Tips on how you can prevent invalid activity on your apps

Invalid activity is an important topic we'd like to discuss in today's post.

Invalid activity consists of any clicks or impressions that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings. Invalid activity covers intentionally fraudulent traffic as well as accidental clicks.

Publishers can take many preventative steps to prevent invalid activity on their accounts. If we find invalid activity in your app(s), you may be at risk for account suspension or disablement. We may also refund revenue generated from invalid clicks to affected advertisers.

Publishers must not artificially inflate the impressions or clicks the ads receive, either through automated or manual means. Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest.

We understand that a third party may generate invalid activity on your ads without your knowledge or permission. However, ultimately, it is your responsibility as the publisher to ensure that the activity on your ads is valid.

Here are some tips on how you can prevent invalid activity on your ads:

• Don't click on your own ads. This includes manually clicking on your live ads and employing automated means, including but not limited to robots or other deceptive software. Testing your live ads by clicking on them is not allowed. Please use test ads (available for Android, iOS, or Windows Phone) to avoid generating invalid impressions and clicks.
• Don't encourage or ask your friends, family, co-workers, etc. to click on your ads.
• Don't encourage or ask general users to click on your ads. This includes asking for users to support your app, offering rewards to users for clicking ads, and promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior.
• Make sure your ad implementations don't encourage accidental clicks. User flow is very important to consider when implementing your ads. For instance, interstitial ads unexpectedly surprising the user, and close proximity of banner ads to other elements within an app, are some of the biggest causes of accidental clicks. Check out our AdMob implementation guidance for more information.
• Avoid partnering with untrusted / low-quality parties. Some publishers have had issues with invalid activity when partnering with low-quality ad networks or app promotion sites in efforts to increase traffic to their app, which may increase the likelihood of ads being viewed or clicked. Again, it is ultimately the publisher's responsibility to ensure that the activity on their ads is valid. To help determine the source of your visitors, we recommend using Google Analytics for AdMob. For more information please visit our AdMob Help Center.

Posted by Danielle Chang
AdMob Policy Team

Updated Guidance on Implementing AdMob Interstitial Ads

We�ve recently made some updates to our AdMob Help Center to help provide further guidance on implementing interstitial ads. These best practices, along with examples of what you should and shouldn�t do, are designed to help developers implement interstitial ads.

Mobile devices have limited screen size, which means that careful planning for your ad placement is especially important. Improper implementation can lead to accidental clicks, and our goal is to build a strong ecosystem that benefits users, advertisers and developers in the long term.

Our goal is to provide examples which help developers create positive user experiences.  Users should not be overwhelmed with interstitial ads. Repeated interstitial ads often lead to poor user experiences and accidental clicks.

Additionally, users should not be surprised by interstitial ads. Placing interstitial ads so that they suddenly appear when a user is focused on a task at hand (e.g., playing a game, filling out a form, reading content) may lead to accidental clicks and often creates a frustrating user experience.

Finally, ads should not be placed in a way that prevents viewing the app�s core content, nor in a way that interferes with navigating or interacting with the app�s core content and functionality.

More examples and details, along with additional visual examples of best practices can be found on the AdMob Help Center. Here you will find disallowed implementations and recommendations on how to fix interstitial implementations, as well as general interstitial ad guidance.

Subscribe to app development insights from AdMob by Google here.

Posted by John Brown Head of Publisher Policy Communications

Find answers fast with the new AdMob Help Widget

To make it easier for you to access help while you're using AdMob, we've added a new, built-in Help Widget. The Help Widget lets you easily search and read help center articles directly from within AdMob.
To use the widget, click the �Question Mark� icon .
A pop-up will appear displaying help center content related to your current location in AdMob. You can also use the widget to search for other articles. Click any article you�re interested in, and it will still be shown inside the widget, all without leaving AdMob! Once you find your answer, you can leave the widget open on the side to easily follow the steps listed in the article. If you�re done using the widget, you can close it by clicking the �X� in the corner.

If you've been to the help center recently, you may have noticed a little box at the bottom of some of the pages. We've listened to your feedback and added a little human touch. In that box, you�ll find a picture of the �androidified� author of the article so you can get to know more about the people who worked on creating this content.

Next time you�re reading a help center article, don�t forget to scroll down to take a look at the author and maybe give them any feedback you might have. They'll be able to use your feedback to keep improving the article's content.

Omar Kassem

AdMob Support Specialist

AdMob Banner Ad Implementation Guidance

We�ve recently made some updates to our AdMob Help Center to help provide further guidance on implementing banner ads. These best practices, along with examples of what you should and shouldn�t do, are designed to help developers implement banner ads.

Mobile devices have limited screen size, which means that careful planning for your ad placement is especially important. Improper implementation can lead to accidental clicks, and our goal is to build a strong ecosystem that benefits users, advertisers and developers in the long term. 

Close proximity of banner ads to other elements within an app is one of the biggest causes of accidental clicks. To avoid accidental clicks, banner ads should not be placed next to interactive navigational buttons, such as a �next� button or on a game play screen where users are continuously interacting with the app.

For example, separating the banner ad from app interactive elements helps reduce user confusion and the likelihood of accidental clicks. Poor ad implementations often cause high levels of invalid activity due to the proximity of the ad to app clickable elements:

Do This	Don�t Do This

More examples and details, along with additional visual examples of best practices can be found on the AdMob help center.

Posted by John Brown

Head of Publisher Policy Communications

Our AdMob Support Team is Here for You!

We get it - it�s not easy being an app developer. From being inspired to create an app to the final moment of pushing it live to the app store, there are already plenty of challenges for you to overcome. That�s why our global AdMob support team is here to make monetizing your apps with AdMob as breezy as possible.

Over the past year, we�ve worked tirelessly to create and improve content on the AdMob Help Center so that you can easily find answers to your questions. However, we also understand that sometimes you just want to communicate with a real person.

That�s why beginning of this year we launched a new Contact Us flow. Anyone with an AdMob account that�s making more than $25 a week can reach us for assistance via the Help Center. Simply click on the �Contact Us� button (upper right hand corner). This applies to AdSense too. If you don�t qualify and can�t find that �Contact Us� button, don�t worry! You can still reach us via the issue-based troubleshooters found throughout our Help Center.

To give you a better idea of what we do, here are a few common questions we get:

• When am I getting paid?
• What happens to my AdMob account if I�m moving to another country?
• Why was there a difference between my estimated earnings and my finalized earnings last month?

Of course, that�s not all. We support up to 650k apps across 35 different languages via our email support, and we make it our top priority to answer your questions as quickly as we can. Our average response time is less than 1 business day, and last month, we achieved an 80% survey satisfaction rate through our support interactions with developers!

Here are a few more resources to help make your life easier!
AdMob Quick Guide
Help Center troubleshooters
Help Center �Contact Us� button
Google Mobile Ads SDK Developers
AdMob website
AdMob blog
Admob Google+
AdMob twitter

Don�t be shy in reaching out to us- we�re excited to hear more from you and see how we can improve your experience with AdMob!

Posted by Pauline Wang

Partner Support Specialist

New Year, New Website, 3 big reasons to check out the new AdMob website

Happy New Year! If you've been to the AdMob website recently, you may have noticed we made big changes to the site. In addition to the aesthetic upgrades, we�ve worked hard to make the website more helpful to you. Here are 3 reasons to check it out.

#1: Learn how we can help you reach your specific goals

AdMob is more than an ad network, it�s a robust platform that will help you reach your goals. Whether you need to learn new insights about your users, increase revenue, manage all of your advertising inventory, or drive more in-app purchases and installs, AdMob can help get you there. We restructured the site around these common goals, providing deeper insights into exactly how you can best use the product to grow.

# 2: Find new, relevant success stories

App developers have been thriving on AdMob. In this redesign, we've made sure to sprinkle developer stories all throughout the site�stories like how Jason Byrne and Robert Diem of Eltsoft have increased revenue 20x with AdMob interstitial ads, or how the game developers at Colopl have seen great results cross-promoting their own apps through AdMob. Additionally, we�ve added filters to our case studies section so that you can explore similar companies with similar goals.

#3 Discover helpful resources

Our new resource section includes a hub for great learning guides like Analytics Academy for Mobile Apps and the App Developer Business Kit. You�ll also find direct links to essential resources like our help desks and SDK integration tutorials and stay connected on all things mobile apps by following our blog and Google+ page.

Posted by Mark McDonald

Content Marketing Specialist, AdMob