Author: Jonathan

Getting a high eCPM is nice but I recommend the developers who are looking for the right ad network for their apps not to forget to ask themselves the following questions:
- is the ad solution easy to integrate?
- is it going to create bugs in my app(s)?
- am I going to get paid on time?
- will I get charged with extra payment fees?
- will I get a good support when I have questions ?

At AdBuddiz, we are obviously working hard to get the highest paying campaigns and bring high eCPMs to our publishers. But we are also paying a lot of attention to these questions. And here is how we answer them:

- the integration of our SDK requires only 2 lines of code. Simplicity is our motto
- we have thousands and thousands of apps running with our SDK and they are running like a charm
- we always pay on time (and even in advance in the case of wire transfers in order to make up with the transfer time)
- we are not charging payment fees (the fees you might get when receiving a payment come from Paypal or the banks involved in the wire transfer)
- we make sure everyone gets a reply from our support team within a day

Your problems are our problems. That’s why we have a poster at the office with a Steve Jobs’ quote that says : “If a user is having a problem, it’s our problem”. Since I am the CEO of AdBuddiz, I am at your service if you have any problems or suggestions. My email is public. Feel free to drop me a line: jonathan at adbuddiz dot com

   

Some developers are using the eCPM metric to compare the performance of ad networks. Let’s take the example of a developer who is testing 2 ad networks.
On network 1, he gets a $2 eCPM.
On network 2, he gets a $3 eCPM
It could be tempting for this developer to conclude that network 2 is better.

The problem is that if you do that, you are most likely comparing things that are completely different by essence.

If you are sending Eastern Europe traffic to network 1 and US traffic to network 2, it’s quite normal that the performance is not the same. The reason for that is that advertisers are willing to pay more for US than for Polish traffic. Generally speaking, there is a high chance that your traffic breakdown per country evolves over time so you won’t be comparing the same thing if the 2 tests are not conducted at the exact same time.

eCPM is nice but revenue is better!

I have talked to several developers who were reluctant to display ads if their eCPM was too low. They were simply thinking it was not worth the shot. However, a developer who has a lot of traffic in countries where advertisers propose low payouts can still make significant revenues ! So low eCPM doesn’t mean necessary low revenues !

So what other things you should look at when choosing an ad network ?
I will discuss this in my next post. Stay tuned!

As the CEO of AdBuddiz, I have the immense pleasure to discuss with many talented developers all over the world. I also enjoy the chance to see the impact of various ad monetization strategies on their revenues. I thought it would be interesting for me to share some of the lessons I learned.

My first series of posts are going to tackle issues related to a metric that is key in this industry: eCPM.

eCPM is an important metric…

CPM stands for Cost Per Mille. It is basically your revenues for 1000 impressions.
You probably also came across a slightly different acronym, “eCPM”.
eCPM (which stands for effective CPM) is the average CPM for all your traffic volume. For instance, if you generate $1000 with 100 000 impressions, your eCPM is $10. The eCPM is a nice way to evaluate the performance of the ads in your app(s).

As a result, when choosing an ad network, many developers want to know in advance what their eCPM will be. Problem is: it is impossible to predict.

Most of the ad networks in our industry (including AdBuddiz) work on a CPI model. Indeed, it’s the most profitable model for both the advertisers and publishers. CPI (Cost Per Install) means that our publishers make money each time they generate installs for our advertisers.

Our publishers’ CPM will depend on 2 factors :
- how many installs they generate for 1000 impressions
- how much the advertisers are willing to pay for each install

Problem is : these 2 parameters can fluctuate greatly. Why is that ?

Imagine a developer who spams his users by displaying one ad every 2 seconds. Imagine another one who displays one ad every 10 minutes. With the same number of impressions, the first one will generate much less installs for the advertisers than the second one because the more frequent the ads the less likely the users will interact with them. When you watch tv, your brain is more receptive to the ads that just follow the ending of your program. If you end up on a tv channel that displays a new ad every 2 seconds, you’ll simply ignore them and change the channel. It’s the same with mobile ads :)

Advertisers propose different install payouts depending on several parameters (country of the install, device of the user, OS versions…).

Thus, it’s impossible for anyone to know the eCPM in advance. As we realize it can be quite frustrating for some developers not to have this info, we decided (at AdBuddiz) to communicate an eCPM based on observations: the calculated eCPM that we are observing among our publishers can be up to $10. We even have some very high quality publishers that sometimes reach more than $15.

Next week I’ll discuss why comparing eCPMs can lead you to compare apples and tomatoes. Stay tuned!