Banner vs. Smart Banner

Finally looking into upgrading admob SDK and saw Smart Banners are available; Anyone experience a change in eCPM when compared to banner option?

I would check out this thread before upgrading Admob SDK. Admob CPM’s have been going down lately. I’m getting much better CPM with Millennial Media. I will also try Airpush’s new banner ads product in a few weeks, they claim it is $1+ CPM. But as of now I’m very happy with Millennial Media.

http://makingmoneywithandroid.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=646

Yeah I did read that about millennial already. But I’m under the impression fill rate is bad. What sort of fill rates have you been getting?

just under 90% which is almost as good as Admob.
millenial media seems to have more branded campaigns which is why i think CPM’s are higher than Admob.

Interesting. Even without backfill it should push more revenue than admob then. I’ll give them a try. Thanks.

-Finally looking into upgrading admob SDK and saw Smart Banners are available; Anyone experience a change in eCPM when compared to banner option?

Last I read the admob Smart Banner types are not available in admob mediation.

Sorry to bump this back up- But I’m thinking Smart Banners boost revenue, and it might even explain the falling eCPMs of all of us using ‘BANNER’ ad types for Admob.

I just tried them out and I am getting served larger ads that I would not of gotten served otherwise.

Since the inventory is larger for someone using these types of banners, that means more of a chance revenue will be higher, as advertisers have to compete for the space.

Not to mention that even AdSense ads take up more screen real estate, effectively boosting CTR.

Also, this would explain why Millenial Media has such high eCPM nowadays (from what I read on here); you MUST use their smart banners by default.

I can’t test this out immediately; I set up a mediation layer with Millenial Media (due to the apparently higher eCPMs). But I have the Admob ‘SMART_BANNER’ on backfill. I’m just waiting for Millenial Media to OK my apps and I’ll go live and let you guys know if CPC is improved with the smart banners for Admob.

So how big do the Smart Banner ads get ?

I assume this relates mostly to the WIDTH - as in landscape mode you may have more width available.

But if Smart Banners are going to increase in height and take over the screen ? - that’s going to be problematic or not ?

What do the Smart Banners do different - bigger height ? And if so should one show them in a banner type situation ? Or better suited to interstitial full screen space ?

I have tested out Millennial Media ads appearing within a admob mediation banner. Their test ads show that they are 320x53 (it says so on the banner - i.e. as opposed to 320x50 that is standard for admob banner) - however the Millennial Media ad still shows.

So the Millennial Media banner ads DO show within admob (if that is what you were asking) - not sure if there is any revenue impact.

By the way Millennial Media is one of the “supported” ad networks by admob - i.e. to add it you just click on "Add
[hr]
By the way Millennial Media is one of the “supported” ad networks by admob - i.e. to add it you just click on “Add Ad Network” and then “Millennial Media” and then just enter the APID (publisher ID) for the app (as registered and approved at Millennial Media).

So don’t even have to create a Custom Event for Millennial Media.
[hr]
Unless I misunderstood your comment that one MUST use the smart banner version of Millennial Media, it would seem that one CAN deliver it via admob also.

Also the banner ad for Millennial Media remains at the 320x50 or so size i.e. same as the admob ads being delivered.

Now it COULD be that admob not supporting Smart Banner ads may mean one is being deprived of those from both admob as well as Millennial Media.

I don’t know if there is an eCPM difference in going through admob vs. avoiding admob and showing the ad directly (which presumably will enable Smart Banner ?).

I’m sorry, you misunderstood me.

I’m guessing that you can get higher eCPMs with Admob if you use their Smart Banner unit. In your XML for your adView, you can set it to ‘SMART_BANNER’ (You need Admob SDK 6.0 or higher). I mentioned Millenial Media because they already have one you must use by default, and seemingly pay higher eCPMs. I was wondering if this is indeed the case.

I’ll be testing it out very soon.

Assuming the eCPM difference is confirmed by your testing - so I guess the tradeoff is then whether one should do:

  • admob mediation and get higher eCPM participation of some ad networks which claim higher eCPM

  • go for direct display - and then show admob OR millennial media (or include the ad rotation logic oneself - could probably set it up with AppBrain’s Remote Setting facility so one could dynamically change the behavior of the ad rotation engine one puts into the app).

I will be soon trying adMob smart banners in some of my apps, I’ll let you know if the eCPM is higher or not. The size of them is quite problematic though, I prefer smaller banners (but shown everywhere).

Hey,

I am sure you can generate higher eCPMs with Admob if you use their Smart Banner unit. Let us know your results.
StartApp’s solution allows you to continue using other ad networks and increase your revenue while earning money on each download you have. Its extremely easy to track after your stats and its completely user friendly.
Our new SDK was tested on more than 10 million live downloads and is 100% Compliance with Google Policy Change.
Dan/adforandroidapps test our new SDK and I am sure the numbers you will generate will surprise you.

I wouldn’t expect miracles from smart banners. I’m using them from the start and the results are pretty much similar to what everyone are seeing. It can probably improve a little on HD devices like tablets and phones like Galaxy S3 where the smart banner fills entire width properly.
One thing to be aware of though - smart banners don’t work too well on phones in horizontal mode. It tries to fill the entire width with a very narrow strip. And since there’s no normal inventory for those dimention it displays only text ads. So if your game/app is being used a lot in horizontal mode you might want to be careful when in horizontal position. I made the mistake of just using it by default for convenience reasons until I realized how many impressions are wasted. When I moved from smart banners to normal banners (only in horizontal mode and only on phones) the performance increased noticeably. It works fine on tablets though - adMob SDK detects probably physical dimensions of the screen and decides to use leaderboard which works great.

Thanks for the input. I was trying to figure why Admob sucks, but I guess it’s still a mystery.

Hopefully Millenial Media OKs my apps tomorrow. Curious to see if there will be improvement.

This is the problem with the ad varieties - the more there are the less the developer knows about whch of them to target - because the one they pick may not have sufficient inventory.

For this reason it may in fact be simpler if an ad network offers a limited set of sizes - or for example with the interstitial it is able to scale the ad to the full screen whatever the size it is (though maybe even there there maybe some problems).

I also wonder if the advertisers are targeting the tablets and paying more for that - so the developer has to wonder how he should change thing to address tablet.

Do the ad networks - or admob do stats on the type of user who generated the revenue.

I suspect there will need to be more info along these lines before developers start to get a real sense of what things to focus on. Instead of an ad hoc strategy where they try something.

I wonder also if with advertisers being offered a “bidding model” - I wonder if developers TOO should have something like that (they do right now but it is sticky i.e. they change ad strategy only after seeing earnings) - but there should maybe be a way for developers to bid with their impressions and demographics or somethign along those lines - some ad networks allow you to screen the exact ads that will be shown - for example I think I saw on madvertise that you could see the ads and sizes that are on offer (i.e. current campaigns they have).