Back to blog

Top Paying Mobile Ad Networks & App Monetization Platforms [2021 Edition]

---

Wouldn’t you love to make some money from your app? Or, are you looking for ways to direct traffic to your app?

The one answer to take care of both these requirements is – mobile advertising!

In 2018, 52% of the global internet traffic was attributed to mobile devices.

The fact that is even more impressive is that the mobile internet has grown 504% in daily media consumption since 2011.

What I am trying to establish here is that, no matter who you are, your customers are predominantly on mobile.

In fact, research states that a typical US consumer is spending north of 35 hours in a week on mobile devices, and 92% of the mobile time is spent on apps.

This rise in mobile app usage indicates that advertisers need to look beyond just the mobile browsers for advertising.

As you can see in the data above, the gross spend on in-app advertising is expected to reach $201 billion by the year 2021, and this is just in the US. Add the app store ad spending to it, and the number reaches a whopping $340 billion. This is a 2.5X growth since 2016.

Here is the list of best paying mobile ad networks that you can choose to work with and make money instantly!

Top Mobile Ad Networks

 

1. Appy Jump

Appy Jump is one of the most popular and effective mobile advertising network for in-app advertising. Whether you are using your mobile app as a revenue channel or not, in-app advertising can be a great way to earn money from your app. A top tier mobile performance network that is known for delivering only top-quality traffic in a massive volume. They pride themselves in offering the highest conversion rates and maximum returns among their competitors.

2. Media.net

Regarded as the original creator of the display to search or D2S ad format, Media.net is quite a sophisticated method of monetizing display placements by identifying user search intent and showing relevant search keywords that lead to display of search ads bought by advertisers on a cost per click or CPC model.

3. AdMob

AdMob is an ad network that comes from the technology giant Google. Like all their products, AdMob is flawless in terms of functionality and is pretty easy to integrate in apps. The real winner here is the fact that their advertising is far less aggressive and intrusive as compared to other networks.

4. StartApp

This one lets you implement interstitial advertising. In this kind of advertising, an ad will take over the screen while transitioning from one page or section of the app to another. Though this kind of advertising is a little more intrusive as compared to the conventional banner ads, some have been known to achieve greater revenue rates with it!

5. InMobi

InMobi is known for their unique targeting technique, that they call appographic targeting. This effectively increases the chances of exposing the users to exactly the kind of media and apps that they would most likely want to consume. Instead of conventional metrics like demographics or geography, this technique is based on the currently or previously installed apps on the users’ phones.

6. Flurry

Acquired by Yahoo! in 2014, Flurry is unique in the kind of analytics it offers by allowing a developer or company to monitor the entire portfolio of applications distributed on different applications distributed on different app stores across platforms. The funnels here measure customized conversion metrics and the gathered data can be categorized by you. When you patiently optimize and test your ad campaign repeatedly, you would definitely find interesting observations that you can act upon.

7. Millennial Media

Offering full screen interstitial, video, and image-based formats, Millennial Media is known to provide developers with one of the highest revenue possibilities. Though it is considered a little too intrusive for the end users, but the user feedback and comments indicate high returns on this risk. A mobile-first programmatic ad platform, Millennial Media can easily be integrated into apps

8. Smaato

Smaato is quite a popular name associated with real-time bidding and programmatic advertising and one of the stronger players when it comes to high revenues for mobile app developers. This is a Dynamic Demand platform which allows per-impression competition for all advertising sources so that the publishing revenue is maximized.

9. Leadbolt

Leadbolt offers some of the most unique features, App Wall among them is the most noticeable one. It lets you integrate Leadbolt advertising into your app without any SDK and you would not have to write even a single line of code. Its analytical capabilities include measuring the users’ engagement to the app allowing the developers to optimize the balance between the app and the ads being displayed. You can also test out different kinds of ads including interstitial and video ads to see which ones work better in different situations and placements.

10. Chartboost

This particular ad network specializes and excels in cross-promotion while also holding the post for the most popular mobile-only ad platform, particularly for the gaming apps. Chartboost is a transparent and a data-driven platform which is why the developers who partner with them gain the ability to take intelligent decisions for their ad campaigns. The best part is that the developers get to keep 90-100% of the revenue which is surprisingly high!

11. Airpush

One of the most widely recommended mobile ad networks, Airpush is known for their rich portfolio and for serving a massive clientele all across the Android segment. They are one of the most in-demand and highest paying mobile ad networks and that is largely due to their extensive list of advertisers in their credit. It is because they offer rich media advertisements that they generate a high eCPM

12. Unity Ads

Since their launch in 2014, Unity Ads has evolved as one of the most widely recognized ad monetization solution for mobile games. It supports both iOS & Android mobile platforms and offers banner, video, and interstitial formats and has a global market to cater to. Some of the leading mobile game companies use Unity Ads to monetize their games and put up video ads.

13. BuzzCity

One of the most well-known mobile ad network, BuzzCity is also one of the most competent ones. Used by both, app owners and agencies, the platform is great for promoting products and services, primarily because it includes a much wider base of global mobile advertising network. The reason for their wide popularity is due to some of their unique features, especially their fabulous integration system and a promising fill rate!

14. Epom Apps

This is one of the most easy-to-use and in-demand mobile monetization platforms that have especially been designed for Android and iOS developers who are on the lookout for effective ways to generate quality revenue from their apps. The great thing about Epom is that there is no need to worry about managing it, because they take care of it for you. All that is needed is that you, as a developer integrate the SDK and Epom takes care of everything else.

15. Phunware

Starting off as Tapit, Phunware has now become one of the best mobile ad network providers. Equipped with immense knowledge in marketing and expertise in the technical arena, they take care of all kinds of mobile advertising networks for publishers, advertisers, and app developers. They have years of expertise and experience behind them and therefore the self-serve marketplace Phunware can bring in a whole lot of benefits for businesses.

16. MobFox

For app publishers, app developers, and advertisers, MobFox has established themselves as a leading, result-oriented mobile ad platform. Once properly implemented, MobFox allows you to monetize mobile traffic on different mediums including iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone7. Using this platform, effectively opens up a massive world of advertising for your mobile app.

17. Tapjoy

Almost a veteran in their niche, Tapjoy has been around and serving their clients since 2007 and known for their expertise in mobile user acquisition and app monetization. They have served numerous app developers and companies in increasing their revenue. Tapjoy supports mobile platforms like Mobile Web, iOS, and Android and offers various ad formats like Rewards, Offerwall, Interstitial, and Content Lock among others.

18. Yahoo App Publishing

With Yahoo App Publishing, you would only have to follow three simple steps to start making money right from your mobile! All it takes is one lightweight SDK to get started with it. It only takes three lines of code to get you going and these very lines (just the three of them) you would gain access to Flurry Analytics as well. Yahoo App Publishing lets you display Banner Ads, Full-Screen Ads, and Native Ads on your app.

19. Applovin

It is an ideal mobile advertising platform to help you expand your reach exponentially, while helping you acquire new consumers on mobile. The platform is particularly great in offering marketing automation and analytics particularly for those brands who are planning to expand their reach to new consumers on mobile.

Fun Fact – In 2019, 80.5% of their ad clients were from the gaming fraternity. Clearly, the platform is the perfect choice for gaming applications.

20. AdColony

As a mobile ad platform AdColony plays a critical role in driving higher engagement by selectively showing a premium quality ad content. Among their rich offerings for the developers or app owners they have instant play HD technology, innovative monetization technology, and mobile video integration strategies.

21. AdCash

This is an all-in-one platform that is connected, quite aptly to some really high-quality supply sources. AdCash is known particularly for letting users manage their online campaigns with great ease for maximum returns! The platform has been around for more than 10 years and has attained the status of a veteran in offering a platform with flexibility and complete control to their users.

22. Oath (ONE by AOL)

Previously known as ONE by AOL, Oath is one of the most popular and respected names among the mobile advertising platforms. The new age technology, efficient tools, and unique services make it possible for the advertisers to offer rich viewing experience on the users’ smartphones. The platform offers robust and thoroughly intrusive advertising options for developers to monetize their apps with full-screen interstitial, video, and image-based ad formats. Here, the advertisers and the publishers get complete control of their data, tools they want to include, media, and their business.

23. Ad Recover

A near perfect tool for monetization, Ad Recover has consciously put in an effort to find the perfect balance between the advertisers’ goal of reaching the right kind of user base and the publishers’ goal of offering a non-intrusive and smooth user experience.

24. SmartyAds

A programmatic advertising company, SmartyAds is one of the few who develop their own cutting-edge, innovative programmatic solutions aimed at maximizing the revenue for the advertisers, developers, and the publishers. They were in fact one of the first ones to implement secure Blockchain-based ad platforms. Powered by innovative ad tech products like real-time protocol, header bidding, blockchain and many such others, the platform today processes more than 300 million daily impressions, supports almost every mobile and web ad format, while ensuring a smooth cross-screen ad delivery.

25. Supersonic

Supersonic has proven to be a one stop solution to all the advertising and app promotion needs of mobile app developers and publishers. With a massive network of more than 500 million users, Supersonic helps the advertisers in monetizing their apps with a deep pool of advertisers. The developers they work with, are well known and quite popular, ensuring that the apps and the ads are showcased to the right audiences and that they are encouraged to interact with it. They have a strong ability to segment and target the users. The platform is ideal for the smaller developers who can make use of the platform and self-serve to monetize and promote their apps.

26. Facebook Ads (+Instagram Ads)

Today, two of the biggest and the most powerful channels to reach the widest audience on mobile users includes Facebook and Instagram. Both the platforms let you run ad campaigns with effective targeting including location, gender, age, likes & interests, relationship status, education, and even their job. The best part about them is that the ads they serve are showcased in a very friendly and catchy ad display format that work equally beautifully irrespective of the device they are being displayed on or the speed of internet connectivity.

27. Twitter Ads

One of the strongest and most responsive social media channels, Twitter serves as a brilliant mobile ad network today. This is one of the rare platforms where not only can you set your goals but can also decide to focus on only those aspects that truly matter to you, letting you choose exactly the right kind of people who you want to expose to your ads. This can be done according to the activity levels of the Twitter users, their interests, and of course their location. A unique advantage here is that you only pay for the action that you really want the audience to take, like, for example if you are promoting your app to increase your app downloads, you can choose to pay only for those incidents where someone downloads your app.

28. Snapchat Ads

Social media is the life and blood of marketing and promotions today, no matter what your niche may be. If you have been ignoring Snapchat Ads, it’s time to do a double check, because they really work! This is especially of significance when you are trying to target the younger demographics, particularly GenZ. The platform actually guides you to select the right kind of target audience for your ad and even lets you design it in the best way possible to garner maximum attention.

29. Apple Search Ads

It has been some time since Apple, the technology giant launched their ad platform – Apple Search Ads where the developers only needed to pay for the number of downloads, nothing else. This ensures that the app you are advertising with them appears at the top of the search results, thus giving your app download numbers a big boost. The platform lets you choose the keywords, the target audience, set a budget and of course define distinct goals. They aren’t available in the world over though, but have a presence in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and of course United States.

30. IronSource

One of the most unique mobile ad platforms, IronSource was launched in 2012. At the core of this unique ad network lies a sophisticated campaign manager solution that comes with multiple ad-unit and campaign type support, creative assets management and advanced reporting. It offers support for the biggest range of platforms including Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Cocos, Amazon, and Adobe Air and a variety of ad formats like app wall, interstitial, offer wall, and video.

31. Appnext

Appnext – a mobile app discovery company has a platform that operates on the basis of a self-serve CPI. Founded only in the year 2012, the company’s ad solution promises to connect people to exactly the apps and services that they need. They also have a strong community of developers where the new advertisers can interact with fellow developers to valuable suggestions for launching their own ad campaigns. They offer support for iOS and Android platforms and let you showcase interstitial, native ads, notification, rewarded videos and action format ads.

32. Mobusi

A leading mobile ad networking company, Mobusi has a strong hold in the entire Europe and in South America but have a wild popularity all over the world for user acquisition and marketing services, particularly performance advertising. They offer support for various ad formats on both Android and iOS formats. Additionally, they also let you target according to country, carrier, operating system, device, browser type, and even connection.

33. YouAppi

The focus of this platform lies majorly on user acquisition and on retention. The platform is especially good at studying user behavior and showing them recommended apps depending on their unique preferences. YouAppi offers marketers with tools that have proven to be quite effective for their users. Some of their tools that the users have expressed admiration for are – the real time tools to monitor users’ behavior, tools that help schedule the campaigns, and tools for push notifications. They have some really big brands in their client portfolio and the tools mentioned above have a lot to do with it.

34. Liftoff

Liftoff is quite popular among app marketers as a result-oriented cost-per-action optimized mobile user acquisition platform. The platform offers CPI campaigns optimization by tracking post-install events for apps. The platform also offers retargeting features to bring the mobile users who have moved away back to your app. Also, the lookalike feature showcases the mobile apps to the users who are similar to people who already use these apps

35. Taptica

A mobile user acquisition platform company, Taptica uses proprietary machine learning algorithms on their ad platform equipping the advertisers with a sophisticated mobile targeting and efficient user acquisition capabilities to eventually deliver a very high return on their ad investment. They offer ad formats like banners, interstitial ads, text, and video on both the leading platforms i.e. iOS and Android.

36. Vungle

Vungle is recognized today as one of the leading performance marketing platforms for app advertisers especially in the European, US, and Chinese markets. They are known for their highly engaging video ads to bring in relevant mobile users to the advisers. Vungle has quite a creative optimization technology, effective targeting, and HD video ad delivery which ensures that your ad reaches and acquires only high-quality users from the world over. They offer support for Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, and Amazon.

37. MoBrain

This is one of the best platforms for those who need to or want to focus on CPI. Their unique ability lies in their proprietary algorithm that can analyze large sets of data and detect any suspicious patterns in activity so that it does not reach and impact your ad campaigns. It supports a variety of display formats including banners, content, interstitial, native, and video which can be showcased on both iOS and Android.

38. Fyber

A brilliant monetization platform, Fyber lets the advertisers and publishers carry out quite effective CPM and CPA campaigns. This mobile ad platform was created by the culmination of solutions and capabilities from four different tech companies. One of the most popular and effective features is the automatic optimization of ad revenue sources. Fyber has a massive audience reach which pretty much guarantees strong engagement and a promising number of installs. On this platform, developers can pick and choose whether they want to showcase their ads on iOS, Android, or both, what kind of campaign they wish to run (like engagement, install etc.) or what formats they would like to run their ads in like videos, interstitial or something else.

39. Yeahmobi

When it comes to Yeahmobi, the spotlight or the focus stays largely on working directly with advertisers on CPI and CPA trough a variety of campaign types in order to acquire new customers. Though they have a special expertise in Native ads, they do work pretty well with other formats too. If we were to talk about the targeting options, however, the Yeahmobi ads are supported by media platforms which means not only do they help you acquire new users, but also go a long way in helping you maximizing LTV.

40. Avazu

Avazu, as a platform was built with the intent of connecting the ad buyers and the publishers from all over the world. The main focus of the platform is to help the customers earn the maximum possible revenue from their campaigns as they only pay per conversion. It is for this reason that the campaigns on this platform are linked to actions like app download, purchase, and such. There is a variety in supported ad formats including banner, interstitial, or text and the audience can be targeted on the basis of device, carrier, or OS as per your unique needs.

41. Bing Mobile Advertising

This platform is best suited for those who are looking for a balanced blend of conventional and new-age ways of online advertising. They are a premium advertiser and you as an advertiser and a publisher would appreciate it especially because of the high-quality traffic it would offer you. Bing Ads have a knack for reaching majority of the mobile operating systems along with dozens of OEMs and thousands of models. Not only do they let you create powerful mobile ads and target industry specific customers but also give you access to Bing Ad Analytics helping you tweak and improve your mobile ad strategy.

Top Ad Mediation Platforms

#1 Fyber

They have strategically set their focus on gaming publishers while designing their platform. Fyber’s mediation platform has earned a whole lot of respect among ad mediation platforms. They primarily aim for SDK level mediation and support every meaningful video ad provider. Their monetization strategy includes making the inventory available to their ad-network. Though this is the most popular method currently, it is bound to create a certain conflict of interest, particularly for the platforms that fail to maintain neutrality. They are known for the easy to understand reporting interface that includes some of the most critical KPIs and metrics. The interface includes pretty useful information about the active users which is great for tracking impression frequency but is unable to track the opt-in ratio or even view the performance by segment.

#2 Heyzap

Heyzap has an amazing video network coverage and it mostly is implemented on the client side through SDK adapters. Also, they offer a strong support for interstitial and banner providers. Their monetization technique involves placing ads from their own ad-network that primarily comes from placing their inventory for RTB. Additionally, they have also included demand from Fyber as a default setting in waterfall. Their reporting interface is quite graphical and features a great visualization of the waterfall configuration besides the ECPM history and fill rates. However, the platform lacks some major metrics and misses out on including data on unique users making it impossible to analyze ad frequency, opt-ins and segments.

#3 Ironsource (Supersonic)

Though Supersonic mediation started out as a rewarded video platform, it ended up adding support for interstitial and banner support after being acquired by Ironsource. The focus of the platform, however still is primarily on mediating videos through SDK adapters. Quite like Fyber, their strategy involves placing ads from the demand sources of both, Supersonic and Ironsource. Now, their reporting interface may not be as jazzed up as many others, but it still is quite efficient. They have an edge over their competitors because of 2 unique metrics that no one else offers. First is, the number of active users that lets you optimize the frequency of ads, and second is the number of engaged users which is the number of users who engaged with or opted-in for through the rewarded video. Another nifty feature in the platform is the historic ECPM for each ad-network in the management section which eases waterfall management decision-making. However, the platform does not have a strong visualization for fill rate with ECPM and the priority each ad platform is getting from the algorithm. Also, there is no breakdown to segments in the reporting dashboard.

#4 Admob

Known for offering the widest ad-network coverage, the mediation for this Google powered platform is better for banners and interstitial ads in comparison to rewarded videos. Their monetization strategy involves placing ads in the bidding mix. The ads come from advertisers on both, Admob and Adsense, hence their backfill, at times may include text ads which appear out of place in context of your app. The reporting interface for Admob is disappointing not just because it has a pretty boring line up of reports, but because there are some major challenges there. This is particularly evident when you are seeking a particular piece of information and you have no idea what actions you are supposed to take there.

#5 Appodeal

Appodeal has quickly shot to prominence in the field of mediation platforms and that is particularly because they do not have an ad-network of their own. This means that they can maintain an unbiased opinion and work on helping the publishers. The platform extends support for all the ad-formats while covering all the important players for the banners, interstitial and native ads. They have a unique ability to create custom segments while applying a different logic in the segment. This means you have the option to show lesser ads to a certain age group or avoid showing video ads on older and dated devices. A feature that is unique to this platform is the ability to define house ads for cross promotion or direct campaigns. Additionally, there are some great features like auto-registration and advanced payment which are great for small developers in particular. Its reporting interface is simple and pretty effective, but it does have its own shortcomings. One great thing here is that you can see the number of clicks, which you can’t on other platforms, but you cannot see the actual waterfall configuration set up in a specific day. Also, the platform cannot track the impressions per user for monitoring opt-in ratios for rewarded ads.

#6 Mopub

They combine SSP with mediation in the same SDK and since it was acquired by Twitter, adding your SDK would let you receive ads from Twitter advertisers. The platform leans more towards banners and interstitials as compared to rewarded videos. Their monetization strategy involves bundling their SSP alongside the mediation to give them inventory access and the ability to earn their share through the ads they place. Their dashboard is great for ad-networks management which makes all the main functions easy to access. However, it does lack a few features for understanding the activities on a user level.

#7 Epom Apps

Epom Apps is a wildly popular ad mediation platform that offers expertise in devising ad strategies that can help the developers generate revenue from their mobile apps. The biggest reason for their popularity is that their team handles the complete monetization process right from the selection of best performing demand sources that should be included in your custom SDK for ad placement optimization. They are known for offering trusted advertisers, an AI-based optimization algorithm, and for delivering competitive ECPMs with a considerably high fill rate.

#8 LoopMe

Known as the largest ad network and mobile video DSP platform, LoopMe offers full screen or interstitial, banner, and native video ad formats. The platform is known for offering memorable experiences to more than a billion consumers from all over the world. The platform works best for Android and BIG service providers like eBay and Amazon have found it useful. It is one of the high-quality monetization platforms in the market and it helps the developers in targeting the right kind of audience. The platform is compatible with other SDKs and offers a robust experience for the developers.

#9 AdColony

The AdColony SDK extension is a multi-faceted ad network with an ability to create engaging ads to help developers get the most of their monetization efforts. This, essentially is because AdColony has an integrated SDK to help developers connect across multiple devices including iOS, Android, and Fire iOS platforms. Developers have the option to select different display options through creative and interactive ads which deliver incredible experiences for the end users. This of course means that the customers’ interest and your revenue would increase manifold.

#10 Phunware

A full-service mobile ad network, Phunware is great for offering solutions that impact the complete lifecycle of a mobile app. On the network, developers have the option to enhance their apps using SDK integrations to create better ads and increase the visibility for the end users. It boosts the developers’ monetization efforts and promotes their brands with wide-ranging mediation features to get positive results. The network works really well for both iOS and Android letting the developers make their mobile apps better while bringing about the maximum results for their efforts.

#11 OpenBack

The OpenBack SDK has a unique feature that lets the developers create customized frameworks for sending in-app notifications to the select customers at the best suited time. One of the most lucrative features of OpenBack is that the developers can tailor the notifications in a number of ways to make sure that they are perfect for the end user. When you create ad notifications that are specific to the audience, as a developer you are bound to get more interest, enhance the overall effectiveness and maximize the revenue earned from the mobile app.

#12 Survata

Survata SDK is a unique platform that allows the developers to integrate meaningful surveys into their Android apps. The survey feature in this SDK makes it possible for the developers to get some critical answers directly from their target consumers. Survata is a unique intelligence tool that has brought about a change in the ways a developer can expand their audience and improve their product. This kind of customer feedback is critical when it comes to streamlining and monetization of a developer’s application further.

#13 Unity Ads

Unity Ads is the perfect choice for the developers who are planning to implement multiple ad networks in one go. This video advertising network helps game developers in particular to position ads within their products and monetize them quickly. Not only does this ad network offer a certain flexibility, but also is compatible with both, Android and iOS. The fun thing here is that Unity Ads even lets you trade ad space with developers who target similar or the same audience. It essentially means that this network lets you advertise your games across the entire gaming community helping you improve your unique customer acquisition strategy.

#14 Admost Mediation Router (AMR)

Admost Mediation Router or AMR is an independent ad mediation tool for the mobile platform which is particularly great when it comes to maximizing the ad revenues from mobile apps and games. The mediation platform is popular among the developers because of certain critical features like a single dashboard for all networks, easy setup, manual ECPM calculation, waterfall sorting, support for all ad formats, and 100% fill rate.

#15 HyprMX

HyprMX is a favorite among a huge number of developers as it has a pretty straight forward, unified system which helps the users monetize incentivized video ads in addition to other formats like questionnaires and surveys. You can simply plug it into the app and monetize it with the help of multiple partners and by employing multiple ad types and formats. Some of the most prominent features include optimized internal inventory, customizable size, format, targets, and limits. Also, the platform offers intuitive analytics all across the campaigns and partners.

#16 Flymob

An ad mediation technology, Flymob is particularly known for helping advertisers and publishers maximize profits and performance. The platform is known especially for offering expertise in multiple areas of mobile marketing for meeting the goals. They have mobile web, in-app and desktop inventory all over the world. They come with advanced targeting options and have an in-house design and optimization team.

#17 AdTapsy

AdTapsy is an ad mediation platform that helps the app publishers and developers quicken up and boost their revenue in a quick and easy way. The platform brings together some of the most profitable ad networks and offers a fast and easy integration. The platform lets you switch automatically to the highest paying ad network and ensures almost up to 99% fill rate. The platform is made even more engaging with real-time leaderboards and prizes for best publishers!

#18 Mobvista

Known as one of the leading global mobile content distribution platform, Mobvista is a formidable name in mobile advertising and game publishing. Mobvista has a worldwide mobile ad network that has the ability to integrate ad spots from apps and websites all over the world which collectively bring together above 10 billion daily impressions.

#19 Appmediation

Appmediation has an easy to integrate SDK giving you complete control of your monetization strategy, maximizing the ad revenue or returns. The platform offers unified reporting that is fast, multi-dimensional, and transparent. The platform supports all ad formats and offers smart real-time optimization technology helping the developers leverage each impression to its greatest value.

#20 Alphagravel

The focus of Alphagravel lies in ensuring that individual mobile app developers can earn the maximum revenue from their apps. They offer predictive analytic platform that ensures true price transparency by allocating inventory to the highest bidders and it all happens in real-time, all the time! The platform is enabled with real-time big data predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms which determine the real price of the mobile inventory and send the highest paying ad content your way. This process ensures a guaranteed minimum ECPM. The SDK offers intelligent automated mediation, transparency in pricing, algorithmic smart routing, dynamic waterfalling, conversion optimization, and most importantly a comprehensive overview of the mobile ad spend globally for every second.

#21 AppBrain

A prominent mobile ad network, AppBrain offers a unique pay-per-install app promotion service which is specifically designed for the Android market. The focus of the platform is to give the developers a fast and easy to implement solution that would help them expand their reach and business. They have a Cost-Per-Install model that charges developers for actual installs instead of clicks or impressions. The platform offers a reporting interface where they can track the spend and the number of installs in real time.

#22 InMobi

A global mobile ad platform with effective reach over 1.5 billion devices, InMobi develops an ad serving algorithm to help optimize the ranks of ads served on mobile phones. The platform has some great features for campaign management including strategy, design, execution, management and optimization of campaign, in addition to advertising services including ad creation, format, and targeting. The platform also devises monetization strategies to earn money from the traffic with a balanced combination of performance and branding ads and their proprietary ad serving algorithm for ad ranking according to target user group and past performance. Their reporting interface provides almost real-time reports to track the monetization performance of the campaign.

Top Rewarded Video Ad Networks

1) Vungle

The platform is credited with making the video ads popular among the mobile app publishers. The platform offers quite a creative optimization technology in addition to user group targeting, and delivers HD video ads to reach high-quality users from all over the world and eventually acquire them.

2) AdColony

They are the pioneers in the field of rewarded video ads for mobile apps and still remain at the top of the list in their industry. Their entire focus is on video ads and app publishers from all over the world prefer the platform for monetizing their apps in this format. The platform is credited with combining proven technology, premium advertisers and high fill rates into an all-encompassing publisher monetization platform. The platform offers video ads that are not just great for generating impressive publisher revenue, but also offers a great user experience.

3) Unity Ads

The platform, Unity Ads happened when Unity acquired Applifier. The erstwhile video focused ad network experienced a massive boost in their growth after the acquisition by making good use of the dominance that Unity game engine enjoys in the mobile gaming world. They have great publishing partners including SEGA, Halfbrick, and Next Games for monetizing their user base using video ads. The underlying intent of this network is to increase the lifetime value of a user and not just the fill rates and eCPM values. If you are using the Unity engine the setup is pretty simple, but if you are not you can simply implement their universal SDK.

4) Receptiv (Mediabrix)

Known earlier as Mediabrix, Receptiv is quite unique in their offerings as an ad platform. The company is exclusive in associating only with brand advertisers and the advertisers get the opportunity to be associated with the high points or wins in the game. The platform has a global reach of over 150 million.

5) Applovin

A marketing automation company, Applovin offers app marketers with progressive ad campaign optimization where every consequence campaign is designed according to the analytical information received from the previous one. One of the most useful features of the platform include an app users interest database which means that the advertisers can target the campaigns in a more precise manner. The platforms supports both Android and iOS devices.

6) Chartboost

A popular mobile game user acquisition platform, Chartboost is known for giving more power to mobile game marketers. The platform is particularly popular for acquiring players through video ads and interstitial ads. The platform has unique features like sophisticated targeting and install tracking that further help the publishers measure results to understand the returns on their investments. Key features of the platform also include direct developer-developer ad exchange and support for both, iOS and Android devices.

7) TapJoy

TapJoy offers a very diverse suite of rewarded video and rich media ads that can be leveraged by developers and brands to acquire high-quality users and generate greater revenue. The SDK for TapJoy is embedded in more than 15,000 mobile apps with an expanded reach to more than 520 million active users.

8) IronSource

The platform is known for its association with the top names in the gaming world with big names like Ubisoft, Zynga, EA, Gameloft and many others in their client kitty. Its SDK is integrated in more than 500,000 million devices and this wildly popular ad network serves more than 1 billion daily impressions. As an ad publisher on the platform, you are entitled to an access to premium and global ad inventories so that you get the highest possible price for every impression. The platform offers the latest and most popular ad formats, advanced reporting, and meaningful insights.

9) Fyber

With sole focus on offering best in class technology, Fyber has emerged as a brilliant data-driven monetization platform for mobile apps. They have multiple solutions for the publishers including FairBid and most importantly video ad monetization platform. The video ad monetization platform from Fyber is particularly unique as it drives the programmatic demand to the audience, simultaneously monetizing the same using mobile-first video formats. Using the platform, publishers can connect with over 150 DSPs and to further amp up the competition, even sells add inventory across RTB, PMP, direct campaigns, and more. The platform has its focus on freemium apps and offers single integration for direct deals with leading ad networks in addition to ensuring customized delivery of ads to user segments. The ad formats supported on the platform include banners, interstitial and native in addition to rewarded video ads and is compatible with iOS, Android, Unity, and Adobe Air.

10) Admob/Googleadmo

One of the best mobile ad networks known for their rewarded video ads, Admob is owned by the tech giant Google and has been around since 2012. The platform serves more than 200 billion ad requests every month, has over 1 million advertisers, and has 1 million apps running on their mobile ad network. One of the most intriguing features of the platform includes the unique ability to cross-sell other apps for free with the help of house ads. Additionally, publishers can also run direct deals with advertisers and even receive auto-updates through Google Play services without having to modify the SDK. The platform is compatible with iOS, Android, Unity, and Cocos2d-x.

11) Facebook Audience Network

Facebook Audience Network is an extension of the Facebook Ads platform on mobile apps and web in order to reach the audiences who are not on the Facebook app or their website. Its ad server lets the advertisers reach people who are registered with Facebook but off the platform. What makes it even better is the fact there is absolutely no compromise on the precision in targeting which Facebook is known for. You can define your objectives like brand awareness, traffic, conversion, app install, product catalog sales, video views, and reach before going live with your campaign on the Facebook Audience Network

12) MoPub/Twitter

One of the top mobile ad networks in the world, MoPub was acquired by Twitter in 2013 and is a brilliant option for developers to generate revenue from their mobile apps. They also have a mobile in-app RTB exchange called MoPub Marketplace that connects buyers and publishers from all over the world. MoPub has more than 180 DSPs working with it who the marketers, agencies or the ATDs can access. With reach of more than 1.5 billion unique devices, more than 450 billion monthly ad requests and more than 50,000 mobile apps connected on the platform, MoPub is quite a phenomenon. The platform supports multiple ad formats including video, native, native video, opt-in video, rich media, and display ads and is compatible with both Android and iOS.

13) Leadbolt

A high-performance mobile ad platform, Leadbolt is known for its amazing results in user acquisition and in-app monetization. App marketers and developers using the platform get an advanced app install attribution solution for monitoring CPI-based install acquisition campaigns that run on more than 50 quality ad networks. Leadbolt is known for leveraging its proprietary analytics-based algorithms that recommend advertising solutions for capturing the audience that suit the publishers, developers, and marketers in the best possible way. The key features of the platform including a Direct Deals Marketplace, premium global traffic, and dynamic ad delivery. The platform supports iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

14) Appreciate

Established as a revolutionary mobile bidding platform that is particularly tailored for in-app mobile campaign. The platform lets media buyers efficiently target, run, and optimize in-app mobile campaigns that are running in an RTB environment. Catering to the global market, the platform supports Android, iOS and mobile web. The ad formats offered by Appreciate include banners, interstitial, native, video and of course rewarded video ads. Working on the CPM model, the platform offers custom targeting and tracking.

15) Adscend Media

One of the top mobile ad networks, Adscend Media lets the developers monetize the free users using their rewarded videos, an offer wall, mobile videos, content locking, and offers. They offer the fastest rewarded video SDK with their in-house inventory and have more than 2,000 incentivized offers at any time which is great for direct linking. Their primary markets include Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, UK, and USA and support Android, iOS and the mobile web. The ad formats supported by the platform included rewarded videos and the offer wall.

16) Persona.ly

Persona.ly has developed a unique technology for tracking, detecting frauds, and optimization tools, all developed in house. The platform has advanced tools to create in-app ads and for high-quality user acquisition based on risk-free models and the ad publishers can increase their app revenue with their advanced optimization layer and a strong targeting engine. They have a KPI driven DSP with direct campaigns and exclusive payouts. Their key markets include Brazil, Canada, India, South East Asia, UK, and USA and offer support for Android, iOS and the mobile web. In addition to rewarded videos, the platform offers multiple ad formats including banners, interstitial, offer wall, rich media, and video ads.

17) Stack

With their key markets in Spain and USA, Stack supports multiple ad formats apart from rewarded videos including banners, in-app, interstitial, native, rich media, and video ads. Their ad server lets the advertisers run cross-promotional campaigns for their own apps while letting them manage direct deals with the advertisers. It lets the marketers set up campaigns directly and on mediated ad networks and find the highest bids. The platform extends support to iOS, Google Play and Amazon platforms. The key features listed on the platform include direct campaigns, cross promotion, sophisticated customization, raw data reports, price floors, and backfill.

18) AdTiming

The underlying intent of AdTiming is to offer intelligent mobile marketing solutions and their strength lies in mobile marketing, big data solutions and technical services. The platform allows for customized audience targeting using more than 300,000 unstructured tags and support both major platforms including Android and iOS. With their key market in Europe, India, Japan, Middle East, and USA, the platform offers multiple ad formats apart from rewarded videos like banners, and native ads. Their trading models include programmatic and real time bidding.

19) App Booster

Focused primarily on user engagement, App Booster is a mobile-first user acquisition platform for app developers and publishers. It has in-house ad serving and smart bidding algorithms which enable faster setup and optimization of campaigns. The platform makes it possible for marketers and publishers come together and acquire high-quality, engaged users and monetize their traffic on mobile and website on CPI-basis which is essentially risk-free. Compatible with both Android and iOS platforms, the platform serves Brazil, Europe, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and UK as their key markets. Apart from the rewarded video ads, App Booster serves multiple ad formats including banners and interstitial ads.

20) Smaato

A real-time advertising platform, Smaato specializes in the monetization of apps. The platform offers mobile-only ad exchange with a global reach and more than 500 billion ad requests every month. Additionally the platform offers real-time competition for each impression, quick and easy integration with high eCPM and fill rates. The publishers retain complete control on pricing and have access to more than 260 DSPs and more than 190 ad networks. The platform supports both Android and iOS devices with China, Germany and USA as the key markets. Apart from rewarded video ads, the platform also offers many other formats including banners, in-app, native, rich media, text, and video ads. Their trading models include mediation, private exchange, programmatic, real-time bidding, and self-service.

21) AdGate Media

Their specialty lies in helping apps make money with non-intrusive ads with rewarded video ads and offer walls. AdGate Media focuses on boosting the app revenue while making sure that the end user has a positive or rewarding experience as well. They have a very easy integration process with just one page of documentation and offer advanced inventory optimization. The platform supports Android, iOS, and the mobile web. Apart from rewarded video ads, the platform offers multiple ad formats including content lock, native, offer wall, and video ads.

22) Mintegral

Mintegral is an interactive ad platform that is AI driven and programmatic. The platform offers mobile user acquisition and monetizing solutions to brands all over the world and to developers so that they can both accomplish their marketing goals. Their key market is the Asia-Pacific region and delivers full-stack products and comprehensive mobile marketing and analytics services. The platform is AI powered and has an extensive set of targeting options. The platform is known for its transparency and a super simple 4-step process for the launch of an ad campaign. Apart from the rewarded video format, the platform offers multiple ad formats including native video, interstitial videos, and playable ads. The platforms support Android, HTML5, iOS, mobile web, and Windows phone.

23) Tapdaq

The network known for their rewarded video ads, Tapdaq is also known for ad mediation and cross promotion. The ad server is driven by Machine Learning based algorithms which collect data on each ad impression, revenue for each ad network that’s plugged into the system. Also they offer rapid ad serving and automated eCPM values. Apart from rewarded video ads, the platform also offers other ad formats including static and video interstitials and banners. It supports multiple platforms including Android, iOS, and Unity.

24) MobAir

A mobile ad technology company, MobAir delivers a complete service package aimed at mobile user acquisition. The tool Appstellar is essentially the core component of the MobAir platform and is perfect for discovering a horde of quality users with the highest engagement in addition to user journey tracking and analysis. In addition to rewarded video ads, the platform also offers interstitial, native, and video ads.

Types of Mobile Ads

Not all mobile ads are the same! Once you have decided that you want to run ads, you should start looking at the different types of mobile ads that you can buy or sell on a good mobile ad platform.

Banner Ads

The banner ads that run on mobile apps are pretty much like the ones that run on the desktop browsers. The one defining difference here is that the banners are integrated in the interface of the app. this banner ad may consist of static or animated image ads. Banner ads may be used to advertise third party products or services, or even for up-selling.

Video Ads

Video format has gained popularity in the recent times as they are easy to consume and hold the attention of the consumers in an effective manner. Typically, a video ad is quite short and never longer than 60 seconds. Primarily, there are two types of video ads.

1. In-Stream videos – These video ads are streamed in an app and are played within the video content.
2. Out-Stream videos – This type of video plays on a webpage, but gets displayed within an app.

As per a recent research conducted by eMarketer, the money spent on mobile video ads in the US alone is expected to reach $25 billion by the year 2022.

Native Ads

Native ads are those that match the form and function of the interface of the app it is being run on. These can be in the form of a banner image or a video ad. The core idea behind native apps is to blend into the interface of the app, hence it is not as intrusive as the other ad formats.

OfferWall Ads

OfferWall consists of a barrage of offers that are aimed at driving up the engagement. This is most commonly visible in the gaming industry. The OfferWall is used by the app publishers to show third party games or a series of games from their own portfolio of gaming apps.

Interstitial Ads

Interstitial ads are the ones that take up the entire device screen. These ads pop up as the app users is navigating from one screen to the other. Care should be taken to display these ads only after the app user has completed an action. These ads may appear intrusive, if not timed right.

Mobile Advertising Revenue Models

There is more than one way to earn money from mobile advertising. Most of the major mobile ad networks offer a variety of business models or revenue models to run ad campaigns. Let’s take a look at the BIG 5!

Cost Per View (CPV)

This applies to mobile ad networks that allow the advertisers to run video ad campaigns. In this business model, advertisers pay for every view the video ad gets. There is a reason I mentioned this business model first. True, the model is fairly rare for now, but with the exponential growth trends observed for video ads, it is natural that this business model will grow as well.

Cost Per Install (CPI)

In this business model, advertisers are only charged after the click turns into an install. The number of installs is a critical metric that the marketers track while trying to measure the success of any campaign they run. This cost that the advertisers pay for an install is essentially the customer acquisition cost which eventually contributes to the ROI.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

It means exactly what it says. In this business model, the advertiser is charged whenever someone clicks on their ad. This is a model preferred by the advertisers, because they only have to pay when the customer shows interest in their ad by clicking on it. This may be a risky proposition for the publishers because they are not making any money on the impressions.

Cost Per Action (CPA)

CPA or Cost Per Action is essentially a more advanced or sophisticated version of CPI. Here, the advertiser is charged only when the user or the targeted audience takes a predetermined action. This action could be anything from signing up for content or subscribing for something, filling up and submitting a form, or completing an in-app purchase.

Cost Per Mile (CPM)

In this particular revenue model for mobile advertising, the advertisers are charged whenever they reach 1000 displays or impressions – a mile. This works great for publishers who have a stable and predictable traffic, so that they have an estimate of the revenue they are going to make from advertising. The lucrative thing here is that the publishers get paid whether or not the audience takes any action.

Mobile Ad Reporting

Irrespective of the business model you chose, and the type of ad you are using for your mobile ad campaign, it is important that you pay due attention to its performance data reporting. All this data is offered by the ad network to the advertisers in one convenient dashboard.

Mobile Ad Targeting

Ads serve their purpose when the right audience is exposed to them. This is where targeting comes into the picture. There are multiple ways in which t advertisers and the publishers can ensure that the ads are displayed to a specific audience. Listed below are the targeting options that can be used for effective audience segmentation.

Geographic Location

This targeting option lets the advertisers and the publishers run their campaigns in specific geographical regions. This could be an entire country, a state, or smaller areas. This is best suited for advertisers who are serving a particular region only.

Gender

Using this targeting option, advertisers have the liberty to direct their campaigns and address a particular gender. This may be critical when you have a product that is of specific interest to one of the genders.

Interests

Some of the mobile ad networks collect mobile user data and build their profile. These networks then let the advertisers narrow down their audience segment and target those with specific interests.

Device

This targeting option lets the advertisers target the users with devices that meet certain specifications, particularly screen sizes. This is to make sure that the user experience is not compromised.

OS

This option lets the advertisers display ads on mobile devices that run on certain operating systems or versions of it. This ensures an evolved user experience by showing the ads to only those mobile users who have a suitable OS for best viewing experience.

Service Provider/Carrier

This is a great targeting option as it allows the advertisers to display their ads specifically to those users who use a particular mobile carrier. This means that they have the option to show ads to only that carrier that has best signal reception in a particular geographical region.

Connection

Mobile internet connectivity may be a concern in some geographical areas. Through this targeting option, advertisers can choose to display their ads on devices that are connected to Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, LTE etc.

It may sound a little complicated when you start with it, but once you read this post, you would have many options to pick from and start making progress immediately!

How to monetize your app using in-app advertising?

We did a blog post some time ago where we told you how to make money from your mobile app and the first one we talked about there was in-app advertising! This is super-easy and the most popular way to make money with your app.

What happens here is that you allow advertisers to put up ads on your app in exchange for money. As you are the app owner, you would be paid according to these factors below:

• number of impressions made by the ad, or
• the clicks they get, and
• the type of ads you allow on your app.

A video ad on your platform would help you earn more as compared to a banner ad.

One thing to remember is that you must think about your app users. Would they have the patience to wait for the video ad to finish, before they can get to the real app content? You don’t want to annoy them, do you?

Conclusion:

Mobile advertisements work and there is no doubt about it. Whether you are an advertiser, a developer, or a publisher, there is something for everyone in this.

When you are an advertiser, you are going to get relevant, quality traffic by opting for the right kind of platform.

As the ad publisher, you would definitely get compensated monetarily for showcasing the right kind of ads which are targeted according to the user base your app is catering to.

The idea here is to choose the right kind of platform according to the particular needs you have ahead of you.