Advice - do not make ad networks almighty

Many of you are using ad networks and many of you were cheated by some. I want to advice you, don’t trust any ad network. Yes, there are good ad networks, very honest with great support and payments. Hovewer you are still dependent to some 3d company. Make your business more flexible, it’s very simple advice but mostly people are using ad networks without any controll system:

  1. Implement 2-3 ad networks in your application
  2. Buy some simple hosting, you don’t need mega power hosting for 1 file + some domain to have possibility to change hosting
  3. Create simple json file with settings
    like

{
"add_networks": [
{
"network_1":"on",
"network_2":"off",
"network_3":"on",
"network_4":"off"
}
]
}


  1. Parse json on application start
  2. Run SDK what you want and disable it on all user devices when you have some problems with ad network

Stop free revenue for network if some company cheated you :wink:

Good idea

Watch out for permissions or “virus alerts” when implementing many ad networks though. Doesn´t worth it if you end up using the same one all the time

Excellent advice I made a thread about AD networks deceptive practices. I got burned just using one network ,notify take your money mob. Now I use multiple networks thanks to the advice of Droidgenie. He let me in on using different networks and not depend on 1 network.
This year already is off to a bad start , seems like a lot of newer developers are getting robbed left and right. I see more theft threads in 1 month then the whole last year. Its getting bad out here.

Why are there so many discussions about ad networks and not about IAP´s that are the present and future of mobile apps and can potentially be way more profitable than ads?

Because IAP with google isn’t profitable for European developers:
-you have to pay VAT and go to tax office to get refund, if you apply for refund, there is tax control in most european countries
-you have to collect each transaction for 10 years in print form, imagine milions transactions
-make paper work for each transaction
-if you was banned in Google Play, there is possibility to return with checkout but you have to make LTD company in UK

Apple and Microsoft are side of the transaction, not developer, so IAP is profitable only for these stores because you have one bill for Apple, give it to tax office and done :wink: Google is making life difficult with any things, starting on banning ending on taxation.

@ramzixp - what are you talking about? Since January 1st Google is dealing with VAT meaning almost all of your points are void. Only the last one stands.

Because most developers in this forum don’t do games I guess. Especially not good and big ones where IAP would work. It’s almost impossible to get IAP revenue from a non-game app.

ale według naszego prawa i tak go płacisz, a do urzędu zgłaszasz się po zwrot :wink:

Coś ci się pochrzaniło, ale nie będę się kłócił. :slight_smile:

Earning from IAP is not easy. You need to have users that are willing to pay from countries where they are used to spending on such things and you need to design your game around IAP meaning it might antagonise users causing the rating and downloads to drop - unless you have a lot of cash and can advertise it all the time (to first tier countries which is extremely expensive).

I think the best situation for running ads is either that you have a private network or you have a real life connection with someone high up in an ad network.
Anything less is a risk 24/7.
Great idea by the way @ramzixp

For instance in my country, people do not buy apps or IAPs’. It’s not even close to Western Europe’s average. And, till last year we even can’t sell anything on Google Play. So, ads are only way to make some money for me. I think this is still valid for most of the countries except US,Canada and West Europe.

Ad networks can be used together with IAP. This is what I currently doing. The most basic is using IAP to remove ads, others included using reward based ads to get virtual coins (adcolony’s video, pollfish’s survey etc).

I think this is a good topic to discuss on a new thread, Where/How/for which apps does IAP work better than ads?. The book “F2P toolbox” from Nicholas Lovell was an excellent read related to this.

May i ask your opinion about the implementation of IAPs in the Football game i am working on? Football Game - In development - Income Reports - Making Money with Android

On the other hand, let me tell you that for Color Fill 2 we got banners and IAPs (clues) implemented and both give almost the same revenue $0.04/download each.

I am having a game that need IAPs to buy clues too. Instead of using IAPs only, I give users an extra option to answer a survey from pollfish. The revenue generated from both are almost the same.

Also, I just tried Color Fill 2 just now, I am not sure where is your IAPs implemented? The best position would be after showing no more hints available, asking them to get additional hints? Give them options to buy, answer survey or no.