What is so special about Rewarded Video Ads? - android

In addition to Banner ads and Interstitial ads, Admob provides a kind of ads called the Rewarded Video Ads. What is so special about Rewarded Video Ads? Can't we just attach an AdOpen event handler to an ordinary Banner or Interstitial Video ad, and reward the players there? Is this allowed by Google?
Additionally, why is the status of my Chartboost source 'pending' in Admob mediation? I have already set up my account, ads and the campaign in Chartboost, and waited for 6 hours. How long do I have to wait? Must I install the Chartboost SDK first in Unity 5.3?

Rewarded video is special because, on average, it has a higher ecpm (effective cost per mill impressions).
In basic terms:
As a publisher (showing ADs in your games), they will make you more money and cost you less uninstalls and bad reviews.
The user chooses to watch the video, so they are not annoyed by an involuntary popup. They also get a reward at the end, so it is a positive experience. This means they are less likely to have negative feelings towards your game, leading to less uninstalls and less bad reviews.
As an advertiser they will get you higher quality installs in a cost effective manner.
This is due mainly to the fact that people seeing the AD and installing it know much more about the game than they would from a static image, and therefore you get users that are less likely to uninstall the game due to misleading images or wrong expectations.
You should build a separate process for rewarded video, follow the guide lines here:Google Forum
And see here for Chartboost instructions: Chartboost Documentation

Agree with #turnipinrut about rew vid’s strongpoints. I’d also add that rew vids can be implemented in a greater number of ways, depending on game and it’s mechanics. You can show video ads as a random bonus, give free lives/coins/diamonds for ad view especially if you have a «game store» or just show skippable videos after several levels/tries. Playing around with ad frequency is also important, but it mostly depends on the avg game session, amount of tries gamer usually does and audience at all. To sum up, vids are good and can generate decent revenue & keep users loyal if you chose the right placement.

Rewarded Videos are some kind of quest for users :)
How to add:
In your onCreate add
Chartboost.setDelegate(CBDelegateObject);
and after that
private ChartboostDelegate CBDelegateObject = new ChartboostDelegate() {
// Declare delegate methods here, see CBSample project for examples
#Override
public void didCompleteRewardedVideo(String location, int reward){
//give a reward
}
};
Happy coding ;)

Related

Why do App Developers restrict the number of rewarded video ads, a user can view per day?

I have seen in many apps, that it allows the user to view rewarded video ads, only certain number of times in a day. But, the more ads the users see, more is the revenue for the developer. Then, why is the developer doing so?
P. S - I am developing an app myself. So, I needed to know the reason behind it, so as to decide whether to implement it or not.
Watching rewarded ads means that you avoid paying for premium features that the app offers. The developer that way allows you to see how it would be to use the premium features but does so with the restriction that you can only do that after watching ads and only for a few times. In the long run, the developer will make more money from people buying the premium version of the app than they would have made from people watching adds.
It is very similar to the idea that a lot of online subscription services will offer a month for free to anyone, and then start charging after the second month of use. A lot of people will take advantage and only use the free month, but statistically more people will decide to pay in order to continue having access to the service. (eg audible, amazon prime, youtube premium, etc)
Then, why is the developer doing so?
Put yourself in the position of the user.
On the plus side, he / she wants to use the app.
On the minus side, he / she doesn't want to watch the video ads. But he / she puts up with them.
If you force users to watch too many videos, they will eventually get fed up and stop using your app entirely. And when that happens, you get no more revenue from that user. They are gone. They probably won't come back.
The developer gets to choose which strategy to use when showing ads.

Ask user to watch interstitial ad?

Lately I've been thinking about how to increase the revenue I get from my Android apps, and have come to the conclusion that I "need" to include interstitial ads in some form. I don't want them to feel forced or annoying like in many other apps where they pop up when they are the least desirable. Instead I have been toying with the idea of simply having a seperate "Support The Developer" screen in my app dedicated to explaining to the user that although making apps is fun it's also time-consuming and challenging and ask them to support the developer by watching a short interstitial ad. The user would then either tap a button to show an interstitial ad or tap another button to return to the main menu. Of course there would be no attempt to motivate the user to actually click on the ad - Just simply watch it.
I have scanned the web, AdMob/AdSense policies and other questions on here to try to find a clear answer on if this is against any rules. I certainly don't want to do this to have my app removed for violating any policies. I know that there are rewarded interstitials that you can implement, but since this approach doesn't award the user with anything in the app it doesn't seem like the right path.
I really want to ethically be on the right track here, so if anyone has any expereience regarding this, please help.
I have scanned the web, AdMob/AdSense policies and other questions on here to try to find a clear answer on if this is against any rules. I certainly don't want to do this to have my app removed for violating any policies. I know that there are rewarded interstitials that you can implement, but since this approach doesn't award the user with anything in the app it doesn't seem like the right path.
-> You are not violating any policies regarding asking user to click on button as long as you don't break any other policy for interstitial ad. ( e.g. you can't have consecutive Interstitial Ad, there has to be 2 clicks before you show another ad).
Refer this link for Admob interstitial ads invalid policies https://support.google.com/admob/answer/6201362?hl=en&ref_topic=2745287
Lot of games gives away goodies for viewing videos. In your case you can use ad finish event to process further. For solution refer to this link.
Listening to Video Ad. Finish Event in Interstitial Ad (Google AdMob)
I'm not a mobile developer but I'm a heavy mobile app user on both Android and Windows Mobile. From user experience on games and apps I use a lot, I would watch the videos if they are not in my face, do not start unwanted and bring me some 'benefit' when I watch them. In a game that would mean I would receive some advantage or a prize, usually linked with the game pace where I'm allowed to watch a new video only a certain number of times per hour/day so I can continue playing almost non-stop. In apps some premium options could be unlocked temporarily (for one time use/for 10 minutes/etc) after the user watches a video.
In the end, if the product is good and you have not spoiled the user's experience by putting advertisements all over the place, you can ask the user to switch to Pro version without ads and with more functionality.
You can tease users to become Pro by allowing "trial" period of Pro features for Free users. For example, one of the Pro features might become available to Free users for a day, so they can experience the Pro version. Next week you might allow "trial" for another feature, etc. If your product would have long usage life you should first of all make sure the customers like it, are able to easily use it and then they will gladly give you a fee to use it.
I hope this helps you.
Regards,
Georgi
P.S. The best way to make money out of a good product is to convert it into a service and then earn money from service subscriptions, additional features (like support, customization, plugins, etc). Of course, I don't know what your Android apps are.
I have implemented rewarded ads. The reward is banner or interstitial ads will temporarily be removed. Here is the rewarded ads welcoming message:
In order to use this application without ads, please watch the
following video

Can I be banned from AdMob for seeing real ads (impressions)?

Question 1:
I know that clicking on real ads in my own app can get me banned but does that include impressions ?
I developed app and tested ads with test ads but now I want to see how it looks with real ads (which ads appear ....). How can I test that if I can be banned for that ?
Question 2:
Does AdMob gets data on how many ads were seen because I implemented code that sends event to Firebase Analytics each time ad is shown to user? Do I need it (should I delete that part of code)?
Well, Admob collects how many users have seen the add and how many times and clicks too and this is how they decide CPM which is cost per thousand impression and CPC which is cost per click. CPC and CPM are essential to evaluate your earnings through ads.
As far as first question is concern regarding clicking your ads, you can test your beta releases here and here too. However they don't ban immediately as one can click real ads mistakenly but repeated such event can cause a ban.
Answering your seccond question if you just want how many users have seen the ad, Admob can give you that metrics.
I can answer first question. Impression on your own app does not ban you, I always install my own app after it is live in play to see if real ads are showing or not, but don't click on them. Also do not encourage any friends to click on them on their mobile. Google knows everything!
If you will press to the ad one or two times you will not be banned. But it really not needed, cos' you can use test-ads; they have got the same lifecycle.
Inside admob it is possible to see total amount of shown/clicked ads and how much money you have earned. Imo, in most cases you need not to write such statistic.

Simple Admob Questions

I have been a long time stalker to this awesome site and It has helped me many times. I am releasing this OpenGL ES based 2d game for android soon and I got questions related to admob:
I am using the same ad unit for all the various screens (main menu, in-game, help screen) of the game.. Is it ok to do this?
The in-game ad unit displays ad only when user pauses the screen... It will be always running in the background and is visible and clickable only when user pauses the screen... will google consider this a scammy way of getting impressions?
Does admob pay per impressions too?
What is the initial amount I should pay for Google PlayStore? (I tried searching in google I promise)
Also please mention precautionary measures to take with admob if you happen to think of one...
As a former user of admob:
Yes.
Nope. You can even show the ad while the game runs. But you can always read their integrity policy. They change it once in a while.
As far as I know only video ads pay for impressions. I'm not sure if admob allows supports video ads. Image and Javascript banners do not pay for impressions.
Here is the answer: http://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=113468
As of precautionary measures, as I said, read their developer integrity policy. No matter what anybody tells you in this forum about that topic, google could update their policy the next day, rendering any advice given obsolete. Plus the integrity policy is about a page long.

AdMob Ads not displaying

I'm adding AdMob ads (say that five times fast) to my finished, published Android app. I added the code from the PDF included with AdMob, following their instructions to a tee. The test ads show up fine on my emulators and specified test devices. They just don't appear in the published marketplace app when you download and run it. I still get impressions on my AdMob page however. Any ideas?
Admob sometimes doesn't have ads to display. This is worse for some apps than others. There are a few things to do to help mitigate this problem:
Enable adsense ads - this gives a larger pool of ads
Ensure that you have house ads available for all of your apps in Admob. That way, if they can't find paying ads, they'll at least show your house ads. This will significantly raise your fill rate, but not directly raise your income (depends on what you do with the house ads).
I know that the admob code does not display anything until it connects to the server and receives an ad. In my app it can take several seconds for the ad to display, but not usually longer than that.
I notice this fairly often with admob on one of my apps, while another seems to serve up ads just fine. Can't figure it out either, but I suspect it has to do with AdMob not having any campaigns that tailor to your application description and keywords.
I'm seeing exactly the same behavior. Does your app perform any network tasks on startup? If so, here is a thread on admob's support group which might provide an explanation:
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/admob-publisher-discuss/hR7zs_GBSRw/discussion
Unfortunately for me delaying my app's network activity while waiting for admob isn't really an option, so I wish admob/google would release a fix.

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