The Top 6 Mobile Ad Monetization Models

The mobile ad market is at a pace to hit $31. 5 Billion by years end. Consequently, numerous mobile ad companies have sprouted up. The mobile ad companies are wooing developers with various monetization models that can easily be integrated into an app with their SDK. This post lists 6 of the dominant mobile ad monetization models.

1. Banner Ads is what most people think mobile ads are.

They typically will occupy the real estate at the top or bottom of an app. If the user taps the ad, all sorts of possibilities open up from watching a video to the option of downloading an app. The dominant players for banner ads are Apple’s iAd and Google’s AdMob.

2. Interstitial Ads are inserted at transition points in an app like right before an app starts or in a case of a game after a level is complete. It’s like watching a commercial on television. It’s typically a video that can drop the user off to the advertiser’s desired URL or to download
another app. Some of the mobile advertisers that use this model include TapJoy,RevMob, and Flurry.

3. Rewards Ads are my favorite because it’s a win – win for all involved. The reward is triggered by some event in the app like getting an achievement. The user will see a pop up where they will get a discount, gift card, coupon, etc. The owner of the app will also get compensated too. So everyone’s a winner. Players in this space are Kiip and Avocarrot.

4. Offer Walls are typically used in games where virtual goods are sold for real currency. The offer wall gives the player the option of earning virtual goods by performing some action on the wall. For example, a player can earn virtual gold by signing up for a trial Netflix account. Mobile Advertisers that support Offer Walls areTapJoyStartApp, and Fiksu.

5. Notification Ads: I’m not a big fan of notification ads. Apps that support notification ads act like a Trojan horse (To be fair, users have to Opt-in.) They will be able to push notification ads even when the app is dormant. Notification Ads are only supported on Android. My theory is that the reason that it’s not supported on iOS is that Apple rejects it because of the Trojan-like nature. AirPush and LeadBolt offer this mechanism.

6. Native Advertising is used for apps that are content based and typically show up in the apps’ news feed. Facebook adopted native advertising and has done exceptionally well. Mobile advertisers that offer native advertising include AdRollSharethrough, and PubNative.

If you plan to develop an app that incorporates mobile advertising, my advice is to research the different mobile ad models, select one, then design the app to support that model.