Feedback Wanted: Top Mobile Ad Networks

[david]

Hi guys,

For a long time I've been thinking that it would be great to have a list of all the best advertising networks. A website where you could compare the features of different networks, and read reviews from actual developers.

I wasn't able to find anyone doing this yet - so I decided to build it myself

I've got a basic demo up & running at
http://topmobileadnetworks.com/.

Please note that all the data (ratings & reviews) on the site is dummy information at present. It's just there as a placeholder, to see how the ratings work. It'll all be cleared out before I launch the site properly.

What I'm looking for now is some feedback from other developers.

• What do you think of the idea?
• Does the demo implement this idea well?
• The features reviewed are: Support, Payment, SDK Quality, Average eCPM & Fill Rate.
  Are these the aspects you would consider when choosing a mobile ad network?
• Any other suggestions for the website?

Feel free to be critical - if you really wouldn't use this kind of site, please say so! I just figured there were so many "Top Web Hosting" sites out there, it's crazy something similar doesn't already exist for mobile ad networks.

And it's definitely something I would like to have available, to pull reviews from developers together in one place. At the moment, choosing a good ad network is pretty much pot luck for new developers.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

[cknight]

Looks good David. I really like the concept. Here's a few more ideas and suggestions:

1) Top mobile ad networks might vary by region, so it would be good to capture this data somehow. E.g. Madvertise is excellent in Germany and the rest of Western Europe to a lesser extent, but has no (or little?) coverage anywhere else. My app is geographically focused on the UK and so I have a more targeted interest in ad networks. This type of data would allow developers to choose an ad network based on their user base.

2) How about a way to record actual data from these networks? E.g. fill in an anonymous form for the type of app you have (e.g. games, tools, weather, news, etc.), geographic location of largest section of user base, impressions last month, epcm last month, fill rate last month, income last month, etc. Probably needs a bit more thought, but having one place to collate real world returns would be sweet.

I'm liking this though and admire that you can find the time to undertake such projects

[Babuye]

Wow, this is an awesome idea. I really like it and i think this can be very helpful to new devs who want to plunge into the world of mobile advertising. I had two issues but these are purely personal and you may not pay attention to them:

1. A small discussion board for users to brainstorm on several issues like the ratings they gave and maybe give some reasons. This will also be a good opportunity for the ad representatives to jump into the discussions and offer directions and feedback to some of the issues raised.

2. How can you cover the issue of users response to a particular ad type? I remember my first time i used airpush(money-driven)i didn't know this was going to cause me problems in terms of 1 star ratings. Or a case in point Leadbolt's advanced Overlays getting users mad as Dr Web Antivirus informs the user that the app contains adware. So, i believe a new devs should somehow be aware of the ad types and how they impact on user experience. I am just not sure how this can be factored in.

3. Code corner, a place where users can raise development issues they face during integration.(May not be that important).

So overall, awesome site, i bet i will be spending some time there and this will be a great resource for any developer looking to monetize apps. I just want to reiterate the issues raised above are just personal maybe not that important before the initial launch.
Good Luck man!

[ThatGuy]

This is awesome idea and design is very nice for eye. I like it a lot. I do not like comments like cool, awesome and so on in my opinion that ruins the feeling otherwise everything is awesome.

[david]

This is awesome idea and design is very nice for eye. I like it a lot. I do not like comments like cool, awesome and so on in my opinion that ruins the feeling otherwise everything is awesome.

The comments are just auto-generated, so I'll be getting rid of them soon. I only left them there so you could get a feel for what the reviews might look like. Hopefully actual developers would post much more useful comments!

[reiti.net]

Nice idea!

I would have a suggestion - you should let users add their name AND a link to their site or game - so you give something back to them and also have some sort of verification. You will need to attract many devs because (i fear) some ad networks will spoil your service with fake votings as soon as it gets popular.

Do you plan to care for the site, or shall it be on autopilot?

You could also add a section where devs can link their income reports.

[XdebugX]

2. How can you cover the issue of users response to a particular ad type? I remember my first time i used airpush(money-driven)i didn't know this was going to cause me problems in terms of 1 star ratings. Or a case in point Leadbolt's advanced Overlays getting users mad as Dr Web Antivirus informs the user that the app contains adware. So, i believe a new devs should somehow be aware of the ad types and how they impact on user experience. I am just not sure how this can be factored in.

I agree with Babuye, one of the most important things for me is will an ad-network make me lose users. Maybe the app developers can take care of this by posting comment about their experience, or maybe we can add a "User Friendly" category to the features list. Only thing, a network may have great usefulness if you use the ad types correctly. So there is a bit of unfairness that an ad-network may have push notification for example, but if used correctly or not used other types of ads from that network may be working great.

[Wolfgang]

Great idea! Required permissions (in the case of android) would also be useful information.

[david]

Great idea! Required permissions (in the case of android) would also be useful information.

Excellent suggestion! I've added a "Required Permissions" and "Optional Permissions" section now.

It was actually quite interesting to go through all those networks & see what permissions they require. This does vary a lot more than I expected.

[SendDroid]

Great idea! Required permissions (in the case of android) would also be useful information.

Excellent suggestion! I've added a "Required Permissions" and "Optional Permissions" section now.

It was actually quite interesting to go through all those networks & see what permissions they require. This does vary a lot more than I expected.

Nice work David.

This site is actually coming in handy.

Keep it up bud.