I am going to post my small experience with Ad Networks. I am rather unsatisfied with ad networking, I had many disappointments and few successes. I hope that this message will help other developers, and of course that other developers share their experience to help me increase my revenue
Currently my apps have been downloaded about 150,000 times overall and 1,500 times per day.
At the beginning I started with the obvious choice: AdMob banners. eCPM fluctuates so much from app to app that is useless to try to understand anything. Generally speaking, I can say that eCPM on AdMob is for me around 0.40$ (although I have apps with 1.80$, but very low number of requests).
Then I tried different networks, mixed with AdMob (for example banners from AdMob and interstitials from others) to see if I could get better earnings, this is what I experienced.
I tried:
LeadBolt, RevMob, InMobi, StartApp, AirPush. I was very disappointed by most of them, StartApp is the only one I am currently happy with.
I also tested other networks like Flurry, MobFox, without going into production with them.
LeadBolt.
I got very high revenue at the very beginning, then it dropped. I was very disappointed by the fact that I was earning 5$ with a single very small app every day, then after a week suddenly I started getting zero, even bringing hundreds of clicks! The model of revenue might be CPI, this is really upsetting for small developers when you see 500 clicks and 0.10$ earning!
Other problems are with adwalls and interstitials too big for small screens (so showing partial) and very slow: there is no way to preload the large images and then users must wait in front of a white screen while the ad is loading from the network.
The pros are that there is a very high number of possible different advertising solutions, and mail answers by assistance are always very, really quick.
Currently, I keep LeadBolt ONLY for AdWalls on user request (so I put a button that launches the AdWall), just because of the high level of assistance.
RevMob.
I started using RevMob for banners and interstitials, and got an immediate earning. Then again, like LeadBolt, it dropped to near zero.
The interface is really cute but I am still trying to understand if and how better does it against AdMob.
InMobi.
I am testing InMobi on a small app with banners and I have a fill rate that is incredibly low: around 70% and a eCPM of about 0.70$ . I will test it better with bigger apps. Unfortunately documentation is so weak that is even hard to test and implement other forms of ad, like interstitials.
AirPush.
I wanted to test AirPush because of the notification and icon ads, I got so low numbers that I was upset. Also statistics were not very clear, for example in one case I have a fill rate of 194%⌠although CPM seemed good, I stopped early all ads with this network.
StartApp.
In all this disaster, StartApp is the only one of which I am really happy besides AdMob: earnings are low, but what is important is that they are perfectly constant: it does not happen like in LeadBolt to have 500 clicks and zero earning one day, and 100 clicks and 2$ the day after: here earnings are very predictable. Differently from other networks, are also very well decumented (you can see what you earned, while in many other networks you just have to trust their numbers without understanding very well how they were determined). It is very easy to implement (one line of code) and they do what they claim to do, nothing more.
The only negative point I can say is that it may be a annoying thing because you have to inform your user with a Accept/Decline question.
Currently my opinion is that I will soon go back to my good-old AdMob smartbanner, implement and test better AdMob interstitials and keep on with StartAppâs icon and LeadBolt AppWall, without notification ads.
The fact is that this solution is the most stable, to my experience, but has low earning rate.
Now I ask to other developers to share their experience:
Which BANNER ad-network has had the best revenue for you, and the most predictable and constant revenue?
Which INTERSTITIAL ad-network has had the best value for you, without annoying your users, on every screen size?
Which ICON ad was the best for you?
Which NOTIFICATION ad is acceptable for users?
My experience is very personal, as every developer I suppose has his own personal experience.