In a recent Q+A, Liftoff’s product marketing director Jessica Dibady spoke with the company’s growth senior manager Anna Badalamenti regarding the best practises of app monetisation – and how publishers should approach ad integration.
Although advertising remains pervasive throughout the mobile space, Badalamenti states that in-app advertising is more widespread than was perhaps anticipated.
“Today, 89% of publishers monetise their apps using in-app advertisements. In general, most mobile app users embrace or are familiar with an in-app ad experience,” stated Badalamenti.
“For app developers, using ads for in-app monetisation can increase reach (the ability to monetise more users), engagement (in-app interactions), and retention (incentivizing users to come back to the app). Additionally, ads can complement other types of monetization strategies. For example, offering rewarded videos to non-paying users has been shown to generate incremental in-app purchase (IAP) revenue. Using a subscription-based model? There is also the subscription-based model that gives users access to a lite version with ads during a test period.”
Should you go chasing waterfalls?
Badalamenti went on to break down different forms of partnership publishers can take to optimise monetisation, such as direct deals with companies, the use of ad networks or ad waterfalls, or in-app bidding, allowing publishers “to hold real-time unified auctions between programmatic and network-based demand sources within the app itself.”
She goes on to state that this model “cuts down SDK weight, improves efficiency, generates more revenue, and enhances user experience” compared to the waterfall approach, where publishers manually prioritise demand sources to drive revenue.
“The mobile advertising industry is growing and evolving rapidly making it difficult for new publishers to navigate the monetization landscape. Over the past two decades, we’ve seen new innovations emerge that strengthen advertiser and publisher partnerships in the mobile ad space.”
Badalamenti does state that publishers should consider three points before incorporating advertising into their app’s monetisation strategy: the audience, expectations regarding how much of their revenue they hope to generate through advertising, and the resources available to dedicate to ad monetisation.
“Once you’ve spent some time considering the questions above, the next step is to choose your ad monetization partners. The right partners will not only offer the best technology to scale ad monetization yourself, but also offer other resources or guidance to ensure you’re ahead of the evolving mobile market,” says Badalamenti.
When asked what to keep in mind when selecting network partners, Badalamenti recommended considering “the full offering of each SDK ad network carefully (i.e. geo coverage, ad unit specialties, product, and tools) and how they will fit with your portfolio. We recommend working with 2-6 mobile ad SDKs (depending on your resources).” By doing this, Badalamenti states that publishers can find the right balance between performance through competition and keeping SDK updates to a minimum.
Last month, Liftoff unveiled a new feature to improve IAA for advertisers.
