How to Optimize Placement Networks on Admob?
How to optimize placement networks on Admob?
I wanted to devote this week’s newsletter to some more practical information on a pain point that I frequently have to contend with. That is how to optimize placement networks on the Admob mediation platform. Admob can sometimes be confusing and clunky to use, so here’s how I optimize placement networks on Admob.
You’ll need to access the mediation report tab and split up the data into useful components by App and ad type. Start by selecting for example:
App → Select one Android App → Last 7 days → Dimensions → Ad Source Instance
Once you have the data set up like this, click the 3 dots in the top right corner, download it as a CSV, and open it in an Excel spreadsheet. To accurately read the data you’ll need to create two new columns to see % revenue per instance and fill rate per instance.
In excel sheet:
- You’ll need to create a new column next to the revenue column (Column C) and calculate the percentage of earnings per instance as a percentage of all earnings.
- You’ll need to create a new column next to the Impressions column. In this column, you divide impressions by requests, which will give you the fill rate per instance.
Now you have useful data that you can use to make optimization decisions! Now you can start looking at the data. What you’re looking for is fill rates over 1% on instances. If a network is filling at 1% or above that means you can build out higher with that network.
Let’s say a DTx $1.5 banner placement is filling at 1.5%. This means that the network is willing to pay a higher eCPM price for your inventory. This means you can increase that placement to $1.7 or $1.8 as that network is willing to pay more. This means you need to go inside of the ad network dashboard make that placement and add it to your mediation group. If the same $1.5 placement was filling at less than 0.5% then consider moving it down to $1.1 till you find closer to a fill rate between 0.5-1%.
Your aim in calculating the SoR per instance and Fill rate per instance is to use this data to find pockets of revenue in the networks on instances to optimize towards. If you don’t have the right placements then you’re losing out on revenue. These levels tend also to shift seasonally so you need to do this regularly.
As you can see this is very time-consuming. The good news is that most of the networks on Admob are slowly moving to being header bidding only meaning that you don’t need to optimize the waterfall to get the highest revenues.
As you can see, this is very time-consuming. The good news is that most of the networks on Admob are slowly moving to header bidding only, meaning that you don’t need to optimize the waterfall to get the highest revenues.
💰Great Content 💰
If you’re reading this far into the newsletter, you’re an absolute Ad Monetization nerd. So, I thought I’d spoil you with a 31:20-minute monologue on Ad Monetization for beginners. Since there’s so little information on the basics of ad revenue for mobile on the web, I decided to put it all into one episode. I cover filling rate, eCPM, how ad networks earn revenue, choosing a mediation platform, etc. Essentially, all the goodies you need to get started with ads on mobile.
🎯The Cinderella of the Week🎯
Miracles still happen! Despite the uber-competitive landscape in mobile, solo developers can still scale their IAA monetized games to crazy levels. This section is to salute you. Why? Because everyone loves a Cinderella story… that’s why.
The second week straight with no Cinderella.. it’s starting to make me a bit sad. So, I thought I’d use this part of the newsletter to highlight a game that I think particularly innovated on their hybrid ad monetization strategy. That is Voodoo ’s Cup Heroes.
According to my estimates, Cup Heroes has grown to 1.3 million daily active users and generates around $30k/day in IAPs and about $70k/day in Ad revenue.
👏 The real design innovation here is how Cup Heroes separates the value of Rewarded Ads between core gameplay and meta gameplay. During waves, Rewarded Ads are used strictly to power up character abilities, but once a wave is completed, all boosters and rewards are reset. This approach requires players to re-watch ads for each run, allowing Cup Heroes to present up to 28 rewarded ad opportunities per 10-12 minute session without inflating the game’s economy. 👏
By decoupling ads from the core economy, Cup Heroes avoids the usual inflation and maximizes ad engagement without destabilizing the balance. This could be the blueprint for how hybrid-casual games optimize ad monetization moving forward. 👍
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