AppWall Comparison -- Airpush / AppBrain / Leadbolt / Tapjoy

I have been using AppBrain’s appwall for a while and have recently switched to Airpush SmartWall product, and here is my comparison of the products. I have also tried Leadbolt and Tapjoy’s appwall products extensively but they are not at all competitive with Airpush and AppBrain so i have left them out:

  1. Airpush SmartWall CPM = $7 - $8
    AppBrain AppWall CPM = ~$3

(I think this is because AppBrain’s product only includes AppWall, whereas Airpush’s includes other full-page formats combined into 1)

  1. Airpush Fill Rate = 89%
    AppBrain Fill Rate = 95% (sometimes higher)

  2. Airpush Support = so-so
    AppBrain Support = AWESOME

  3. Airpush Payments = weekly with no fees (WOW)
    AppBrain Payments = shortly after month end (Still pretty good compared to other networks, but obviously airpush payments are the best)


Overall, the Airpush product is greatly superior so far HOWEVER I notice an interesting trend where during the Asian timezone the AppBrain wall performs a bit better. To try and capitalize on this, I am currently trying to write a home-made mediation SDK which will switch between Airpush and AppBrain SDK’s in real-time depending on rules I set – I think that will increase the yields tremendously. PM me if you’d like to try it when I’m done ! :wink:

Would love to hear the experiences others are having.

Do you have a live app that uses the Airpush app wall? Would you mind posting a link or PMing it so I can check it out?

Thanks for the comparison.

I’ve been using the Leadbolt app wall. I’ve heard good things about it in the forum, though I don’t have enough stats for me to make any conclusions about it. My problem with it is that it loads pretty slowly, so I’m concerned that users just give up on viewing the app wall after a few seconds. I’m using their SDK app wall because it has the close button. Would be nice if there was a way to pre-load the app wall, because I’ve found that the 2nd time I attempt to load it [via controller.loadAd()], it loads much faster.

I have always had pretty stellar CPM with Airpush compared to Leadbolt and Admob. But since release of SDK 5.0 I have noticed significantly higher CPM especially in the app wall. I am hovering around $7-8 as well for app wall. I also love their weekly payment options. So far I am pretty satisfied with Airpush and will stick with them until their performance declines.

I have few questions about airpush wall.

  1. What ctr and cr you have?

CTR - Click through rate; CR - Conversion ratio, peoples that do some action

  1. How often you show a wall? Do they ask user like AppBrain to show wall or they just show it?

  2. Do they offer some banner option like AppBrain so user can go on wall anytime?

  3. Do they change offers often on the wall? I saw with others that they change content of wall very rare (for my country at least).

@ work now will answer more of your q’s tonight but, ThatGuy aside from comparing my overall CPM and Revenue I cannot compare other metrics like CTR / CR because Airpush SmartWall works differently than the others – the whole point of it is it’s not JUST an appwall, it has multiple full-page subformats which show to the user based on certain conditions. For example, if the user’s network connection is low it will not show an AppWall because it can be slow – rather it will show a ‘Dialog Ad’ in that case which seem to perform AWESOME. So in other words, AppWall is just 1 portion of Airpush’s SmartWall product.

I think this extra layer of intelligence is what gives it the higher earnings, but I’m not exactly sure. Interestingly my Airpush Smartwall earnings are 4x higher than what my AppBrain earnings were – but comparing on a CPM basis SmartWall is only around 2.3x higher so I thought it was more fair to compare based on CPM.

My Airpush account manager also told me they are doing a minor SDK release soon for SmartWall which will include Video Ads. So, if the user’s connection is very strong and there is a high-yielding Video Ad available, they will show that to the user. This excites me because I have tried both AdColony and MobFox for video ads, and the payouts are SO HIGH but the fill rates are SO LOW. So with Airpush SmartWall I think it will be an ideal situation where the SDK will only show Video Ads when its profitable to do so.

Quick side note too, did anyone else get a big bump in push earnings from the new Airpush SDK ? I think it is from their new ‘Banner Push’ ads but I can’t tell because Airpush doesn’t break out Banner Push vs. Normal Push. If anyone from Airpush is listening, that would be a nice feature for us devs ! :wink:

Eagerly waiting the answers on other questions and I would like to know more about “banner push” ads, what type of ad it is? Where they serve it? Do they serve it in app or outside of app?

I can not comment CPM because still not have info about when (how often) you show a wall and do they serve a banner that leads to wall like AppBrain but like I said eagerly waiting other answers. :slight_smile:

hi ThatGuy;

  • banner push ads are the same as push notification ads except they show an IMAGE rather than TEXT. I cannot be sure if this is the reason because Airpush doesn’t seperate the stats between text push / banner push, but since I installed their new SDK 5.0 my push earnings have been up tremendously so I assume it’s from this.

  • re Airpush SmartWall CPM vs. AppBrain CPM, as I stated I’m earning 4x higher earnings from Airpush SmartWall compared to when I had AppBrain, but only 2.3x higher CPM. In Airpush version there is no included banner that leads to a wall, however they recommend that you implement a menu item called ‘Other Apps’ or an icon inside the app in case users want to invoke the Wall mid-session. Even though AppBrain has the banner solution, the earnings still don’t compare to Airpush SmartWall because it offers much more than just AppWall.

I would love to hear your comparison of Airpush SmartWall vs. AppBrain, can you try it in one of your apps and let me know ? I’m curious if you get the same results as me. Honestly the results are almost too good to be true, I’ve tried all the full-page ad formats and Airpush SmartWall generates far more revenue.

promotional weeks maybe?

it could be promotional, but i’m loving it! :wink: yesterday was $13.75 cpm and today is $13.25 !!! can anyone else please share their Airpush SmartWall results and let me know if you’re seeing similar ?? these #'s are insane !

another theory i have is, SmartWall performance could be similar to Push Ads where the CTR for a given app starts high and then comes down slowly over time as the users get used to the performance ?? i have tried all the Push Ads networks and I always experience this – at first i thought they were taking my money, but then i realized it was just my users getting used to the ads eventually and clicking the ads less !

i will keep you the forum updated if my cpm’s start going down.

Thats nice.

And I think its little different…

more users u have, less CTR u make… and so on…

This is how i started with push ads…

Also people click more on things they see for the first time. Appwalls work best for new users, not for those who play your game a long time.

yes @Magnesium I agree 100% – when I was using the standard AppWall products from AppBrain and others, it doesn’t perform great because users get accustomed to it. In the case of Airpush SmartWall, they dont simply see an AppWall each time…some time they see the AppWall, some times they see Dialog Ads, some times they see Rich Media Ads, and soon they will see Video Ads some times.

that variation is what I believe gives Airpush SmartWall the superior performance, as I keep saying. also, one thing people don’t realize is AppWall works terrible when the user’s connection is slow – many times the appwall doesn’t even fully load. for Airpush SmartWall this isn’t an issue, because if connection speed is slow it will automatically show a Dialog Ad which is very low bandwidth and therefore the developer doesn’t lose revenue from the user’s slow connection. i believe those 2 features are what is making SmartWall perform so much better.

Just wary of airpush and it’s push notification - will use of airpush smartwall “introduce” some of that other stuff as well.

Or is it possible to just do the Smartwall without pollution from the other airpush behavior ?

I have not published my app yet - but have integrated appbrain’s appwall at the end (it’s supposed to show once every 3 days).

You can also specifically show it on command also - I have it set to the default behavior (as they suggest - i.e. showing too many times not necessarily get user more interested and maybe showing less frequently may give it some novelty element).

How often is Airpush Smartwall shown ? Everytime ? Maybe that is part of the higher eCPM ?

I have also integrated greystripe’s interstitial ads at the beginning and occasionally in the middle - this also they suggest do it NOT MORE than ever 2 minutes. And supposed to be presented at natural breaks in the app use (for example after score display for a game). The idea being you don’t want to interrupt user flow as that may make them more likely to press skip as knee-jerk reaction anyway.

And I have integrated admob banner ad (for now). Given the low eCPM I may consider removing this banner ad later altogether.

The question I have is - are there any other “impression-based” ad networks (other than greystripe) ?

I ask this because as a developer it seems more understandable if an ad network can deliver impression-based reveneu instead of intangibles like click-through (which depend on the quality of the ad graphic etc. which is outside your control).

That is, the developer is being asked to give up space to show an ad - but the ad network cannot promise anything from their end.

For this reason - for a developer - an impression-based revenue model seems like the most understandable.

Question is - how many such ad networks are there ?

I suppose such a situation can be delivered with video ads (where the presentation is the value - so impression-based makes sense).

So what are the impression-based ad networks ?

Hello Gents-

Regarding Appwalls, you have to compare apples to apples in regarding to non incentivized vs. incentivized. Leadbolt does not allow “incentivized”

Cheers!

How often do yall show the app wall from air push? Are you showing it on load of the app, or between levels or how?

for 1 client I implemented it on launch and on exit.
for another client I implemented it on launch, on exit, and during natural breaks in the app.
in both cases the CPM is the same.

Which seems to support the intuitive sense that overall click through rate for users will be the same “per hour” on average regardless of how often you refresh ads.

This would also support the theory that rotating banner ads rarely may not impact overall earnings much - but it may improve the CTR that you are delivering “per ad” - thus raising your reputation level at the ad network.

This is the argument presented at:

http://blog.velti.com/how-to-increase-your-click-through-rate/

The argument is that it may not matter HOW often you show ads as users will generally on average click at same rate “per hour”.

So you may as well look like an app that is generating very high CTR (you just present the same ads for longer).

The impact supposedly of this is that you get categorized as a high CTR app - and presumably the ad network then allocates better paying ads to you.

Now this makes sense as apps which deliver higher CTR - are essentially paying you more for showing their ad for longer.

Maybe this is how it is - though I don’t see WHY the ad network should pay more - if they are going to be paying on click-through anyway.

But possibly the explanation IS reflective of how the ad networks think.
[hr]
The only reason I can think of for refreshing ads faster (shorter refresh time) may be advantageous to the developer is if user clicking of ads is in fact based on “I found a banner to my liking”.

That is, it may not matter WHAT banners or products you advertise - if it is not in the interest area of the user.

And the user is going to click anyway on only the things which are specific to their interest.

This would suggest that to ensure SOME clicks from a user, you should show them ENOUGH ads (or ad varieties that at least ONE of them matches their area of interest).

This would be ONE argument in favor of faster refresh for ads.

However, practically speaking there is the question of attention span - a user is not going to be screening all your ads, so it is unrealistic to think that user’s attention span will scale up in same way as your capability to refresh ads faster. You could be showing them every second, but obviously the user cannot process your ads that fast.

The user may devote a certain percentage of eyeball tracking on screen to the ad space (and probably heavily influenced by image type, if there is movement etc.).

So after some time fatigue may set in - which is one of the reasons given by some on this forum for instance - for why eCPMs are high for new apps but drop off - reason being new users curious to click everything - but settle down after a while. Which would suggest the banner ad business model may work only for apps which are getting new users all the while. And even this may move down as user minds get attuned to screening out the whole banner ad space on screen - as many of us have gotten used to for web page ads (i.e. our eyes deliberately AVOID those areas of the screen if we are actually searching for information i.e. don’t want to get distracted from the task).

Which brings us to the point that if there was some type of per-user tracking then perhaps the ad networks could present similar ads in future to the same user - thus leading to higher click-through rates - and these ads could be presented at a leisurely refresh rate so that the user gets to see each ad for sure.

So conclusion is … don’t know what the conclusion is …

Perhaps some folks have experimented here with lowering refresh rate for admob mediation for example and seen an actual impact on earnings (after getting a ramp up in reputation after some time at the ad networks) ?

adforandroidapps – I think you have it wrong, the data I posted shows the opposite of your conclusion. As I said, the CPM is the same on the 2 apps even though 1 is showing SmartWall in more places than the other. The impression count is obviously higher on the one with more places, and the CPM is the same, so revenue is thus higher. CPM is a function of CTR and CPC, so we can also deduce that CTR is not impacted by the additional impressions.

As such, for this specific case, the conclusion is the opposite of what you’re saying…more impressions = more revenue.

I agree with you in theory that there is some limit to this and therefore a point of diminishing returns, where the amount of ads causes the user to use the app less.

I found the same thing with AppBrain’s wall by the way – they recommended to put it only at the end, but I got better results by putting it more frequently in my Client’s apps.

So you are saying in one case you were giving more impressions than the other - but CPM being still the same (by my theory it should have decreased as user fatigue not able to keep up with the increased viewing) - that means impressions x CPM = revenue - was greater.

Interesting.

I think my long-winded comment above was more geared to analysis of banner refresh - I have set the admob refresh rate from 60 seconds to 120 seconds based on that sense.

Now you say that you are getting more revenue with more impressions - which is very interesting.

But I think your case is slightly different from banner refresh.

But it is an interesting statistic nonetheless.

quote:
for 1 client I implemented it on launch and on exit.
for another client I implemented it on launch, on exit, and during natural breaks in the app.
in both cases the CPM is the same.

In one case you are getting nearly 2 showings of the Airpush Smartwall in one app.

In the other app you are getting 2 showings (beginning and end) PLUS some more (I am guessing 2-4 times for between level type showings of Airpush Smartwall).

It is a different situation - but suggestive that users are likely to click on the Airpush Smartwall regardless of how often it is shown (though it would be not more than once per minute or once per two minute I am assuming). So it is not the same situation as banner presentation - plus appwalls require user interaction and cannot be ignored.

This very fact should make interstitial ads more valuable than banner ads. Plus they are guaranteeing attention at least once every 2 minutes (something which is not assured even with the banner ads refresh of 60 seconds or 120 seconds - unless the banner graphic draws the user’s attention).

Let me analyse the various rationales why appwall presentation could give this linear response (just guessing here).

If the CTR is almost entirely based on “oops I mistakenly clicked” - then the “clicked by mistake” CTR should remain constant (thus the total click-throughs should scale with the number of impressions).

Were you getting a very low CTR (which would be suggestive that you are operating in this regime ?).

If on the other hand users are operating in a regime where they are averse to the showing of the appwall and generally avoid clicking - then more frequent presentation may make them feel they should click more (and that the appwall is being presented more precisely because they have not clicked it before).

In any case that is a very interesting statistic.

Did you get any user feedback that complained of too many ads - or it was all acceptable.

I am trying to do something similar with greystripe interstitials - however while appwalls pay for click-through (or install of the app on offer), on the greystripe they say it is by impression. This should be similar for video ads like adcolony I am guessing.

Except since I had a voice changing app I had no natural breaks where I could present such stuff. The user interface is pretty simple.

Eventually I broke up the user behavior as comprising essentially a record/play cycle - and settled on a lazy display of ad strategy - where ads could only occur after a play ended. That is an ad would be shown only when the user became idle after having completed a mini-use-case (I am giving it 4 seconds of idle after a play ends in order to show an ad). Then there is an additional cap (to prevent overpresentation of the ad) that prevents such ad presentation too often (can’t be less that 2 minutes between ads).

I will see how this works - although I will have no comparison data (for example if I had a version of the app where I just showed the ad at start).

In my practice with the app I am getting a sense that this strategy IS working as the ads do not feel intrusive. The strategy works also with the greystripe ads (at least with the test ads) because the user cannot inadvertently click on the ad but a click presents a skip and a click option - this way the user has a way to skip without inadvertently clicking. Also this type of ad is impression based - so it should technically (assuming fill rate is there) give a predictable performance (since there is not another intangible of user-inclination-to-click-through as with an appwall).

So I will see if this works for my particular app use-case. As most-importantly the ads NEVER show up when the user is frenetically using the app, record/play or when adjusting some setting. The ad seems to magically appear when they pause to contemplate something - or when they look up at someone that “hey, you try it”.

In games where they have levels - the between level gives them a natural break - so the model I use may not be appropriate for them.

But it may be appropriate for games/apps where there are no natural breaks in the use.

I would welcome comments on this way of presentation of ads.

hi @adforandroidapps , my comments:

  • i think your display strategy is good, works perfectly for the type of app and that is key. you should also show it on app exit though at the minimum, and possibly at app launch. you will see that this will greatly increase your revenue.

  • i like greystripe a lot, they are great for rich media however the CPM’s do not come close to Airpush SmartWall and their fill rate is weak because there aren’t many Rich Media advertisers out there yet.

  • i don’t get negative ratings due to SmartWall…push and icon cause a bit, but not SmartWall.