In-game ad serving considerations

In-game ad serving considerations

Watson F Writes on ad servers software, involved with Adspeed advertising platform & Adspeed ad serving software.

Gaming is one of the most popular activities these days as the pandemic is still raging in many places. People have few options to entertain and as a result, downloading new apps, new games on their mobile devices is as easy as it gets. As a result of that, game publishers are very eager to explore monetization opportunities by using a mobile ad server to display ads in their games and apps. There are considerations for in-app ad serving that all publishers should know to implement a win-win advertising program.

First-time users

It is very easy to install a new app just to try it out. Similarly, it is also very easy to delete an app. Many users open an app for the first time, do not find it interesting and simply forget about it. This happens more often than you might think. In these cases, your in-app advertising has no chance to generate any revenue. Therefore, it might be beneficial to customize the experience for first-timers so they can immediately see and enjoy the main attraction without any distractions. For example, displaying a full-page interstitial ad whenever the app starts might be acceptable to loyal users but might be annoying to new players. They might just close the app right then or harbor a negative impression that can affect their game experience later on.

Ad blocking

Ad blockers are becoming more popular with app users. Depending on your game and how it is built, ad blocker may or may not affect your ad serving operations. Network firewalls and DNS ad blocking systems can still limit ad requests. While they might block banners and similar deployments, they typically cannot detect and block native ads or ads served as in-game rewards. However, one of the main reasons that people enable ad blocking is because they want to minimize interruptions in their game so it is important to understand that preference and to serve ads only in suitable and non-disrupting ad placements.

Rewarded ads

Rewards from ads should be added bonuses and should not compete directly with in-game purchases. In-app purchases are a major revenue source for game publishers. You do not want them to fight each other for the same precious dollars and depress the values of other game items.

Typically, the goal of rewarded ads is to boost user engagement and retention.

Ad blindness

Anyone who has been involved in the advertising industry is familiar with the concept of banner blindness. It is also important for mobile game developers to understand this negative effect. When users either consciously or subconsciously ignore information contained in the ads, that reduces the engagement rate and ad effectiveness. However, at the same time, you don’t want to take players out of the gameplay experience because doing so will cause a bigger problem: players do not want to play that game any more because the ads are just too annoying.

There is a delicate balance that you want to maintain so people can enjoy the game and yet you can generate some ad revenue.

Ads designed for mobile app

To make ads more acceptable to players, it is important to ensure the placement is suitable and the ad is optimized for mobile devices. Clear text and graphics with bright colors are easier to see on small mobile screens. The ad should be responsive and automatically resized depending on the screen dimension. If you have two versions, one for mobile and one for desktop, make sure to apply a suitable ad restriction for each version in your ad server. Finally, it is always important to test the ad before going live on as many devices as possible.

About Adspeed

AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad serving technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy more efficiently.

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