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It has been a busy time here in Mountain View as more than 7,000 developers joined us at Shoreline Amphitheater for this year’s Google I/O. We made a number of big product announcements but I can’t help being most excited about one in particular — the newly redesigned AdMob ! Many of you rely on in-app ads for revenue — in fact, over 1 million apps now use AdMob to earn across iOS and Android. And to date, we’ve paid out over $3.5 billion dollars to developers like you. But we knew we could be doing even more to help you be successful. So we rebuilt the AdMob platform from the ground up to help you build a profitable business faster and to stay profitable as you scale. Simple to use with a brand new user interface Your time is valuable and we want you to spend it growing your business, not navigating our screens. With the new AdMob, everything from navigation to dashboards has been organized around your apps. The tools and features you need most are right at your fingertips. We’ve als...

All views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author, and not that of Google. This guest post is from Sreeraman Thiagarajan, a Google Developers Expert in the app marketing and monetization space and a published author on the Economic Times . Sreeraman is featured as our guest blogger to share insights and tips from his experience to help AdMob developers grow their earnings. If you’re new to AdMob, be sure to sign up here . In the introductory post we saw how AdMob lets app developers take control of monetizing their apps - here’s the second part on optimization and measuring. Optimizing revenue and volume: A counter question I often get goes like this “But other networks offer better eCPM (more dollar for every one thousand impressions served), why must I choose AdMob?” Answer for this lies in understanding two metrics and the two respective fundamentals behind each of these metrics. The first metric is ‘fill rate’ which means how many relevant ads can the a...

Many game developers use other successful titles (whether their own or from another developer) as examples of how to best design a game or monetize. This can be a smart move, especially when it comes to user interface elements like control scheme, player progress, and currency economics. However, when it comes to knowing what is the best way to monetize your app, copying other apps may leave you with money on the table. It's tempting to look at how successful titles in the app market are making money and mimic it. If it works so well for those games, you might say, it should work just as well for my game. While true in some cases, not all titles can bank on the exact same rhythm of in-app purchases and a sprinkle of rewarded video ads to meet revenue targets. So what can you do? Focus on what makes your game different-- from the art design to the leveling-- and experiment with in-app purchase and ad placements to fit to amplify this experience. Oh, and here’s where a little out of ...

Today we’re launching a new eBook called "The No-Nonsense Guide to Native Ads" , the latest in our No-Nonsense series. This guide is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of native ads and share practical tips and best practices for implementing native ads in your app. Over the last several years, app users have raised their expectations for a high quality app UX. To meet these expectations, ad formats have evolved accordingly. The most fitting new format that meets these higher expectations is native ads – ads that match the look and feel of the surrounding app content. And as spending on native ads is expected to grow to $21 billion in 2018, this presents a huge opportunity for publishers to enhance their user experience and tap into new revenues. In the eBook, you’ll learn: Guiding design principles that will help you better implement native ads  Practical tips and best practices for implementing native ads with lots of examples  Tips on how to set up a proper A/B...

“This experience has been life changing. From a hobbyist, who would have at most written apps used by a few friends, I have now an app used by millions, every day! It is just unbelievable... I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, and it has been the defining story of my life!” - Mohan Noone Dr. Mohan Noone is a Neurologist who was interested in programming. In 2011, he came across a service that provided live updates on train schedules and envisioned bringing that information to mobile devices. With that spark of inspiration, Noone purchased an Android book to start learning code. As he was building his app, he made sure that it was simple, functional and compact to create the best user experience. After listing his app on the Google Play store, he saw his app Indian Railway Train Status grow to over 5M downloads in just 3 years. Today, the app has over 500K daily active users. The problem Several months after the app was released, Noone looked for ways to monetiz...

Founded in 2011, Sohomob is a Hong Kong based company that’s well known for its successful mobile board game apps. They take pride in delivering high-quality games to users and focus on making the games beautiful, easy to use and functional. As a result, Sohomob’s games have attracted players from all over Asia, with Battle Ludo earning over 10M downloads. “AdMob is the most comprehensive and reliable product in the market” - Daniel Ho, co-founder, Sohomob The problem To build a sustainable business, Sohomob needed a way to monetize its growing user base without interfering with social gameplay. The solution Turning to AdMob because of its reputation for global reach, Sohomob implemented a variety of ad formats including banners, interstitials and videos. To avoid interfering with gameplay, Sohomob showed ads only in between levels and at natural breaks. This helped them engage users without disrupting the gaming experience. Sohomob also leveraged AdMob mediation and a d network opti...

Six years ago, Cheetah Mobile began as a small company of ten employees that built softwares for PCs. Today, they’re one of the world’s leading developers with over one thousand employees. Their popular apps Clean Master and Battery Doctor have been downloaded by millions around the world. “What we also enjoyed is seeing the speed at which AdMob is innovating, delivering new features. One good example is the support for native ads.”   - Charles Fan, Chief Technology Officer, Cheetah Mobile The problem With a growing user base, Cheetah Mobile needed a partner to help them expand to the global market while monetizing their apps. The solution Cheetah Mobile turned to Google as their first partner, using AdWords to drive downloads and AdMob to increase revenue from their apps. The results Within three years, Cheetah Mobile saw its user base grow 16X with 600M active users. 74% of their users came from outside of China and after implementing native ads for its popular Battery Doctor a...

This is post 4 of our 5-part blog series featuring monetization tips straight from successful app developers. If you’re interested in further exploring the question, “what’s the best way to monetize my app?”, check out our free No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization  ebook. Our guest this week is Elitza Bratkova, Director Business Development at MobiSystems, the company behind a few of the most popular business and productivity apps on Google Play. Their flagship product, OfficeSuite, is a successful mobile office solution for Android with a user base of over 200M download and preloaded users. A clear company value surfaced as a big part of MobiSystems' success – flexibility. Check out ways you can also use flexibility to your advantage with these tips: 1. Adapt quickly to promising platforms and opportunities. MobiSytems started over 10 years ago. In its early days, they created dictionaries for the most popular platforms – PalmOS and Pocket PC. When a new platform popped up called...

This is post 3 of our 5-part blog series featuring monetization tips straight from successful app developers. If you’re interested in further exploring the question, “what’s the best way to monetize my app?”, check out our free No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization . Our guest this week is Anthony Lai, founder of TapBlaze , a popular game app company based in Los Angeles, California. TapBlaze has developed over 15 titles, collectively garnering millions of downloads. Anthony’s been able to grow the company from a one-person show, to a team of 7 full-time developers, designers, and artists. Check out these tips from Anthony. 1. Design your app for retention. When Anthony first started TapBlaze, he initially focused on building simple, virtual simulation games. An example was his app “Good Pizza, Great Pizza”, which allowed users to virtually make and sell pizza. These early apps were interesting concepts and received a lot of attention but had a difficult time retaining customers. After...

We created The No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization to help you answer a burning question, “What’s the best way to monetize my app?”. Our new 5-part blog series provides additional tips straight from successful app developers. This week, meet Christoph Pferschy, the app developer and designer behind Hydro Coach . Hydro Coach is a drink reminder and water intake tracker that’s been growing in popularity, now receiving over 5,500 downloads a day. Check out these tips from Christoph. 1. Start small to get big Christoph is best known for his app Hydro Coach , but his company, Codium App Ideas, has a bigger vision. In his words, they’re on a mission “to create useful and high-quality health-related apps that are combinable to a single health & fitness system.” But right now, Christoph is focusing on just one app – Hydro Coach. Why? Because he believes the best way to accomplish a big goal is to focus on a critical piece and nail it. He chose Hydro Coach because he’s personally benefit...