Ad Refreshment Time and eCPM

Hi Guys!

I am currently playing around with different ad refreshment settings.

My main problem is the eCPM it is always getting smaller while the impressions are always getting higher (CTR stays mainly the same ~1.5-2.0%)

So my opinion is, that because of the impressions, I do not get high paying ads any more because CTR is not so high.

I now have turned the auto refresh completely off in some of my games and want to look how that will reflect in eCPM.

Sadly in admob I do not have any information on WHAT ads get clicked and what not - so I currently allow all categories. I am sure, that admob checks tehemselfs which category has a good CTR and deliver more of them - or dont they? How can I check myself which categories are clicked well in my games and which not? It is very annoying, that admob doesn’t give me that information. Is that better with adsense? (cause admob will be closed this year in march)

What is your experience with different ad refresh rates? better higher or lower or off?

edit: I may have a guess about the shrinking eCPM …: adsense ads! nearly everyone have them enabled to get the best fillrate possible. So adsense is showing regular web ads instead of mobile ads.
As far as I know the eCPM for adsense is very low - so that will kumulate in a very low eCPM in admob … the first day with decreased or disabled auto-refresh seems to have a good impact onto eCPM so far … nothing massive, but noticeable.

The eCPM will always get smaller if you increase the ad refresh rate. The term eCPM simply means “revenue per 1000 impressions”. By increasing the refresh rate, you’re basically increasing the number of impressions. However, you’ve still got the same number of users.

Most likely, increasing the refresh rate by 3x will not produce 3x as many clicks. People will probably still ignore the vast majority of your ads. By increasing the refresh rate, all you’re really doing is increasing the probability that a given user will see an ad they’re interested in. They’re still very unlikely to click more than one ad per session.

Hope that makes some sense! It’s a confusing topic to talk about, filled with acronyms. In summary though, by increasing the refresh rate you’re actually artificially propping up the impressions. This means your eCPM will naturally decrease - the figure you should be watching in this case is your total revenue, to see if that increases.

Thanks for your post - I wonder, that I cannot raise the ad refresh over 120 secs in admob …

eCPM is currently rising again, also the admob fillrate rises (without adsense) - I don’t know if that is linked to the recently changed refresh rate …

My concern was - if I disable the refresh rate, that maybe many users will stick with one uninteresting ad … :slight_smile: while with refresh the chance is good, that they get 1 interesting ad per session :slight_smile:

Yes, it’s always going to be a trade off between too few ads, or too many. I’d recommend a fill rate no lower than the default. Whether you raise it higher is something you can experiment though, by a bit of trail & error.

Personally I usually leave it at the default, unless it’s something like a menu screen where the user won’t be hanging around for long. In this case, I might decrease it to 30 seconds or so.

its all about finding a great balance between refreshing ads more quickly and giving enough time for the user to read and decide to click the ad. Its all a matter of testing and analyzing the results.

whats your fill rate if you dont mind me asking?

I’ve heard some people swear that 120 seconds is the way to go. But it seems that these folks are often ones who’ve struck gold and created an app or game with hundreds of thousands of impressions. So for them it makes sense. They have thousands or even millions of active users and they want to maximize their CTR.

But for people who are getting only several thousand impressions a day, and have only a few hundred active users, it seems a faster refresh rate has better results (I’m in this category). I’ve tried 120, 60, 30, 20, 15 and 12. For me, 15s produces far more revenue than the others. Of course, I’m still talking a small amount of money, so it really doesn’t make much difference in the end. But I did not notice a higher CTR by slowing the refresh. I think it’s just a case of the sample size being too small. I’ve had days on the 120s test where I’d get 1500 impressions and 0 clicks. Yielding me $0. Then I’d change it to 15s, get 4 times the impressions (of course), but also get a few clicks. So I’d make some money. Not a whole lot but better than 0.

And I tested this over the course of weeks, not just one day on each. So I’ve put mine down to 15.

So my impression is that it all depends on the popularity of your app. For me, I’d start with a quick refresh rate then as your active installs grows, slow down the refresh rate until it’s maxed it out. I don’t think there’s a single number that works best for every single person.

How do you display that ad? Is it all time visible - or just in menus? I am pretty sure that’s one of the main factors.

In a timed game round no ads will be clicked i think … maybe if users get bored during playing :slight_smile:

After my experiment with CTR I maybe should also try what happens with a very high refreshing rate and see what happens…

Do we even know if a higher CTR gives you higher paying ads? I mean that’s what your really interested in here, not the eCPM. Does ad-mob say what factors into you getting better ads?

Can you clarify your statements on adsense ads? Are you saying they are not quality ads? My fillrate is almost allway 99% to 100% so I might try turning off adsense to see if I get better revenue.

your fillrate is almost 100% BECAUSE you have adsense backfill enabled :wink: I started without them in the beginning and there was a fillrate with ~70% with admob alone, I don’t know how it is today, because I am getting no “late updates” anymore at admob.

But no, I have not further investigated the overall CPC of adsense against admob, it’s just a feeling I have when looked at the numbers which were updated on the next day.

My fill rate is mostly pretty good. I had one the other day that was 80 though. Figured it was probably just an ad Blocker.
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I display tapfortap in my menus and AdMob within the games. I have 3 separate word games within the one. And ya, 2 of them are timed. So ya, people probably dont even see the ad, let alone click it.

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