#MeetAdMob at MWC and GDC Next Week

Are you prepared for the huge mobile development conferences happening around the world next week? The Google AdMob team is excited to attend both the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and Game Developer�s Conference in San Francisco. If you�re attending either event, be sure to visit our booth. We�d love to hear about your app and share ways that you could supercharge monetization with AdMob.

At Mobile World Congress, we�ll be at the Google booth with our colleagues from the Cloud Platform and Adwords teams, other great services that can help you build and grow your app. There�ll also be several exciting Google talks including a keynote from Senior Vice President, for Android, Chrome & Apps, Sundar Pichai, and a panel discussion with Senior Director for YouTube, Stephen Nuttall.

At the Game Developers Conference, we�ll be at the Google booth with Project Tango, Niantic Project, Cardboard, Analytics, AdWords and Cloud Platform. There will be tons of interactive demos and on-site consultations that you won�t want to miss.

We�ll also be hosting a session at GDC called Smart Strategies to Acquire, Monetize and Retain Gamers. This talk will be by Director of Product Management for Mobile Ads, Jonathan Alferness, and Google�s Lead Product Manager for Google Analytics and Mobile Apps, Russell Ketchum. See all the details about our Google Developer Day here and check out all the other Google talks on the GDC scheduler.

If you can�t attend either event this year, we�ll be live tweeting and sharing on Google+ and Twitter, so stay in the loop with what�s happening with #MeetAdMob. Also, you can still check out our morning talks from GDC on our livestream at g.co/dev/gdc-livestream.

Posted by the Google AdMob Team

We'll see you at GDC 2015!

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is less than one week away in San Francisco. This year Google will host our annual Developer Day at West Hall and be on the Expo floor in booth #502. We�re excited to give you a glimpse into how we are helping mobile game developers build successful businesses and improve user experiences.

Our Developer Day will take place in Room 2006 of the West Hall of Moscone Center on Monday, March 2. We're keeping the content action-oriented with a few presentations and lightning talks, followed by a full afternoon of hands on hacking with Google engineers. Here�s a look at the schedule:

Opening Keynote || 10AM: We�ll kick off the day by sharing to make your games more successful with Google. You�ll hear about new platforms, new tools to make development easier, and ways to measure your mobile games and monetize them.

Running A Successful Games Business with Google || 10:30AM: Next we�ll hear from Bob Meese, the Global Head of Games Business Development from Google Play, who�ll offer some key pointers on how to make sure you're best taking advantage of unique tools on Google Play to grow your business effectively.

Lightning Talks || 11:15AM: Ready to absorb all the opportunities Google has to offer your game business? These quick, 5-minute talks will cover everything from FlatBuffers to Google Cast to data interpolation. To keep us on track, a gong may be involved.

Code Labs || 1:30PM: After lunch, we�ll turn the room into a classroom setting where you can participate in a number of self-guided code labs focused on leveraging Analytics, Google Play game services, Firebase and VR with Cardboard. These Code Labs are completely self-paced and will be available throughout the afternoon. If you want admission to the code labs earlier, sign up for Priority Access here!

Also, be sure to check out the Google booth on the Expo floor to get hands on experiences with Project Tango, Niantic Labs and Cardboard starting on Wednesday, March 4. Teams from AdWords, Analytics, Cloud Platform, Firebase and AdMob will also be available to answer any of your product questions.

For more information on our presence at GDC, including a full list of our talks and speaker details, please visit g.co/dev/gdc2015. Please note that these events are part of the official Game Developer's Conference, so you will need a pass to attend. If you can't attend GDC in person, you can still check out our morning talks on our livestream at g.co/dev/gdc-livestream. We�ll also be live tweeting and sharing on Google+, so stay in the loop with what�s happening with #MeetAdMob.

Posted by the Google AdMob Team. 

Introducing the new AdSense Revenue profile

Starting today, a new Revenue profile report will be available in your AdSense account. Currently, AdSense reporting shows you an average of your ad request RPM. This new report will help you understand the value of your top performing ad requests in more detail.

The AdSense ad auction handles billions of ad requests each day, channeling demand from AdWords advertisers and Google certified ad networks (via the DoubleClick Ad Exchange) to our publishers. This real-time digital ad marketplace works to serve high paying ads on your site. Now, you will be able to see the performance of these valuable ads. For example, you can now see the RPM of the top 5% of ads performing on your site.

To make sure you're getting the most out of the ads on your site, follow these best practices:

• Place AdSense ad code directly on all eligible pages
• Opt in to show interest-based ads on your site
• Enable third-party ads
• Adjust your ads to show both text and image ads
• Make your site multi-screen friendly and boost your revenue using responsive ads

The new Revenue profile report is available if your AdSense account receives a minimum number of ad requests. It currently offers an aggregate view of your account and we are working to offer a more complete picture with detailed reporting in the future.

Find out more about the new Revenue profile in the AdSense Help Center and let us know what you think about this feature in the comments section below.

Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager
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Lowdown: How to Optimize Mediation for your App Part 2

Lowdown is a weekly series that brings you tips and tricks on how to best use AdMob to grow your app business, directly from members of the Google AdMob team.

Optimizing your mediation setup will help you get the highest CPMs from the ad placements in your app. Last week, I covered how to use dynamic, real time competition (the Live CPM feature) to increase your chances of higher CPMs. If you haven�t done so, make sure to read through that article for a clear explanation of what mediation is and how to enable Live CPM. This week I�ll go over two more strategies that will further enhance your competitive setup.

Regularly Update Your CPM Assignments

Make sure to update the CPM you assign for each of the ad networks in your mediation stack once every 10-14 days. Advertising network CPMs fluctuate over time. You want to be certain that the CPM you assigned for each network isn�t inaccurately high, causing you to settle for lower CPMs. Also, plan for your 10-14 day cycles to land on the first of every month, when advertiser�s usually reset their budgets.

Segment Your Assigned CPM Values

To further intensify competition, segment your assigned CPM values based on geography. Impressions from different geographic locations can differ in value. Many developers will calculate a unique value for their most profitable regions and do a separate calculation for their Rest of World (ROW) inventory.

To better understand how to segment by geography and increase the accuracy of your competitive setup, let�s use a real world app example. Imagine you�ve developed an app that�s very popular in Japan and in the US. When analyzing your mediation stack, it might be interesting to segment Japan and the US from the rest of the world and calculate the average CPM for each bucket. After doing so, you realized that one of your 3rd party advertising networks delivers $2 CPMs on average, but US and Japanese CPMs average $2.50 while the Rest of World CPM is $1.50. Instead of using the world average of $2.00, where AdMob would only need to beat $2.00 to serve a US and Japan impression, AdMob must now beat $2.50 to serve. Segmentation by geography brought precision to your competition, yielding potentially higher earnings.

For more detailed instruction on mediation in AdMob, be sure to visit our Help Center. In the next edition of Lowdown, we�ll be looking at how you can begin to calculate the value of each user using Google Analytics. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Google+ page.

Posted by Adam Wolf
AdMob Account Strategist

Google Consumer Surveys: An additional way to monetize your site

Google Consumer Surveys is a great way for publishers to create an additional revenue stream for their content. When a user visits your site, they will have the option to answer a few survey questions in exchange for access to content. Each time a site visitor answers a survey question, you will earn $.05. Check out how Times Publishing Company generated incremental revenue with Google Consumer Surveys.

Example of Google Consumer Surveys on a news page

Highlights of Google Consumer Surveys include:

• Earn $0.05 or local equivalent for each answered question
• Easy to implement
• You decide where and how surveys are shown
• Survey prompt appears inline as visitor views content 

Join the 700+ sites that are currently using Google Consumer Surveys as a new way to successfully monetize their content.  Use your existing AdSense account and start earning additional revenue for your site. Currently available in the US, UK, and Canada with plans to roll out to more countries soon.

To learn more, check out Google Consumer Surveys website. 

Posted by Amy Adams Harding - Head of Publisher Development

Introducing AdMob App Spotlight Video Series

Want to make smarter choices to improve your app�s user experience and grow your business? Learn from successful app developers by taking a look at the decisions they�ve made in their apps in our new App Spotlight Video Series. This series offers in-depth walkthroughs of great apps, highlighting practical tips and tricks. Our first video features PicsArt, a photo sharing app that�s recently reported over 200M downloads. Stay tuned for more App Spotlight videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel and following us on Google+.

Posted by the Google AdMob Team

Lowdown: How to Optimize Mediation for your App Part 1

Lowdown is a weekly series that brings you tips and tricks on how to best use AdMob to grow your app business, directly from members of the Google AdMob team.

A key goal for many app developers is to maximize revenue. If you monetize with multiple ad networks, you'll know that some have fluctuating CPMs and fill rates. AdMob mediation can help you determine the most valuable ad to serve in your app, and AdMob can help you determine which ads to serve.

Today, we�re going to dive deeper into how our mediation platform works and introduce an optimization strategy that may increase your app�s revenue�enabling a feature called Live CPM. The best way to understand this feature is to first understand how basic mediation works.

Mediation

AdMob is a robust mobile ads platform that includes mediation�allowing you to serve ad impressions from multiple 3rd party networks, your own house ads, and Google�s advertising inventory. With basic mediation, you�re required to rank all of the ad networks you use, assigning a predicted CPM for each one. When it�s time to serve an ad, the mediation platform will first make a request to the network you�ve ranked as number 1. If that network doesn�t serve an ad, it will make a request to your second-ranked network. It will continue down your list until an ad is served. Although helpful, this setup is unsophisticated. It doesn�t matter if network 2 or 3 is able to pay you a higher CPM, you�ve already committed yourself to the fixed ranking, and there�s a better way to increase revenue.

Mediation with Live CPM

In contrast, when the Live CPM feature is enabled, you increase your chances of higher CPMs with real time, dynamic competition. When it�s time to serve an ad in your app, Google�s advertising demand will provide its most valuable CPM, and compare this to the CPM you�ve assigned for your first-ranked network. Whichever network has a higher CPM will get the impression.

If your first-ranked network wins, but is unable to fill the impression, the process will repeat with the next-ranked network in your chain. This all happens in real time.

When enabling Live CPM, the initial results can be startling. Without it, you�re much more likely to miss your next network�s top tier demand. With it, your set-up is dynamic and top tier impressions from both AdMob and your other networks can be served. If you�d like to learn more, check out our case study on how Thapster, a smartphone music game app, succeeded with Live CPM and visit our Help Center to get more in-depth instructions on how to implement it.

In the next edition of Lowdown we�ll be looking at how you can further optimize Live CPM. Be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Google+ page.







Posted by Adam Wolf
AdMob Account Strategist

Love is all around: 8 tips romantic movies can teach us about content strategy (Part 4 of 4)

Welcome to the last part of our Valentine�s Day blog series. Today, we�ll explore what eight of the most loved romantic movies of the last few years can teach us about content strategy.

Romantic movies are always a popular choice for Valentine's Day. In the spirit of this special day, we watched some classic romantic movies (for research, of course) to see what they can teach us about content strategy.

Here�s the top tips we found:

1. P.S. I Love You - Have a single common goal

Gerry and his series of letters were designed to encourage Holly to move forward to a new life. Similarly, when you�re creating a series of content pieces, ensure that they have a single common goal or call to action such as email sign-up. All pieces of content should link together and guide your visitors toward a desired goal or call to action.

2. 10 Things I Hate About You - Use list-based articles

This one comes directly from the title of the movie. List-based articles (listicles) provide a great way to deliver your message in a structured and engaging way. Keep them short and easy to read to grab the attention of your visitors.

3. When Harry Met Sally� - Make your content memorable 

When you ask someone what they remember about this movie, it�s highly likely that they will respond with one of several key scenes. Why? Because the film masterfully creates scenes that are both embarrassing and hilarious, making them very easy to recall. When you�re creating your content, ask yourself �Does this content have at least one memorable moment? Is there something that will stick with the my visitor?"

4. Love Actually - Link content pieces to each other

Love Actually tells nine intertwined stories with a common emotion, �love�. Consider all of the content on your site pages in a similar way. Each piece of your content may target one particular theme or audience but in the end, they should serve the same purpose.

5. You�ve Got Mail - Use email marketing

When you�re selecting your distribution channels for your content, make sure to use email. It can be an effective, easy, and inexpensive way to keep your visitors up to date. It also offers a great way to reach your mobile audience.

6. The Princess Bride - Know your audience

For a particular audience, the Princess Bride is the most romantic movie of all time. For others, it doesn�t even rate. This is because the film resonates with a certain audience. In the same way, if you know your audience, you can craft successful content. Get to know your audience more by using experimentation, market research, and other tools.

7. Pretty Woman - Bring unique value to your content

Pretty Woman is a modern retelling of the classic Cinderella story. Similarly, the subject of your content doesn�t have to be a completely original thought or subject matter. Your visitors want to see your personal opinion or a unique value in your content. Start by asking yourself �What is the unique value I�m adding to the subject matter?� or �What am I providing that no one else is providing?�

8. Forrest Gump - Provide a good user experience

To refer to Tom Hanks� iconic line in Forrest Gump in a modern content strategy way: �Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what screen you�re gonna get.� Thanks to the rapid growth of mobile traffic, your content is now viewed on multiple devices. If your site is still not multi-screen optimized, check out our Multi-Screen Starter Guide, and if you already have a multi-screen website, ensure you�re giving your audience the best visitor experience by using the Multi-Screen Implementation Guide.

To wrap up, try thinking about these eight tips and how they can be applied to your content strategy. Are you giving your content the love it deserves? Much like Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca will �always have Paris� together, remember that you and your visitors will always have your content, if you get your strategy right. 

Posted by Chris Jones, Audience Development Specialist
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Smarter monetization strategies - powered by AdMob�s new reporting tools

Wouldn�t it be great if you could slice and dice your app performance data and drill down to the most specific and actionable insight to help you monetize smarter? We�d like to to announce a new feature in AdMob to help you achieve that. In the Monetization section of AdMob, you can now directly apply multiple Dimensions and Filters in your Performance Reports and instantly generate customized reports to analyze, for example, the performance of specific apps and ad units in particular regions or countries.

By applying dimensions, you can sort or change the types of data shown. Dimensions determine the columns displayed in your report. You can add dimensions to two different performance reports: the AdMob Network report and Admob Mediation report. Below are some example dimensions:

• AdMob Network report dimensions:
• Date: View performance by date.
• App: View performance by app.
• Targeting type: View performance by targeting type.
• AdMob Mediation report dimensions:
• Date: View performance by date.
• Ad source: View performance by ad source, which measures mediation traffic.
• Allocation: View performance by allocation within ad slots.

By applying filters, you can hide specific data from your reports. Filters help you find the information you want within the larger report. Below are some example filters:

• Ad unit
• Country
• Ad source

For instance, if you want to compare your new Android app�s banner and interstitial ads in Japan, simply select �Ad Unit� as a Dimension, then add an �App� Filter set as one of your Android apps, and a �Country� Filter set as Japan. The graph and data will refresh immediately to represent this new segment!

Check out this new feature today and start refining your monetization strategy now. Refer to Performance Reports help center article for more details, and stay connected on all things AdMob following our Google+ page.

Posted by Sean Meng

AdMob Marketing

Love is all around: Improve your site experience with Google Analytics (Part 3 of 4)

Welcome to the third part of our Valentine�s Day blog series. Today, we�ll focus on how Google Analytics can help improve the performance and user experience on your site.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you analyze the behavior of your site visitors. With Google Analytics, you can gain valuable insights into improving your site.

The very first step is to link your Google Analytics and AdSense accounts in a few easy steps. After your accounts are linked, you can start viewing AdSense reports in Google Analytics.

Here are five ways to improve the performance of your site by analyzing your Analytics reports:

1. Optimize your revenue by identifying top visited pages

Do you know which of your pages receive the most traffic? Check out the �Top Visited Pages� report to identify the pages that are visited the most and where your users spend the majority of their time. You can optimize these pages for higher conversion and engagement. To make the most of these popular pages, check out our best practices for ad placement.

2. Increase traffic by prioritizing top traffic sources

Which sites are driving traffic to your site? The AdSense Referrers Report allows you to identify the key traffic sources visiting your site. By knowing these sources, you can better tailor your content to make your visitors come back to your site.

3. Identify and optimize the last pages viewed on your site

Where do your site visitors leave your site? You can analyze the top exit pages of your site with the Exit Pages report (found under Behavior reports). Optimizing or fixing these pages could help increase the traffic to your site. 

4. Improve user experience by increasing page speed 

How long do your visitors wait to see your content? By using the Site Speed reports, you can view detailed information about the load speed of your pages. Faster pages lead to better user experience. With these reports, identify pages that have a longer load time and start improving them.

5. Get quick insights with In-Page Analytics

Are your users finding what they're looking for on your pages? The Page Analytics Chrome Extension will help you visualize how your users interact with your site. With this tool, you can see where your visitors are focused and optimize your pages for a better experience.

Learn more about how to gain insights from Google Analytics reports with Analytics Academy today.  

Posted by Cansu Ozaras - Publisher Monetization Specialist
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Love is all around: Visitors love multi-screen sites (Part 2 of 4)

Welcome to the second part of our Valentine�s Day blog series. Today, we�ll take a closer look how to best reach your audience across devices.

This Valentine's Day, many consumers will be shopping for gifts on their mobile devices. In fact, just last year, mobile drove 36.8% of all online traffic during Valentine�s Day, up 13 percentage points compared to the same period in 2013.*

Adopting a multi-screen strategy allows you to offer your site visitors the best experience across devices. It can also help you capture more revenue and drive more traffic to your site. Check out the video below to learn more about how going multi-screen has helped other AdSense publishers grow their business online:

To make the most of your multi-screen traffic, go mobile today. If you�d like some tips on how to build or optimize your multi-screen website, check out our multi-screen guidelines which cover the following topics:

Multi-Screen Starter Guide

• Why go multi-screen?
• Multi-screen success stories
• What are the common approaches? 
• How to build a multi-screen site
• Getting technical support from a multi-screen vendor

Multi-Screen Implementation Guide

• Monetization tips
• Mobile user experience tips
• Mobile search engine optimization tips

Your visitors love it when they have a great site experience. Show your love and appreciation by going multi-screen today.

Posted by Yigit Yucel - Inside AdSense Team
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* IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, February 2014

Love is all around: Is your website ready for Valentine's Day? (Part 1 of 4)

Valentine�s Day is approaching and love is in the air. 25% of customers are planning to shop for Valentine's gifts online*�a perfect opportunity for advertisers to spend more, and for you to earn more.

To make the most of this busy season, let�s start with tips to optimize ads on your website:

• Maximize revenue with multiple ads: Showing more ads can help you earn more. You can put up to three standard AdSense for content ads (this includes a maximum of one 300x600 ad, or similar sized ad) on each page of your site. To ensure you're balancing ads with your site content, check out our recommendations for creating a great user experience in the AdSense Help Center.

• Find the best ad placement for your website: Check out our best practices for ad placement to find the right ad placement for your site, even if you run a News site or Gaming site. 

• Display both text and image ads: Displaying both text and image ads lets more advertisers compete for your ad space�which means you could earn more.

To receive more tips for your website, update your contact details and ensure you�re subscribed to AdSense emails.

Check back on Monday to learn more about how you can reach your audience across devices.

Posted by Yigit Yucel - Inside AdSense Team
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* Source: National Retail Foundation, January 2015

8 Things You Didn�t Know About AdMob

We�re constantly improving our platform and want to keep you in the loop. Here are 8 things you might not have known about AdMob.

1. AdMob is more than a banner only network.

AdMob taps into Google�s massive advertising inventory, which includes a variety of formats and also enables us to offer really high fill rates. Competitive CPMs combined with really high fill rates is a strong recipe for long term earning potential.

2. Implementing AdMob won�t slow down your Android app.

AdMob�s SDK is integrated into Google Play services�if you�re in the Play Store, you�ve already integrated the AdMob SDK. Further, there are several simple ways to decrease Google Play services� impact on APK size.

3. There�s a clever way to make sure interstitial ads load instantly for users.

We allow, and highly recommend, preloading of interstitial ads right when a user logs in. It�s an interstitials best practice. If implemented right, there isn�t latency at all.

4. Google Analytics is integrated into AdMob and works for more than websites.

Google Mobile App Analytics has been entirely re-imagined for mobile development. We measure what matters most at all key stages: from first discovery and download to in-app purchases. Best yet, Google Analytics is now fully available in AdMob.

5. AdMob works across all major platforms.

AdMob works for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. Great examples of succesful cross-platform AdMob users include Dictionary.com and photo sharing app, Picsart.

6. You can update CPMs automatically with AdMob.

AdMob�s Network Optimization feature allows you to automatically update CPMs, helping you easily maximize revenue. This feature continually retrieves the freshest CPMs from each ad network based on historical performance and dynamically reorders them in your mediation stack. This ensures that the ad network with the highest CPM is served.

7. You can mediate on AdMob.

AdMob is a comprehensive mediation platform, supporting mediation of dozens of the top networks in the world.

8. House ad campaigns are free.

You can run as many house ads as you�d like for free. You can read more here about how Japanese game developer, Colopl, has been very successful using interstitial house ads to promote in-app purchases.

Go here to learn more about all that AdMob can do to help you grow your business and stay connected on all things AdMob following our Google+ page.

Posted by the Google AdMob Team

Adding more functionality to the "mute this ad" feature

A few years ago we launched a product called "Mute this ad" - a small [x] that appears in the corner of some display ads on the Google Display Network. When a user clicked the [x], they no longer saw ads from that particular ad campaign.

We�ve found that increased user control benefits the entire ads ecosystem, so we�ve launched features and products like "Mute this ad" and TrueView ads on YouTube to give users more control over ads they see online. With �Mute this ad,� users have a way to signal that they aren�t interested in certain ads, advertisers no longer pay to show ads to users who aren�t interested, and publishers like you show better performing (and potentially more valuable) ads on your site.

Now with �Mute this ad�, when a user clicks on the Mute button "[x]" and completes a short survey, when possible, the ad disappears from the page. The space previously occupied by the ad collapses smoothly, allowing the content surrounding the ad to fill the space.

This new feature gives users additional control over ad units. It also helps us find ad placements and creatives that users may not prefer so that we can continue working hard to serve better performing ads on your site.

As always, we�d love to hear your feedback. Tell us what you think about this new feature in the comment section below this post.

Posted by Michael Aiello - Product Manager

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