhancing the user experience. The platform presents ads offering multiple ad formats, including banner, interstitial and native ads.

2. AdMob

AdMob is the mobile version of Google AdSense. AdMob includes ads automatically offering multiple ad formats, including banner, video, and interstitial ads.

Key Features

• Multiple ad formats
• Ad mediation
• It is suitable for beginners and Google AdSense users
• However, it has limitations on ad placements.
• It is focused mostly (and logically) in Google products.

3. Smaato

Smaato is a mobile ad platform for publishers and advertisers that focuses on matching publishers with relevant advertisers.

Key Features

• Real-time bidding for ads auctions
• Allows video, interstitial, banner, interactive, and rewarded ads.
• Allows ad mediation.

The downside of Smaato is that it works only as an intermediary for ads, not dealing with user experience or search feeds. 

4. Unity

Unity is a monetization network specifically for mobile games by using video ads. If your app is a game, Unity is your solution.

Key Features

•  Compatible with iOS and Android
• Compatible with all game engines, including Marmalade and Adobe Air.
• You can set up in-app purchases.
• They support interstitial, video, or banner ads through CPM or CPI campaigns.
• Target demographics segmentation
• Almost real-time reporting.

5. MobFox

MobFox is an independent mobile ad network for app monetization for publishers, app developers, and advertisers.

Key Features

• Works with all advertising formats, like Unity, Cordova, AdobeAir, and GameMaker.
• You can target your audience by location, carrier, channel, and demographics.
• Allows for native, interstitial, banner, video, and rich media ads.
• Provides analytics and reports.

The downside: it seems focused on gaming monetization. It also doesn’t offer mediation or search feeds.

Why In-App Advertising Works better than Interruptive Advertising

Interruptive advertising is any type of advertising that gets in the way (interrupts) what a person is doing. It is very common, and you are most likely familiar with this type of advertising. Think about TV commercials and radio ads, for example.

While interruptive advertising has been around for a long time, it is not very effective for the digital world. When you interrupt the user, you “cut” their engagement with the app.

In-app ads are presented in the context of an app and tend to be more relevant and, therefore, more effective. Since the user is already engaged with the app, in-app advertising blends seamlessly with the user experience.

When you integrate the ad with the app experience, for example, by giving recommendations, the ad gives value instead of pushing a sale.

Why In-App Advertising Vs. Website Advertising

People access both apps and mobile websites via their mobile devices. Some companies wonder if it is worth it to create an app. After all, they have a responsive, mobile website. However, they are different things, and their impact on the user is different too. Let’s examine the differences between mobile websites vs. mobile apps.

Why is it better to advertise in-app than on a mobile website? 

More Friendly Interface 

Every person that had to zoom in or tried to understand infinitely small letters on a mobile website knows the struggle. Applications are more user-friendly.

Apps also offer better personalization. It is easier to target the offering to a specific user since most apps let the user set the app preferences.

Consumers spend more time in applications, and because one person only uses them, the level of connection with the user is higher.

Higher Conversion Rate

Because users offered in-app advertising see more products than visitors on a mobile website; apps offer a higher conversion rate. Think about it, isn’t it easier to purchase something directly from the app than having to go to the website to buy the item? Right, the convenience the app offers is a challenging rival for a mobile website.

Mobile Apps Give Instant Notifications

Receiving a notification on your phone always seems more urgent and prompts a quicker action than an email. Push notifications reach a target audience anywhere, anytime. That’s why they are considered one of the most effective forms of marketing.

Better Targeting

Contrary to websites, mobile apps allow users to adjust their preferences and create an individual experience. The resulting personalization creates unique targeting opportunities, increasing engagement.

So, Why Should You Use In-App Advertising? Here Are 3 Reasons:

1. You can guide the user experience by mixing different in-app formats

When you use in-app advertising, ads are contextual and don’t look like ads but like helpful suggestions. By doing so, you can enhance and guide the user journey. Mix ad formats, for example, video, interactive, and text, so it is more engaging for the user.

2. The user spends more time in-app 

Engaged users spend more time using the app. Therefore, providing relevant and helpful in-app ads increases the possibilities of conversion.

3. You can target ads accurately

An ad network platform can help you segment and target ads according to different groups, locations, and demographics. This helps your ads stay relevant to the customer’s journey and intent.

Tips to Use In-App Advertising for Monetization

When you put the right ads in the right context, it gives users an experience that is more relevant to their needs. As mentioned above, this increases CTR, engagement, and conversion rates.

The key to using in-app advertising for monetization is implementing the right monetization solution. This will get you an increase in ROI. How do you do it? Here are a few tips:

• Pick the right solution for your app. Not all ad networks are the same. Some solutions focus more on banners, and others are more directed to gaming apps. Make sure the monetization solution offers ads that match your audience.
• When choosing the ad format, choose the most relevant and put them in front of the target audience within the app workflow. The less an ad seems like an ad, the better.
• Find a vendor that works for your business. Keep in mind which platforms you display the app on, and find a vendor that works with all of them.

EMBED VIDEO https://media.codefuel.com/video-animation-smart-watch.mp4

Strategies for Mobile App Advertising

The right network and ad type must align with your mobile app advertising strategies. Here are a few pillar strategies to succeed:

Contextualization

It helps to blend the advertising with the app experience. This feature lets you offer value and advertising at the same time, preventing disengagement problems like banner blindness. Display ads can be tricky in mobile advertising and disconnect the user from the app. By contextualizing, you tie the ad to the app function.

Understand and Target User Intent

What’s user intent? The term describes the user’s intention and purpose in using the app. For example, a user that downloads a taxi app is probably looking for rides.

A user playing a game wants to enhance their gaming experience, so you can offer in-app purchases. When you understand the user’s intent, you can target the advertising towards specifically this intent.

Improving the user experience and adding value 

People use apps because they are looking to solve a problem with them. However, ads do not always help with the purpose. Ads need to bring value and support the user experience. The more relevant and contextualized the ads, the higher the chances of converting.

Still, first, you need to promote your app to reach your target audience. How do you do it? 

App Monetization Statistics

First, let’s review some statistics that show how app development and monetization have grown in the last few years.

1. There are 6.6 billion smartphone users in the world

2. The number of apps in the Google Play Store passed 3 million by the 3rd quarter of 2022

The pandemic stalled applications’ releases, lowering the number of applications to 2016’s levels. At the end of 2022, however, we could see a recovery tendency, and now the number of apps surpassed 3 million.

3. Which Apps are the Most Popular? 

What types of apps do people use the most? 97% of people use Communication, and social apps, followed by Shopping, Entertainment, and Search, which are used by 95% of users, and over 60% of users have a Gaming app on their phones.

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It is unsurprising that social apps like TikTok and Instagram were the most downloaded in 2022. Communication apps like Zoom and Messenger follow close.

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4. Over half of web traffic comes from mobile devices

The percentage of people using their mobile phones to access the Internet has skyrocketed in the last few years. On February 2021, over half of all Internet traffic came through mobile phones, compared to 42.9% of desktop traffic and a mere 2.85% from tablets.

5. Mobile Ad Spending is increasing

With more than half of web traffic coming from mobile devices and growing, it is no surprise that mobile ad spending is increasing too.

According to Statista, mobile ad spending will surpass desktop ad spending by 2022. From $189 billion in 2019, we can expect companies to spend over $240 billion by 2022.

In-app advertising is a market in expansion. In fact, Mobile in-app advertising revenues are projected to reach over $900 billion by 2023. This provides an excellent opportunity for app developers and marketers to tap into the market.

Why is this? Because In-app advertising works. According to a recent report, in-app ads have a 10%  higher engagement rate than mobile web apps. In addition, the click-through rate of interstitial ads is 18 times higher than that of web ads.

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While banners are the cheapest, they are also less effective. Interstitial display ads are more expensive, but the CTR is much higher. Native ads also have higher conversion rates.

Therefore, if you want your app to convert, in-app advertising can be the solution.

True, it is a very competitive market.

So how do you make sure you can make money from your app with in-app advertising? Let’s explore.

What to Focus on To Get Your App to Stand Out

To get the word out in a saturated marketplace — remember they are over 3 billion apps only in the Google Play store—you need to be on target with your audience. To do that, start by asking the following questions:

Who are you advertising to?

Try to get as specific as possible with your audience. Chances are you already have a lot of information from when you created the app. Find out demographics, location, interests, and age group. The more you narrow the niche, the most effective your marketing.

For starters, you can work with the info you had to create your app. Once you begin advertising, you’ll get data through your ad network you can use to refine your campaigns. Learn what worked and what didn’t and re-target if necessary.

Where are they online?

If you are advertising an app, you need to reach your audience where they spend time online. Using the demographics and target audience profile you created in the last step, find out where your audience hangs out online.

• Create buyer personas and use this data to find out which social media channels they are more active on.
• Search on sites that cover your audience’s interests. Use social listening tools, search forums, or question-and-answer sites like Quora.
• Look at your competitors. Where are they promoting their apps? Chances are you have a similar audience.
• Survey your customers. Add a small survey after downloading or in the middle of the app workflow to check where your customers hang out online.
• Search Facebook Groups. Groups are a great source of information and offer you a ready-packed audience that is interested in what you offer.

How do you reach them?

Now that you know who your audience is and where they are, it is time to find the optimal way to reach them. You can promote your app via social media platform ads, through buying advertising space or using an ad network.

You’ll want to find ad networks that target your audience where they spend time online. For instance, if your target is professionals, LinkedIn will be more effective than Facebook. If your target is young people, try Instagram or Tiktok.

Find the right advertising solution

You can be as creative as you need to get the word out about your app. Some innovative advertising methods include smart installers, pay-per-install solutions, and bundling. Affiliate marketing, for example, lets you recruit online marketers to promote your product.

Advertising an app is not an exact science; you need to measure and refine your campaign until you get results.

Cool and Unusual Ways to Advertise your App

In the age of social media, you want the app to get the most exposure possible. You want everybody to know about it and use it.  Here are some out-of-the-box ideas to advertise your app.

Collaborate with Influencers

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing is when companies partner with influencers in order to increase brand awareness or conversions among a specific target audience. (Bigcommerce)

According to a study, the ROI of influencer marketing can be 6 to 1, meaning for every $1 invested in influencer marketing, you can get $6.5 in return.

Partnering with an influencer can spread the voice of your app very quickly and on target. After all, almost half of the people look for an influencer recommendation before making a purchase.

Here are some tips to make the most of influencer marketing:

1. Find an influencer that caters to your target audience.
2. If your product is very specific, try a micro or medium influencer.
3. Look for an influencer with great rapport and steady relations with followers.

Social media

Nowadays, most consumers are using social media platforms before deciding whether buy something. You should advertise in the channel where your customers are. Over half of the apps are discovered outside the app store.

Here are some tips to promote your app on social media: 

1. Use paid ads on social media platforms.
2. Encourage user-generated content
3. Ask for reviews and ratings.
4. Tease your audience and create anticipation with tweets.

Viral marketing

A viral marketing campaign is designed to generate the most buzz around your app possible. The whole point is using the public as your medium to spread the word.

How do you generate the buzz? You can create a giveaway, a contest, or an event. You can use clever tweets combined with a funny and memorable videos in TikTok.

Provoke your audience, encouraging them to spread the word. A viral marketing campaign should be interesting enough that people would be compelled to share the video. Adding a freebie, for example, in exchange for shares can attract attention.

How to Optimize Your In-App Advertising Strategy in 10 Steps

In-app advertising helps brings a steady income, so you’ll want to do it right. The more effective your advertising, the more users will want to download and use your app. Below find some tips to monetize effectively with in-app advertising.

1. Put the User First

A user-centric approach in all your designs, from the user interface to your website and ads, will help give a consistent user experience. Focus on giving a seamless user experience throughout all the elements with which the user comes into contact.

2. Test New Ad Formats

There are new ad formats appearing every once in a while. If it seems your current ad formatting is not working, mix it up. Test different formats to see which ones work better for your users and increase conversion rates. Mix expandable ads, mobile video ads, recommendation engines, and interactive ads are some of the formats you can try.

3. Optimize What You Have 

Sometimes you cannot go over budget for every new strategy. If you’ve hit the ceiling of what new trends you can try, optimize what you’ve got. Keep re-testing and improving your existing strategy.

4. Use a One-Stop Mobile Marketing Shop

You can be tempted into signing in to every ad network and monetization program under the sun to maximize your returns. However, this can result in spreading your efforts too much, first, and you’ll end up analyzing data and ROI from a hundred sources.

Instead, sign up for a monetization and promotion platform. You can then manage all your analytics and monetization solutions under a centralized dashboard. A platform also integrates different ad networks giving you a unified solution.

5. Make Engagement a Priority

Downloading your app and using it are two different things. In-app advertising can work only if you get your user’s attention. Create a high-value app they want to use again and again. Then, integrate ads seamlessly into the app so they will stay engaged.

6. Focus on Usability If You Want Conversions

An app that is difficult to use can put off users after they download the app. When you design an app, remember:

Designing for conversion = Designing for Usability

The easier to use your app is, the better the user satisfaction. Sometimes, flashy graphics and heavy downloads make the user experience cumbersome. Whatever the goal of your app, ensure that your user can achieve it seamlessly. The more usable interface, the longer people will use it.

7. Don’t Slow Things Down

Speaking about stalling user journeys, ensure your app is easy and fast to download. The same happens with ads. If your interstitial ads take too long to download and display, users may leave the app.

8. Add Incentives

You want ads that convert immediately, so you can add immediate incentives for action. You can include limited-time discounts, giveaways, or bargains, as a way to get users to act immediately.

Another way is to add in-app upgrades tied with an affiliate offer, and it will likely jump your conversion rates. Or, add incentives for social sharing if you want to promote your app.

9. Add Strong Calls-to-Action

Sometimes you cannot design the ads that appear in your app. But if you do, include strong calls to action. Add triggers like “Act Now” or “Click here for your discount”. This can influence a user to complete an action, which will increase your conversions and revenue.

10. Understand Your Users

Understanding what your users want is the best way to give them a great user experience. Conduct user testing through surveys, A/B split testing, and interface optimization. The secret to a soaring monetization strategy is to find out what your users really need and give it to them as seamlessly as possible

How To Target In-app Ads on Google

One of the most popular methods to monetize in-app ads is to use Google Ads. Here’s an overview. You can have more information in the Google documentation.

What do you need to show your mobile app ads using Google Ads? 

• Join Google Ads.
• Select your targeting options, including topics, app categories, and content exclusions.
• The network will show the ads in the apps that match the targeting you’ve set for your campaign.

New and important: Google doesn’t support targeting app inventory using device settings and AdSense for mobile placements. 

Should You Use a Big Network or a Niche Solution?

When you try to monetize your app, finding the right network is critical. There are top companies you can use, such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, that boast massive reach, but is it the right thing for your app?

Pros and Cons of Big Networks

Giant networks like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook offer a few benefits for developers that advertise with them.

Pros

• Massive reach: The main benefit is the large user base these companies have. For instance, Google’s AdMob reaches millions of users around the world.
• Cross-platform: Most big companies offer advertisers to present ads in-app, search results, social media, and other channels.
• User targeting:  Facebook, for instance, draws from its social media data to target and optimize ads for users.
• Multiple types of Ads: Major platforms offer many types of ads, including interstitial, display, and contextual ads.

Cons

• Lack of specialization: Major platforms reach everyone, which means they market to the masses. If you have a specific app for a defined niche, a big network cannot do the trick.
• Too much to choose from: Large networks offer a lot of options, sometimes too many. This can be overwhelming for startups.

Pros and Cons of Niche Solutions

Niche solutions come in where large networks result are impractical. You can still benefit from large user bases, but ensure your app stays focused on your target audience. The goal is to reach the right users for your conversions to increase.

Pros

• Specialized Advertising Methods: Niche solutions give you the types of ads that large companies are too big to deal with. For instance, marketing texts, recommendation engines, and video ads. If your niche is specific, then out-of-the-box ads may work better than generic ads from Google.
• Niche Audiences: Let’s say you want to reach software users of a certain platform. It would be better if you use an ad network that reaches the users of that platform. You can use pay-per-install programs since they are already installing software. Recommendation engines can deliver relevant ads to users that search for something specific.
• Innovation: Since niche networks are more nimble than large networks, they often dedicate resources to innovative, creative approaches to monetization and advertising.

Cons

• Not suitable for everyone: There are; however, apps that do require massive generic reach, and a niche solution wouldn’t be enough.

Best Practices for a Successful In-app Advertising Strategy

Now that we covered the basics of in-app advertising, there are some best practices advertisers should consider:

How CodeFuel Can Help Monetize Your App

CodeFuel is a complete platform that leverages search, ads, shopping, and news to monetize your application. It offers different types of ads and integrates with major search engines and networks for a complete solution. By adding user intent monetization, the platform ensures viewers get the most relevant ads in-app, enhancing conversions.

Are you ready to increase your app ROI? Learn more about how CodeFuel helps.

What is SDK Advertising?

SDK stands for “Software Development Kit.” In the context of mobile applications, SDK advertising refers to mobile SDKs specifically designed to connect an application to a set of third-party advertising technologies and services.

Although the overall purpose of SDK advertising is similar to advertising APIs and in-house systems, SDK advertising lets mobile developers leverage a unique selection of tools (e.g., libraries, codebases, technical guides, etc.) and access the SDK developer’s ad networks. These tools let developers display and configure the ideal in-app ads for their applications.

SDK Ads

Using an SDK for advertising has many advantages for both developers and publishers. Besides selecting the best and most relevant or impactful ad units, an SDK comes equipped with a suite of tools and configuration options to optimally plan, position, and implement in-app ads.

For example, a mobile game developer may use an SDK to implement interstitial or interactive ads and precisely configure placement (e.g., display interstitials between game sessions, such as after getting a “game over”) and frequency (e.g., only display an ad every 2 “game over” screens to balance engagement and monetization).

What is SDK Monetization?

Monetizing an application with an SDK allows developers to implement new revenue sources without the need to build them from scratch or compromise the application’s user experience (UX).

High-quality SDKs also allow developers to optimize their monetization options further because they provide access to the highest-rated ad networks and ad creatives. With systems such as programmatic mediation and advanced ad unit types (e.g., interactive ads), app developers and publishers have the technology to improve revenue and leverage ad units from advertisers at the cutting edge, improving earnings.

SDK Ad Units

Advertising SDKs offer multiple types of ad units, providing various options to plan and implement ads into an application. Examples of ad units include banner ads, interstitials, rewarded videos, playable (interactive) ads, native ads, offer wall ads, rich media ads, swipe ads, and many more.

How Does SDK Ad Monetization Work?

Although every SDK platform has different rules and processes, most of them require developers to follow similar steps:

1. Register on the SDK platform and obtain an access key.
2. Include specific code into the application to communicate with the SDK developer’s servers.
3. Download a copy of the SDK and integrate it into the application’s build. If needed, implement additional OS-specific functionality (e.g., to use geo-targeting on Android, you may need to install extra code to request access to the device’s location data).
4. Follow the development guidelines for implementing the SDK into your application.
5. Add the application to your SDK’s web platform via the control panel or configuration webpage.
6. Start integrating ads into the application.

Following this essential process is all that’s needed to implement ad units into your application. After implementation, ad revenue collection is done automatically by your SDK provider. Check the provider’s rules and terms of service to see payout conditions and parameters.

For example, you may be unable to withdraw ad revenue if you haven’t reached a minimum value, such as $100. Additionally, each provider can access different payment options, which may vary depending on the publisher’s country of origin.

Ad Pricing: CPM vs. CPA vs. CPI

Three of the most commonly employed ad pricing models for SDK monetization are Cost Per Mille (CPM), Cost Per Action (CPA), and Cost Per Install (CPI).

CPM: Cost Per Mille

In Latin, Mille means one thousand. Cost Per Mille (CPM) bills advertisers for every 1,000 impressions recorded on the advertisement. The most common type of impression is the ad view, meaning the number of recorded impressions corresponds to the number of times a user has been able to view an ad unit.

The primary advantage of the CPM pricing model is that users do not need to perform interactions to generate impressions. An impression is recorded simply for seeing the ad, and the advertiser pays out.

For example, if an ad unit is valued at $2.60 CPM and the ad has been viewed 3,000 times on your application, you will earn $7.80.the listed value for every 1,000 recorded.

From the advertiser’s point of view, the Cost Per Mille formula is as follows:

Total ad spend value / Number of thousands of impressions.

A potential disadvantage of a CPM campaign is relatively low average returns, especially on apps and properties that do not generate significant amounts of views.

However, it is the most popular pricing model because it requires the fewest actions on the user’s part, making it an ideal solution for passive ad revenue collection.

For example, if an advertiser spent $200 on an ad unit that users have viewed 500,000 times (500 thousand), that unit’s CPM is 200 / 500 = $0.40 CPM.

A potential disadvantage of a CPM campaign is relatively low average returns, especially on apps and properties that do not generate significant amounts of views. However, it is the most popular pricing model because it requires the fewest actions on the user’s part, making it an ideal solution for passive ad revenue collection.

CPA: Cost Per Action

Cost Per Action (CPA) is a pricing model that pays publishers a fixed rate for a specified action inside the application, such as new account registration, referrals and partnership programs, number of first-time application launches, or in-app events, such as purchases.

From the advertiser’s point of view, the CPA is calculated by dividing the total ad spend by the number of defined actions.

For example, if an advertiser spent $300 on a CPA ad campaign where the paid action is first-time application launches, and a total of 1,200 new users have launched the app for the first time, that ad’s CPA is 300 / 1,200 = $0.25 CPA.

A typical example of a CPA-rewarded action is purchasing premium currency in mobile games. A CPA monetized app may reward publishers with a set amount of money proportional to the quantity of premium currency the user purchased.CPA can be a highly effective pricing model, particularly on highly interactive mobile apps (games, etc.). However, it is also one of the costlier approaches from the user’s point of view, meaning the number of paying users may only be a small fraction of your total user base.

CPI: Cost Per Install

Cost Per Install (CPI) can be viewed as a specific CPA monetization type that explicitly rewards application installs. Because of this, CPI calculation is identical to CPA: total ad spend value divided by the number of actions (in this case, app installs).

This monetization approach pairs well with ad units inciting users to install the application, such as 30-second videos or interactive interstitials ending with an app store link, such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Under the CPI monetization model, an advertiser pays out for every user that visits the application’s app store link and installs the app on their device.

It is typically not required for users to launch the app for the first time; in other words, a successful app install still pays out even if the user never opens it.

Although less demanding than most CPA monetization models, CPI requires user interaction to function, which may be more challenging to implement than a CPM model.

However, the interactions required do not require the user to make purchases, making it possible to implement a CPI ad campaign with a free-to-play application.

Top 5 Mobile Ad Types and Monetization Models

The five most successful mobile ad unit types are banner ads, interstitials, rewarded videos, offer walls, and native ads.

1. Banner Ads

Mobile banner ads are rectangular ad units that can display static or animated creative content. They are among the most commonly utilized ad units, with multiple size formats available. Although industry-standard formats include 320×50, 320×100, 300×250 (IAB medium), 468×60 (IAB full-size), and 728×90 (IAB leaderboard), the most popular banner ad formats are adaptive.

Two primary types of adaptive banner ads are employed in SDK advertising:

• Adaptive height banners: Banners with a fixed, configured width (set by the publisher) and a variable height.
• Smart banners: Banners with a fixed height (32, 50, or 90 pixels high) and a width that automatically matches the screen resolution.

2. Interstitial Ads

Interstitial ads are ad units displayed in full-screen mode, covering or replacing the app’s interface temporarily to display an ad on the entirety of the screen space.

Typically, interstitials are interactive, allowing users to get snippets of gameplay or functionality before installing the application. This type of ad is commonly used for advertising mobile games, promoting engagement, and generating interest by letting users try a sample of an app before they install it.

Some interstitial ads are non-interactive, performing similarly to full-screen static and video ads. Although such ad units are less common, they are less expensive to produce and can be a cost-effective approach for monetization.

3. Rewarded Ads

Rewarded ads are ad units played in a full-screen format. They resemble non-interactive interstitial ads but feature multiple critical differences.

Unlike traditional interstitials, rewarded ads do not usually offer any interactivity. Instead, they are standard video formats. They also last for fixed durations, ranging from 20 to 60 seconds.

Lastly, there is no option to skip rewarded ads once started. Because the user initiates them, the only way to exit out of a rewarded ad is to watch it in full.

In exchange for watching the entire ad, the user is rewarded with in-app items or virtual currency. For this reason, rewarded ads are almost exclusively found in mobile games.

4. Offer Walls

Offer wall ads (alternatively spelled “offerwalls”) are a more complex form of rewarded ads, offering a variety of rewards (offers) on a list (the “wall”) to the user in exchange for completing different monetized activities.  

For example, an offer wall in a mobile game may offer varying quantities of in-game currency in exchange for activities such as watching ads, installing an application, playing another mobile game and reaching a specific level or progress point, completing a survey, or visiting an eCommerce platform and completing a purchase.

Offer walls combine multiple forms of engagement and monetization options, leaving users with multiple offers to choose from and allowing them to manage their level of engagement with ads.

5. Native Ads

Native advertising is ad content publishers seamlessly integrate into an application or website’s content, appearing to be an integral element of the application environment.

In the context of mobile applications, native ads typically match the application’s styling, user interface (UI), text, and appearance. The primary objective of a native ad is to minimize disruption and serve ad content without degrading the user experience.

Top 10 SDKs for App Monetization

The top 10 best-performing SDKs for monetizing a mobile applications are:

1. FB Audience Network

Facebook Audience Network lets publishers leverage Facebook’s considerable reach on the mobile market via its Facebook-powered audience targeting tools. Facebook Audience Network is one of the best high-performance mobile ad network SDKs, with a 27% share of the app market and approximately 47% of all app downloads.

The FB Audience Network SDK allows developers and publishers to use Facebook’s advertising algorithms and powerful targeting options, making it possible to target ads precisely by user age, location, gender, demographics, job sector, interests, and more. Ads served through the FB Audience Network SDK include interactive interstitials and rewarded ads, maximizing engagement and ad revenue.

2. MoPub

MoPub is one of the few top-performing mobile app advertising SDKs that are open-source. MoPub’s tools allow developers and publishers to select their preferred monetization methods, from direct ads to ad networks and programmatic real-time bidding. World-class MoPub users include WordPress, TuneIn, and Halfbrick Studios.

The MoPub SDK is well-known for its transparency and openness, robust analytics tools, and full support of multiple popular ad formats. Ads served with the MoPub SDK include static content, HTML5, rich media ads, videos, interactive ads, and many others.

3. AdColony

AdColony is a premium ad network SDK and advertising platform with over 1.5 billion worldwide users. AdColony has access to the latest technologies, some of the world’s most prestigious advertisers, and one of the best fill rates in the industry.

Ads served using the AdColony SDK can support high-definition video creatives and technologies such as instant play, delivering a premium-grade ad serving experience. The SDK also includes comprehensive audience targeting features and support for Aurora HD, making it a top choice for publishers looking to monetize their properties with high-quality ad content.

4. Google AdMob

Google AdMob is one of the best industry-leading ad SDKs, serving over 200 billion ad requests monthly and partnering with over 1 million advertisers worldwide. It is the world’s most utilized mobile app monetization SDKs, with an app share of 88%. Its features are included in over 1.3 million mobile applications, including 286,000 games.

The primary benefits of Google AdMob are the SDK’s ease of use and integration with Google technologies. Additionally, developers don’t need to worry about usage costs; AdMob is 100% free to use. AdMob’s features include detailed monetization reports, Google-powered analytics and insights tools, easy scaling, and access to quality Google-approved advertisers.

5. Smaato

The Smaato SDK is a popular choice for mobile game developers and publishers. Smaato has access to hundreds of different advertising industry partners, aggregating them on a single network and making them compete in real time for each impression.

The Smaato SDK is easy to integrate, providing developers with an easy-to-use interface and a feature-filled dashboard and control panel for integration options. It only takes a few clicks to add a new application before integrating the SDK into your app’s code.

Publishers using Smaato as their primary monetization platform can also use the Smaato Integration Center to gain control over the mediation process and further optimize their earnings.

6. Unity Ads

Unity Ads is the monetization SDK developed by Unity Technologies, best known for creating the Unity video game engine. The primary advantage of Unity Ads is its availability. Unity Ads is automatically available to you for free from within the game development SDK Unity Editor if you developed your mobile app or game using the Unity engine.

Although primarily designed for Unity engine applications, you can monetize non-Unity apps with Unity Ads simply by integrating the native SDK into your application project.

As an advertising and monetization SDK, Unity Ads is powerful and comes with many features: CPM and CPI ad campaigns, numerous audience targeting options, an intuitive user dashboard, and a built-in way to configure in-app purchases.

7. AirPush

AirPush is among the oldest and most established US-based advertising SDK developers on the market, with over 10 years of experience monetizing mobile traffic.

AirPush offers numerous unique features for publishers and developers to monetize all types of mobile traffic and maximize fill rates and effective CPM (eCPM) values.

AirPush uses internally developed, proprietary ad formats and the expertise of a skilled, global sales team to ensure developers and publishers earn the maximum amount of money. The result is significantly increased earnings compared to more commonly used monetization solutions. World-class AirPush customers include Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Toyota.

8. Fyber

Fyber is a mobile advertising technology company and mobile SDK developer based in Berlin, Germany. They specialize in multiple high-effectiveness mobile content advertising forms, letting developers take advantage of a robust network of advertisers and popular monetization features. Over 180 DSPs and thousands of advertisers partner with Fyber, ensuring publishers have access to high-quality ad content at all times.

Ad units served on Fyber include rewarded video ads, offer walls, interstitials, and virtual currency management systems for mobile games. Fyber ads are supported on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone devices and are powered by multiple proprietary technologies to increase engagement and user retention.

9. Mintegral

The Mintegral SDK provides app publishers access to a cutting-edge, Artificial Intelligence-driven programmatic advertising platform and a dense network of advertisers in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

Mintegral is the ideal full-stack solution for monetizing applications and games in countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Australia, and the South-East Asia (SEA) region. In 2021, Mintegral earned an ISO 27001 certification, meaning the SDK meets international standards for information security management. These certifications help keep the overall quality of ads served on Mintegral as high as possible, ensuring advertiser and publisher brand safety.

10. Yandex

The Yandex Mobile Ads SDK is the app monetization solution from Yandex, the leading search engine and information services company in Russia and the CIS region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan).

Publishers and developers implementing the Yandex SDK into their iOS and Android applications gain access to the Yandex Advertising Network and its thousands of advertiser partners. YAN sites and applications reach over 65 million users, making the Yandex SDK an essential tool for reaching Russian and CIS audiences.

Benefits of SDK Advertising and Monetization

Although integrating an advertising SDK into a mobile application takes more time and resources than simpler, less code-heavy solutions (e.g., APIs, ad tags), SDKs offer a complete suite of integrated tools and features, providing developers and publishers greater control.

For instance, an SDK comes with its own functionality and documentation, making it easier for non-developers and staff with less technical knowledge to use. Developers can use the SDK’s built-in structures and functions to increase implementation speed, spend less time on development, and monetize content more quickly.

Lastly, SDKs are better suited to scaling up and down than APIs, letting you adapt your monetization plans to your app’s exact size, reach, and audience. They typically come with built-in analytics and KPI tracking features, providing publishers with accurate, real-time performance information and data points needed to optimize revenue streams accordingly.

CodeFuel Provides Expert Monetization Advice

Monetizing your mobile applications, games, websites, extensions, or any other digital properties can be a daunting task without help. CodeFuel can help you earn money with all of your assets, optimizing your revenue streams and providing the best guidance and approach for your needs. Get started with CodeFuel today

Header bidding is one of the most critical elements of efficient advertising, where the ad space generates maximum ad revenue. There is much talk in digital advertising circles about the advantages of header bidding for programmatic advertising. But what exactly is header bidding, and how can you use it to maximize your revenue as a publisher? This post will give you an overview of header bidding, its trends, and how to implement it.

What Is Header Bidding?

With header bidding, publishers can offer their inventory to multiple SSPs (Supply-Side Platforms) and ad exchanges. In this type of programmatic auction, the bid requests are sent to multiple advertisers (demand partners) in real time.

Origin of Online Advertising Before Header Bidding

Before header bidding appeared, the auctions for ad space followed a waterfall model. In it, the ad space is auctioned and delivered when the page is loading.

The Programmatic Waterfall Model

In this model, the ad space is offered first to the publisher’s direct orders; then, if it is not sold, the space offer is passed down the line until it finds a better bid than the previous one. When this happens, the ad space is sold to this bidder.

The problem with the waterfall model is that you can easily miss higher bids. In the example above, the auction stops at the first “higher” bid, bid “B”, when the highest bid is “C” at $3.25, so actually, you may lose money with waterfall bidding. 

How Does Header Bidding Work?

1. Header bidding starts by adding a piece of JavaScript code in the header of a publisher’s page. This piece of code is what allows buyers to bid on an advertising inventory.
2. When a user visits a website, the publisher’s header tag sends requests to multiple ad networks.
3. The ad networks bid on the space. The winning bid is sent to the publisher’s ad server. 
4. The publisher’s ad server displays the winning ad.

Client Side vs. Server Side Header Bidding?

Client-side header bidding: you add the piece of JavaScript to the publisher’s website, which runs every time the page loads. The browser sends a request for bids, and the highest bid wins.

Server-side header bidding: here, the requests are sent from the ad server, not the browser.

How Header Bidding Solved The Problem Of Waterfall Bidding Issues?

In header bidding, the space goes effectively to the highest bid, regardless of its position in the auction.  The advertiser’s server shows the winning ad creative to the publisher’s server.

Header bidding lets publishers know what advertiser is bidding to maximize revenue and have better exposure for their brand.

How Do You Set Up Header Bidding?

The header bidding implementation requires the ad server to connect to the header bidding wrapper.  The wrapper, in turn, connects to the SSP adapter.

What’s a Wrapper?

Before wrappers, the publisher needed to insert each advertiser or DDP code snippet on their webpage. Inserting and deleting those code snippets every time an advertiser change is time-consuming and tedious.

Wrappers are software containers that hold the snippets from all demand partners.  Publishers can easily replace snippets without dealing with code if the wrapper has a graphic interface. The wrapper also contains the set prices and the timeouts. The most popular header bidding wrappers are Pubfood.js, BiddR360, and Prebid.js.

Steps to Implement Header Bidding in Google Ad Manager

Step 1: Building a wrapper

You can build it yourself or get it from a header bidding provider.

Step 2: Contact the SSPs. 

If the SSPs want to work with you, you can incorporate their adapters into your wrapper.

Here you can see how to set up a wrapper with Prebid.js:

1. Load the Prebid.js library. Go to prebid.org and download the library file in the version and with the adapters you want to work with.
2. Load the ad server library file. Using Google Ad Manager, you can load the GPT library file.
3. Run the header auction. Prebid pauses the first d server call, then sends bid requests to multiple demand partners. It fetches bids for the available inventory. Some useful features include ensuring the request doesn’t block the rest of the content or setting a timeout.

Step 3: Integrate the wrapper with your site.

Add the wrapper code to the header.

Step 4: Integrate the wrapper with the ad server. 

You can learn how to do it with Prebid.js here.

Step 5: Test the setup. 

Give the setup to your QA team or someone who worked on it previously and someone who doesn’t know about it, then check all bugs and fixes needed.

Implementation of Header Bidding Challenges

Publishers may find it challenging to implement header bidding. It is not easy to set up, and it requires to add many lines to the ad inventory. You need more upfront lift to traffic line items to implement header tag integrations.

Header bidding can impact page load speed because third-party tags may slow the loading time. The problem is when a visitor abandons the page before it loads, it will miss the ads.

Pros and Cons of Header Bidding for Publishers

How can header bidding benefit (+) publishers?

• Higher fill rates: with header bidding, more buyers are available, which increases the chances of filling the inventory. Header bidding makes it more likely to fill remnant inventory.
• Better visibility into inventory value: you can see the real price of what other publishers are selling their inventory, giving you a better picture of how much your inventory is worth.
• Higher cost per mile (CPM):  the header bidding system ensures the highest bid gets the impression.

What are the drawbacks (-) of header bidding for publishers?

Using client-side header bidding has some drawbacks:

• Increased latency: more scripts on a page slow down the load time, which hurts the user experience, reducing ad views, and, ultimately, conversions.
• Compatibility issues: the client-side header needs to be compatible with different browsers. Sometimes there are compatibility issues between the header and the browser.
• Slowed-down performance: the more code you add, the chances of slowing down the website and browser increase.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Header Bidding for Advertisers

Is header bidding only for publishers? Yes, and no. Let’s analyze the advantages and drawbacks of using header bidding for advertisers.

How can header bidding benefit advertisers?

The header bidding process was designed to help publishers maximize their revenue. However, advertisers may benefit from accessing premium inventory.  Advertisers see the available inventory and bid on premium spaces.  

What are the drawbacks for advertisers?

That being said, accessing premium inventory isn’t cheap. Large organizations with big advertising budgets can work with premium inventory, but the expense can hurt smaller brands. Additionally, header bidding companies have access to all the publisher inventory, preventing advertisers from doing deals directly with those publishers.

Why Header Bidding Is Better for Publishers?

The advantages of using header bidding are better for publishers. Header bidding is designed in such a way that publishers can get the most yield from their impressions.

Why?

1. It expands the advertisers’ pool, allowing them to reach more and better-paying advertisers.
2. The automated auction increases competition between advertisers, leading to a higher bid. You know that is true if you ever got into a bidding war on eBay.

Header Bidding Trends For 2022

The popularity of header bidding and its advantages for publishers resulted in the exponential growth of header bidding solutions. The evolution is not stopping, so here are some of its trends for 2022:

1. Too many options. Currently, header bidding is evolving to include multiple header bidding solutions available to publishers. Publishers have a hard time selecting the right solution. They need to consider the following factors:
   • The ability to generate maximum competition to increase revenue
   • The integration with the browser
   • Real-time optimization
   • Integration of demand channels into the same platform
2. Should you build, buy, or partner? Publishers face the dilemma of choosing whether to build their own header bidding or buy/partner with a third-party provider. Using a third-party provider has the advantage of addressing a larger demand market.
3. The appearance of the hybrid wrapper. Studies show that most publishers use hybrid set-ups (client-side and server-side combined) solutions. Additionally, omnichannel wrapper users are more likely to rely on hybrid wrappers.

What Is Open Bidding?

Open bidding is a programmatic bidding system that lets publishers invite advertisers to bid on auctions. The new auction is in real-time and server-to-server. It is easier to implement than header bidding because you can reuse your existing tags.

Header Bidding Vs. Open Bidding

Header Bidding vs. AdSense

FAQs

How CodeFuel Helps Marketers Maximize the Yield with Header Bidding?

CodeFuel is a monetization platform geared to maximize the revenue for publishers, and header bidding is one of the keys of its success. By increasing the competition among bidders, it ensures only the true highest bid gets the ad space. To achieve that, CodeFuel leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence technology. If you want to know more about how CodeFuel maximizes the monetization revenue for digital properties, request a demo today.

Are Native Ads Leading the Digital Advertising Market?

Let’s face it, native ads are a more recent solution. Display ads have been in use for decades, while native advertising has been growing in the last few years. Native ads have been taking the leadership of online advertising and are viewed 52% more times than display ads. With those results, it is no surprise that spending on native advertising is growing.

• In rs spent 37% more on native advertising. This percentage represents a 39.4% increase over the previous year.
• Native ad spending in the US is expected to reach $83.4 billion in 2022.

Native Ads

Now that we know that native advertising is leading the market, we will explore what native ads are and their performance.

What are Native Ads?

Native Ads are ads that blend with the design and style of the webpage they are placed on. These ads don’t look like ads, but as part of the editorial content on the page.

This non-intrusive ad format, integrates the advertisement to the editorial style of the website, and seems like organic content.

There are three primary forms of native advertising:

Infeed/ In Content ads: these ads integrate into content pieces like blogs or social feeds.

Content recommendation ads: these ads, often in the shape of sponsored content,  are placed alongside the editorial content, for example, at the end of an article or on the side of the page.

Branded Ads: these may appear as sponsored posts in social media or as listings on search engines.

You can find native ads as sponsored posts in social media or blogs. Native ads also appear as paid search units on search result pages of search engines like Google or Bing. Content discovery platforms use recommended content as native ads. Let’s see some examples of effective native ads:

4 Great Examples of Native Ads

1. Stranger Things playlist in Spotify

Spotify is a brand known for leveraging user data to create and enhance the user experience. The Netflix series “Stranger Things” is set in the 80s, which means the show features many iconic songs from that era. Netflix partnered with Spotify to create playlists based on the show’s characters. Spotify users can log into their accounts and enter into “Stranger Things” mode, where they are assigned a Spotify Playlist based on a character of the show.

2. Social media ads

Social media is the most typical example of native advertising. Ads appear in social media apps’ feeds. These social media ads are placed in the user’s feed, matching organic content perfectly.

3. Taco Bell and Snapchat

Taco Bell partnered with Snapchat to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. They sponsored a filter that made users’ faces look like taco shells. The filter successfully got over 224 million views in one day, promoting Taco Bell across Snapchat.

4. Patron Tequila and Twitter

Patron Tequila partnered with Twitter to promote their brand on social media on International Margarita Day. They asked people to choose the best margarita recipe out of seven.

The Patron strategy enabled the organization to engage its audience, creating a community by sharing and liking its brand.

What’s the Performance of Native Ads?

According to a survey by Sharethrough media labs on 4770 consumers, native ads are more effective than display ads. Here are some key findings:

• Native ads are 18% more effective in purchase intent than banner ads.
• 25% more users looked at in-feed native ads than display ads. 
• 53% more users looked at native ads than at display ads. 

Sizes of Native Ads

The size of native ads will vary depending on the publisher’s requirements.  For instance, for Google developers, the most popular sizes are 1,200px x 627px and 600px x 600px.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Native Ads?

Display Ads

What are Display Ads?

Display ads are what most people consider “digital ads.” Examples are banner ads, videos, and interactive and pop-up functions. Display ads typically have a lower click-through rate than other types of ads. However, CTR is not the only measure of a campaign’s success, and display ads improve brand awareness and purchase intent.

3 Great Examples of Display Ads and Why They Work

1. PayPal Vertical Banner

In this side vertical banner, Paypal wants its users to know that they can pay with their Venmo account. This ad’s goal is to create awareness about a new service, so it is not geared to create conversions.

2. Elle.com

Elle magazine provides space in its homepage for relevant advertisers. Here, you can see a display square ad from the fashion brand Alembika. It has a disclaimer written on top of the ad that claims this image as an advertisement.

3. Microsoft

This brand doesn’t need to spread awareness, because it is widely recognized. Instead, Microsoft uses display ads to promote the core benefit behind the product.

Performance of Display Ads

So, how effective are display ads? Here are some statistics:

• Total display ad spending is expected to reach $143.55 billion in 2022. (Insider Intelligence)
• Digital ads increase brand awareness by 80%.
• Retargeting works: Customers are 70% more likely to purchase from a retargeting ad. (Tech Jury PPC stats)
• A user search increases after seeing a display ad.
• 27% of consumers search for a business after seeing a display ad.

Sizes of Display Ads

So, Which Is Better For Your Campaign: Native Advertising, Display or Both?

Consumers are bombarded every day with ads popping up left and right. In this digital space saturated with advertising, it is increasingly difficult to grab the consumer’s attention and engage them enough to act. Native ads have the advantage of being unobtrusive, and naturally, they overtake display ads. But display ads are not dead. In reality, you need both since each one serves different purposes.

FAQs

Conclusion

Publishers wishing to simplify leveraging native and display ads often choose a monetization platform. CodeFuel is a complete, all-in-one monetization solution that leverages display, shopping, and search ads to monetize digital properties.