10,000 full screen interstitials per day, what shouldI be earning?

Between my three most popular apps, I am now regularly displaying 10,000 full screen interstitials per day, but am not convinced I’m using the right network. I’m only earning around $12 per day. Could anyone tell me, preferably from experience, what they think I should be earning given the right networks?

It depends on the context of the ad, and the networks do vary quite a bit. With Leadbolt I’m getting between $60 and $80 for 10,000 interstitial views. This is the network I’m getting the best performance out of at the moment, and consequently I’m allocating most of my inventory here.

In the past I found Tapjoy to be very effective, but it only really works if you’re going to reward the user. AppBrain is another network which offers good fill rates, and pretty consistent performance. SendDroid seems to be around the $15-$20 mark that you’re getting for 10k impressions (using a dialog ad, not full screen though).

What network are you using at the moment?

I’m with vserv right now as they were the easiest to use and had the most helpful tech support… this was critical while i was still a relative beginner to android programming. Now i have improved skills, I’m looking for more revenue.

I’m getting $60 for 24000 views in Leadbolt - probably because of lower clickrate than david has.

Full Page interstitials seem to always be the hardest monetization spot for me to fine tune. I’ve tried Revmob, LeadBolt and Airpush and am still not really satisfied with my results. Revmob is sucking it up pretty badly for me at the moment, which is what I’m working with now with a ~$2.50 CPM. Ugh. I can rule them out for you!

inner-active vs leadbolt: what’s better for this ?

I have only tried Greystripe - they pay per impression but the eCPM varies all over the place.

For the most part it is $0.50 eCPM - which is abysmal (compared to the $2.5 eCPM and $6-$8 eCPM mentioned by others above).

However Greystripe eCPM can jump to $2 on certain days (some weekends or holidays). Which suggests the POTENTIAL eCPM is $2 and the low payout maybe related to a real lack of advertisers at Greystripe (?) - i.e. lack of ad inventory.

So whoever has good ad inventory for interstitials is probably a good candidate to look at (assuming they pay fair also).

I’ve seen Airpush SmartWall mentioned - but they haven’t issued the non-EULA version for the Airpush SmartWall yet.

Leadbolt has been spending money with advertising targeting developers - so maybe they have the money or have done their homework with building ad inventory.

Greystripe is pretty easy to implement - similar to AppBrain “More Apps” interstitials. Leadbolt in contrast seemed complicated with it’s HTML-based stuff (?).

From the comments above, it seems Leadbolt maybe a good candidate to look at - how easy is it to implement the Leadbolt full screen interstitials - does it also offer the mix of different types of ads depending on user’s connection ?

Nice Thread!

I’m using Admob interstitials, here some data.

CPM 1.88$ FillRate 55% CTR 5.5% and earning 18$ per 10,000 Impressions (not requests).

I find it too low revenue compared to other networks. I’m gonna try with Leadbolt.

Please, can you post with kind of ad unit do you use in Leadbolt? Interstitials, maybe InApp Alerts? What about fill rate ?

Thanks :wink:

The Admob interstitials are by invite-only (last time I checked) - so probably not accessible to everyone:

https://developers.google.com/mobile-ads-sdk/docs/admob/advanced

Note: All publishers can run rich Interstitial House Ads in their own applications. Paid interstitial ads, however, are only offered to a select group of publishers. If you become eligible, Google will be sure to contact you.

However they are a good data point.

Now that $1.88 eCPM actually equates to HALF that - with the fill rate being 55% as you mention.

In my case the figure of $0.50 eCPM for Greystripe (rising occasionally to $2 on a few days) is also incomplete - as there is no fill rate info available from Greystripe.

So perhaps a better measure would be impressions (and revenue) per Daily Active User (DAU).

So with DAU about 4000-5000 I am seeing Greystripe impressions 4000-6000 - so about one impression per user (this will vary by app - i.e. dependent on length of user sessions and how frequently you present the ad etc.). I am presenting the ad not more often than once every 2 minutes - it can be rarer still because I have it set up so the ad only appears if the user is inactive for a few seconds after doing some particular action (did this to limit interference with actual use of app - since I did not have “levels” - in such apps you would present the ad after a level is complete).

And getting revenue $2 to $4 (per day) mostly - with it (very rarely going to $10 per day - on those high eCPM days).

So you can see that is revenue of about $0.4 per DAU.

Basically the revenue from full screen interstitials is LOWER (using Greystripe - which is why I am thinking of replacing it) than Admob.

In contrast, the revenue from Admob for the same users is $3 to $5.

So perhaps a good comparison (or yield derivable from an app format etc.) maybe the ratio of full screen interstitial revenue to Admob revenue.

David and Magnesus who reported the Leadbolt eCPM of - what is the ratio of Leadbolt interstitial revenue vs. Admob (if you are showing both).

Thanks - lots of good info here.

Leadbolt seems to be quite active (their ad campaign earlier may have been suggestive that they have money to spend or that they have advertisers).

I was initially turned off by their EULA and inclusion of notification ads in their SDK - as there did not seem to be a way to get a non-notification-ad version of their SDK (similar to Airpush) - which means the apps would be tagged by Ad Detector apps as “this app contains notification ads”.

HOWEVER, it seems now Leadbolt has included an EULA - I was initially skeptical of the EULA - as that is another complication.

However it seems the EULA essentially allows the user to opt out of the notifications (though undoubtedly there will be many mistaken key presses - is there a way for users to undo that - should be an option from within app ?).

But Leadbolt DOES have an opt-out webpage where users are required to give their IMEI to opt-out of notification ads:
http://opt.leadbolt.com/

It would be nice if there was a non-notification SDK - but perhaps they don’t want to split their SDKs - and notification ads are a serious revenue source for both developers/ad networks.

Edit:
Ok, it seems they have SEPARATE SDKs for the “Display Ads” and the “Notification Ads” - that’s GREAT !

Last time I looked at Leadbolt there was no easy API - but HTML relating to WebView etc. - maybe that has changed in the new SDKs.

They seem to have added new ad types - including Audio Ads (which MIGHT be interesting) - however the problem with this proliferation of ad types is it makes it harder for app developer to control the user experience. Sometimes the developer will want to know just what the user sees - many of these ad networks also don’t deliver a representative set of ads to non-U.S. locations so developers cannot see what users will see in the U.S. (perhaps Leadbolt has a better test program ?).

For example if a developer wants to see if video ads are loading - how fast they load - and if it is disruptive to the user experience.

They seem to have 3 options for the EULA - Summary/Full and Register only (which seems to allow the user to control what is shown).


Opt-In Display allows you to control the style of our ad serving EULA presented when the SDK loadOptin function (available in latest SDKs) is called.

Summary Terms: Displays the EULA in a simple-to-read format.
Full Terms: Displays a full terms version of the EULA.
Register Only: Allows you to implement your own EULA. With this optin, calls to the SDK loadOptin function are considered as an EULA acceptance.

It seems users CAN tailor the EULA/opt-in dialog that appears initially - so I suppose if one is NOT going to offer notification ads there would be a way to not present the EULA/opt-in dialog at ALL ? Correct ?

Will have to look into - if one can preload ads.

How does Leadbolt affect Crash Report numbers in the Google Developer Console (is it more stable with SDK 4.0 ?) - this earlier thread reported higher crashes with the earlier SDK3.0:
http://makingmoneywithandroid.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=629&pid=4392

David and Magnesus - if you use notification ads - how does that revenue compare with that from the full screen interstitials (i.e. comparable or is 10x etc.).

Edit:
Ok, here is an EXCELLENT article by kreci on his blog:
http://www.kreci.net/android/leadbolt-income-since-google-play-policy-update/
LeadBolt income since Google Play policy update
Published on November 13, 2012 in Android.

He compares notification ad revenue to his Admob banner ad revenue - so is a bulk comparison (but is the type of ballpark answer I was looking for).

David,

Is this with just the pure Leadbolt “Display Ad” SDK - or are you including the notification ad revenue in the estimate above ?

Thanks.

The $60 - $80 figure I quoted above is for the LeadBolt App Wall (HTML) ads only. I’m not running notification ads in any of my apps at this stage.

I wrote my own WebView Activity to display the HTML ads. It’s also possible to display the App Wall directly through the SDK, but I prefer to create my own activity so I’ve got greater control over the loading process. Theoretically, using this method it is possible to pre-load the HTML and then just pop it into the WebView as required.

I don’t use Inner-Active all that much at the moment. But last month I got an eCPM of $1.04 from 55,000 interstitial impressions (42% fill rate).
In contrast, from LeadBolt last month I got an eCPM of $10.32 from the App Wall, and as far as I can tell the fill rate is 100%. So for me, LeadBolt is way better.

I’m also keen to try the Airpush SmartWall, but not until they release a non-EULA SDK.

LeadBolt doesn’t offer the same sort of “smart” switching between ad formats. They basically offer two ad formats which are suitable for interstitials - 300x250 Banner Ads, or full-screen App Walls. Both of these formats are HTML-based, but they also offer a wrapper in the SDK so you don’t have to deal with WebViews if you don’t want to. Personally I wrote my own wrapper for the HTML ads (see the previous post for reasons).
I’m getting a $0.97 eCPM from the 300x250 Banner Ads, and a $10.32 eCPM from the App Wall. So guess which one I’d recommend? :wink:

As you wrote, AdMob interstitials are currently invite-only. For this reason I’m not able to display AdMob inventory yet. I’m only using AdMob as a mediation platform for other networks (such as LeadBolt), until such time as I get an invitation or it opens to the public.

That’s a lot for an app wall ! I was mis-comparing $60-$80 for 10K impressions to Greystripe full page institial ads - when the better comparison would be with AppBrain’s appwall.

My use of the AppBrain appwall is end-of-app once every 3 days - since my Greystripe impressions are 6000 a day - I would guess the AppBrain presentations are 1/3 of that (because of once every 3 days) - making that 2000 impressions - that yields about $4 (varies) per day (extrapolating to 10K impressions in future that would yield $20).

That would suggest Leadbolt’s appwall is doing slightly better (2x perhaps ?) than AppBrain’s appwall. Agree ?

If I were to overpresent the AppBrain - it may yield more (though probably won’t be linear - and may even be low if users get fed up). On the other hand the bulk of the revenue maybe coming from new users (who are unaware what it does) - so by increasing presentation one may not get much more response - as recurring users not clicking on it - and it is proportional to how many see it the first time only (to first order of approximation). Anyway that’s just a guess.

Reality maybe very different - i.e. if your Leadbolt presentation every time app ends (or starts) yields higher eCPM.

Leadbolt may have better presentation of the appwall perhaps - as these things can also affect click-through etc.

How does the Leadbolt full screen ad format perform - or is Magnesus’s $2 eCPM then representative of that. While your $5-6 eCPM is for the leadbolt AppWall.

And it is pretty snappy i.e. no slowness from use of WebView (or it is the preparation ahead of time which makes it snappy) ?

Thanks for the feedback.

Ok, this makes it a lot clearer.

So Leadbolt has these two types of full screen interstitials - and you have a choice to pick which to use. And your experimentation favors the App Wall.

Makes sense - and you have obviously dumped the AppBrain suggestion to only show appwalls once every 3 days only at end-of-app and all that - and it is working ok.

One thing confusing with Leadbolt is the proliferation of new ad types - i.e. now Audio Ads - all these maybe valuable. In that sense the Airpush SmartWall may offer a dumbed-down version for developers.

However as you suggested - within the ad formats there may be variation in eCPM/performance - and while it maybe easy to do the all-in-one format (like Airpush SmartWall) - there maybe value to doing the experimentation oneself (however if the permuations are large, that becomes cumbersome).

It is here that a good ad network can play a role - some here have praised the Airpush SmartWall for doing exactly that i.e. picking the right ad type depending on the internet connectivity of the phone etc. - and if done right it could in the future outperform any manual testing an individual developer may do.

But with one or two options, that a developer can do by testing and seeing what works - or perhaps linking to AppBrain Remote Setting - in that case one can switch between one ad-presentation model and another on the fly - and if get complaints/crashes with one ad SDK - then quickly switch it back the next day (of course this analysis will be screwed up if the ad network does some “prepping” before sending right inventory i.e. seeing how good an app is what it’s ad demand is etc.).

Anyone here implemented GetJar yet ? And if they had any trouble doing so ?

With a DAU of 5000 (of which 2800 are new installs and 2200 are returning users from the active user base) - these give Greystripe full screen interstitial ads about 6000 impressions a day.

So with 2800 new installs - the question is how many will pay via GetJar.

For Google payment - I’ve seen conversion ratios of about 1% of total downloads.

GetJar says it can be 4x with GetJar vs. Google payment. So let’s say it is 4%. 4% of 2800 installs is 112 - if each pays $1 via GetJar (of which developer gets $0.9) then developer gets 112 x $0.9 = $100.8

I am looking forward to see how that performs - but I wonder if Leadbolt appwall type $5 eCPMs may even beat most of the paid solutions (!)

But on the other hand since only 4% (by above model) of total downloads would eventually buy - that leaves 96% of users who can be monetized on ads via Leadbolt appwall or whatever (i.e. they are complementary).

In the “worst case” scenario that your users all go the GetJar route and no one left to advertise to - that is still a good situation to be in - as each user brings $0.9 to developer (if you are pricing at $1 i.e. 100 GetJar gold coins) - while even $5 eCPM brings $0.005 per viewer.

StartApp seems to be getting traction - we’ve discussed it here also - and I see new apps which have it integrated - by their model 2800 new installs a day would have 80% conversion (typically as reported here by developers) - at $0.018 (range is $0.01 to $0.05) typically it would yield 2800 x 0.8 x $0.018 = $40.32.

The problem with StartApp is that once user says “Yes” to the StartApp EULA - usually they are not shown ads etc. anymore i.e. the whole app is free (though one could still show ads - but that would piss off users as they click on EULA thinking it will get them something and now they have no automatic way to undo the StartApp installation of bookmarks etc. (except manually).

So that makes it hard to integrate StartApp with another ad or payment model. You COULD integrate with a payment model - but you earn $0.018 from a user who accepts StartApp EULA route, but are expecting them to pay $1 by the real payment route - so is a slight disparity there, and may require some thinking to get that right (or alternatively could be thought of as - anyone who doesn’t like the StartApp route can unlock using the - higher paying through nose in comparison - method of GetJar or Google payment).

I just realized my Greystripe impressions were off i.e. not 6000 (which is for all apps) - but is 4000.

This affects this calculation:

My use of the AppBrain appwall is end-of-app once every 3 days - since my Greystripe impressions are 6000 a day - I would guess the AppBrain presentations are 1/3 of that (because of once every 3 days) - making that 2000 impressions - that yields about $4 (varies) per day (extrapolating to 10K impressions in future that would yield $20).

Which may make AppBrain yield slightly more than $20 figure above.

However, on the other hand the $4 for AppBrain I get currently - would be even lower (because it includes both banner ads and full screen interstitials). Which would tend to halve the AppBrain from $4 to $2 or so … In any case the AppBrain is obviously lower than the Leadbolt AppWall it seems.

If I switch I may have direct comparison numbers to report.

Hey David,

the WebView works great.

Do you know when you earn money with that app wall and when you don’t?
Every day for me it looks like this:
Views/Imps: 150-300
Clicks: 4-10
Revenue: $0.00

I know these stats are not representative, but 4+ clicks every day and $0.00 revenue every f*cking day is not the intention why I show a full screen banner in the app.

Best regards

I have a similar problem as you inspi.
One of my game has 337 impressions with 42 clicks. ECPM is: $5.71 currently, which is not bad. And the revenue is $1.92.
But here comes my other game: 440 imp | 12 clicks | $0.00 ECPM | 2.73% CTR = $0.00 revenue

They are the same, I mean they are shown when the user exit the application.
Is this normal? Happens sometimes, or is there something wrong with my game.

If anybody has a solution, please help.

Best wishes.

yes it is

that few clicks and impressions should not really be any measurement. unless you go 10+k impressions you shouldnt really judge cpm that much (in my opinion)
hell, on LB few months ago with 40k impressions I had cpm going from 1$ to 1.8$.
if anything, it’s much more stable on airpush for me