App Marketing Networks 2014

App Video Monetization Guide

There are many solutions on offer in the rising tide of video advertising on mobile – from interstitials to rewarded ads, pre/mid/post roll and native in-feed videos. We look at some of the main players in the video ad serving platforms and SDKs.

2015 Edition

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App Video Monetization Guide

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App Video Monetization

Should you use video adverts in your mobile application? Advertisers are getting increas- ingly smart with the format of their videos, tuning them to be optimised for the mobile expe-rience, and the industry is investing in the technology, but this doesn’t necessarily mean your application is suited to it. On the other hand, your app may be perfect, but you’re afraid that video ads will fragment your carefully designed UX and drive users away.

We’ll get to whether you should use video adverts in a few paragraphs, but first a quick look at the rising tide of video advertising.

According to eMarketer, the US alone is expected to spend $2.1 billion on mobile video marketing in 2016 – four times the current $518 million. This is still estimated to be only 10% of the total money spent on mobile advertising, but the growth is unparalleled: Busi-nessInsider claims mobile video advertising is growing at three times the rate compared to desktop video ads; revenue is estimated to rise to $13.3bn in 2020, from this year’s 5bn.

Video ads can cost twice or thrice as much as non-video units on premium publishers, but this is in line with their higher clickthrough rates: eighteen times those of HTML5 banners. Mobile video ad revenue is expected to grow by over 35% in the next 5 years, compared to 12.9% for desktops.

As for publishing, eCPMs average $2-3 on the US and Canadian market, but they can reach as high as $30. The numbers, in short, look good. Should you be using them?

There are many solutions on offer, from interstitials to rewarded ads, pre/mid/post roll videos and native in-feed videos. If your app is a game, you should very probably be using native video adverts. The majority of solutions we list below integrate almost seamlessly with gaming experiences, and the key players on the scene have structured SDKs and APIs with gaming in mind.

Two things are key: the moment in which you display the advert, and the quality and options

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that the advert itself gives. This is why most ad exchanges and networks like Vungle and Ap-plovin offer both high-quality programmatic selling algorithms and the chance to completely control which adverts are shown.

AdColony has developed Instant-Play, reducing loading times and ensuring videos are al-ways of the highest quality, while Loopme offers exclusively 100% HD full-screen mobile adverts. Another solution, such as offered by Inneractive and Native-X is rewarded intersti-tials and videos – your gamers receive an in-game reward (an extra life, say) if they opt-in to watch and advert.

Another key point is how you integrate the platform into your app: Leadbolt and Vdopia offer both SDK and HTML tags as options for integration, and the former is integrated with 10+ networks, out of the box. InMobi offers the option to set up separate marketplaces for specific inventory in your game, while UnityAds and ChartBoost are games-only net-works, with the latter offering free cross-promotions between games. Of all the networks, of course, Google’s (via AdMob) is the biggestThe majority of these solutions all give your user the chance to opt in to an advert or skip it entirely, exit it during play or mute it. Another solution is that of the injection of autoplay video (as usual, fully pausable and mutable) within an app’s content feed, as shown by Ad Colony.

There are a number of solutions for video, but it remains a potential detachment from your app’s UX. If you publish a game, there are a number of ways to integrate this smoothly, or if your app has specific characteristics like a content feed, a product list or inherent videos. If your app doesn’t have these features, you can always look to other native advertising for-mats using our guide.

With that said, here are some of the main actors in the native video advertising business:

Vungle

Vungle offers both an ad exchange and network with high levels of moderation for advertis-ers and publishers, its “brand safety tech” ensures videos are played in the right places, in full and with audio. It also allows for bulk buying and has 100% full screen HD videos. It supports Unity, Corona, Adobe Air and Cocos20 plugins for a number of formats: skippable, non-skip-pable interstitials, opt-in ads and storefront placements.

Key Feature: Offers both ad exchange and ad network Tagline: The way developers put video ads in their apps

App Video Monetization Guide

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Leadbolt

Leadbolt recently received awards for being “Most Innovative Company of the Year” and “International Technology Company of the Year”, and offers video ads for both direct deals and rewarded video on top of the usual suite of interactive interstitials and native ads. As well as a one-stop dashboard with live stats tracking and the standard SDK integration, it crucially offers the possibility to integrate its platform via HTML for Android apps .

Key Feature: Optimised for a large range (10+) of frameworks Tagline: Leading mobile ad network

Google Mobile Ads

Google‘s AdMob has the major advantage of being backed by the internet giant, and it has a large selection of interstitials and videos, which like Youtube can be skipped after the first five seconds; this can play well with UX simply because it is an established and well known interaction by users. With over a million Google advertisers and real time bidding, the plat-form delivers the level of customisation and control over which adverts display in your app that we have come to expect from the company.

Key Feature: Huge ad exchange and customisation options Tagline: App monetization and in-app advertising

Inmobi

Inmobi is one of the most famous ad networks, with a particular focus on matching videos and interstitials to the expected emotion a user will be feeling at a particular point in your game, known as “MoMo” – Moment of Maximum Opportunity. It ensures up to 5x a higher yield on adverts, and offers a range of programmatic selling options like Private Marketplace, Preferred Deals and Open Marketplace.

Key Feature: Matches videos to expected user emotions Tagline: Mobile Advertising, Monetisation, Analytics

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Unity Ads

UnityAds calls itself “Engine Agnostic”, and rightly so, supporting Unity, Corona, Adobe Air and Cocos20 plugins. The formats on the network, which is game-only, are your classic 15s rewarded videos, skippable or mutable interstitials, with the added bonus of downloading the advertised game (upon selection) without interrupting play in yours. High profile clients include Ruzzle, and the SDK comes ready compatible for Skyrocket and MoPub’s mediation tools.

Key Feature: Supports all game engines Tagline: Ads that users love. Growth for your game.

Rewarded and full-screen video ad formats

Source: unityads.unity3d.com

Chartboost

Chartboost is one of the largets game-only networks (noticing a trend?) boasting “600 mil-lion monthly active players. 150,000 games. 20 billion monthly game sessions” including Candy Crush and Rovio. It’s single SDK is implemented with just ten lines of code. As it is game-exclusive, cross promotions with other publishers is free, and its API allows you to set frequency caps to specific ads, targeting them to the right audience segments and with cus-tom frames around videos.

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Key Feature: Free game cross-promotions Tagline: Grow mobile game revenue with Chartboost

The Chartboost Api

Source: Chartboost.com

Loopme

Loopme is a mobile video DSP with a different focus from the others on this list: instead of games, its extremely high quality, full screen, HD video adverts and rich media interstitials. It does not compromise on its vision, and this makes it suitable for very well curated apps and transitions. It’s not for everyone, but what it does, it does extremely well, having worked for high profile clients like Selfridges. All formats are covered, including pre/post/mid-roll, HTML5 and VAST.

Key Feature: HD full screen videos only Tagline: Video and full screen mobile advertising

Rich media interstitial and full screen video adverts

Source: Loopme.com

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NativeX

Native-X is another game-focussed ad network offering both rewarded and non-rewarded formats. It’s strength comes from the technologies surrounding the videos however: their own patented “Lightning Play” technology for rapid load times, “Predictive Analytics” al-gorithms to intelligently select which ads to show and in which orientation and best of all, in-built deep linking to in-house promotions.

Key Feature: “Predictive Analytics” algorithms to increase eCPMs Tagline: The leading ad technology for mobile games

Inneractive

Inneractive‘s strengths are in the level of control and customisation they offer to the video ads you display in your apps. They have over 120 partners with localised adverts and give you the option of either fully automatic mediation or fully mediated by you. It’s video exchange is fully VAST 2.0 compliant, and the SDK gives you out-of-the-box HTML5 compatibility, mak-ing all ads skippable, clickable and closable.

Key Feature: Out-of-the-box HTML5 compatible Tagline: App monetisation. Simplified.

AdColony

AdColony has patented its “Instant-Play” tech which “ensures video ads always play instantly with crisp picture, regardless of connection strength or device type.” It offers the full range of ad formats: pre/mid/post roll, interstitials and value-exchange as well as the Native In-Feed Video, which is slightly different in that it injects a native video solution in app content feeds. It is trusted by, among others, Lufthansa, and works 90% of the AdAge 100 Advertisers, 40% of Fortune 500.

Key Feature: Instant-Play patented technology Tagline: The leading mobile video advertising platform

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Applovin

Apploving partners with over 300 major brands, including Zynga and Walmart and offers 24/7 end-to-end support for your app’s ads. It also pays 15 days after each month, making it a reliable source of income, and its solution is compatible with iOS and Google. It’s API comes with optimisation algorithms and real time bidding for video adverts.

Key Feature: Guaranteed payment 15 days after each month Tagline: Market automation and analytics

Vdopia

VDOPIA markets its main product, named “Chocolate”, as an “advanced programmatic mo-bile video-only platform.” Its patent-pending .VDO technology delivers auto-initiated click-able videos with user preferences that begin with the sound off and giving users the option to turn it on. Further, it offers two ways to integrate and track videos within your app: either with an SDK or tags.

Key Feature: “Chocolate”, programmatic mobile video marketplace Tagline: Mobile first programmatic buying and selling

An example of the Vdopia API

Source: vdopia.atlassian.net

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Final thoughts

Video Adverts boast higher eCPMS and look to be an expanding marketing sector; all the signs look good -if- video adverts are right for your app. While monetisation through adver-tising is important, it should not come at the expense of UX, and with the plethora of native ad formats now available, video ads need not be shoe-horned into your application if they are not right for it. If you are publishing a game, chances are you can successfuly integrate video ads into it, and should definitely look at the possibility. If your app is of a different kind, then the usual thoughts apply: be sensible.

App Video Monetization Guide

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