Pick the Right In-App Ad Types
If you’ve been following our series, you know that we’ve been working to help you understand the best ways to make money from your app. Of course, you’ll use a lot of strategies and tactics to boost your revenue. One of these tactics—possibly the most important—is advertising. In our last post, we talked about advertising at some length. It’s true, especially in a world of freemium apps, that advertising is an essential tool for generating revenue.
It’s also true that it’s easy to get mobile advertising wrong. So here are three suggestions for picking the right kinds of in-app advertising.
1. Think through your in-app advertising objectives.
Part of mobile development strategy is getting clear on your objectives: what do you want your app to do for your brand? How does it fit into your revenue plan? You should know, for example, how many users you need and how much revenue you need per user. You should have goals and milestones laid out as part of your overall mobile strategy, and your advertising approach has to dovetail with your overall objectives.
2. Pick the right kinds of ads for your brand.
There are many different kinds of mobile ads. Some developers have brand guidelines or a feel for their audience that influences the kinds of ads they’ll run. Some prefer banner ads, others interstitials, others video or rich media. Do you have any insight into your audience’s needs that will influence the types of ads you run?
Some brands will want to try new strategies—for example, location-based advertising or push notifications, while others will want to stick with traditional mobile ads. Determine the right strategies and mix for your brand to connect with your audience.
Learn more about the different ad formats: read “An In-App Advertising Format Glossary for Mobile Developers”
3. Think through your timing and expenses.
You may have a very large budget for advertising or no budget at all. You may have a creative team to develop ads, or you may rely on a freelancer with limited expertise and resources. You may have months to develop your ads, or mere days.
Different ad types have different levels of cost and complexity. For example, banner ads are easy to develop, easy to tweak and easy to roll out. Video ads are more complicated, take more time, cost more money and are harder to edit or change. You have to choose the kinds of ads that are realistic for you to create with the budget, resources and time you have.
Next Steps
Hopefully, you’ve learned enough to demystify some of the complexities of in-app advertising for revenue generation. If you already have a monetization partner or are on the hunt for a new one, make sure you download our cheat sheet to help you drill down specific questions can help uncover deeper truths about the extent of your partnership, future growth opportunities and more.
