Ad Quality & App Health yet again ranks as the second biggest monetization challenge for the second consecutive year, according to research by Gamesforum based on the feedback of industry leaders in Ad Monetization. And here is the reason for it: don’t deal with the Low Ad Quality and you will lose your loyal user base sooner rather than later.
It’s hard to overstate the gravity of the issue. It goes way beyond – “Poor Ads = Sad Users :(“
As proven by leading (and definitely our favorite) In-App Ad Quality Control Solution – AppHarbr by GeoEdge – Poor Ad Quality Influences ASO, It can lead to ANRs and Crashes and it can infect every aspect of your App and User Experience.
Reasons:
First of all, let’s figure out how App Publishers keep ending up with Low Quality Ads? Apart from Ad Networks’ and Advertisers’ responsibilities sometimes being neglected, some publishers have no other choice but to integrate multiple Ad Networks to maximize their revenue, leading to less control over the ads displayed. Apart from that there are Mediation Platforms and their prioritization of revenue optimization over quality optimization, Regulatory and Industry Bodies’ Inconsistent enforcement of standards and guidelines, and many many more moving parts that contribute to this issue are putting their cherry on top.
Research by GeoEdge (Needs to be referenced) reveals that 69.23% of app publishers noticed a negative impact on their mobile users due to poor ad quality. Furthermore, for 71%, poor ad quality has prompted their app users to uninstall their apps, a frustrating outcome given the high cost of user acquisition campaigns.
As a result, handling poor Ad Quality is a demanding and in some extreme cases impossible task that requires significant resources. While technology is available to mitigate the effects of poor ad quality, some industry players have considered forming coalitions of publishers. This united front could exert pressure on networks and advertisers to promote higher quality standards – so fingers crossed and godspeed but we wouldn’t hold our breath.
Solutions:
Let’s examine the issue more closely. Ad Quality problems demand substantial human efforts, daily involvement, and resources. Applying the Pareto Principle (80% of results come from 20% of efforts), it becomes clear that investing 100% of efforts for a marginal chance of control over an industry-wide issue is not the most efficient approach.
- The first and most obvious solution is partnering with Ad Quality Tech Companies. In recent years, firms like the Israeli AppHarbr, founded by veterans of GeoEdge—a company pioneering Ad Security and Quality since 2010—have emerged and already helped giants like Voodoo to tackle this issue.
- A second is to diversify your monetization sources. IAA has been there since the beginning and it is nowhere near its dawn with new companies emerging every year revolutionizing Ad Tech through new Ad Formats, AI-enhanced audience quality and so much more. However, we’re in a major recession since 2022 — Ad-free freemium or free apps are so rare nowadays that it seems they are about to go extinct.
The truth is, though IAA and IAP are universally applied, they can no longer generate sufficient revenues alone without substantially hurting User Experience. So it’s time for new monetization sources that have nothing to do with Ads.
Our BrightSDK introduces a revolutionary Ad-Free monetization solution. Made to support Bright Data’s network, the world’s largest Public Web Data Platform, the SDK works with an opt-in model where users can accept in-app offers for an instant reward (without pretending to watch irrelevant 30-second ads). Rewards might include premium features, In-game currency, fewer ads, unique skins, additional content, and so on offering the flexibility for any user to opt-out anytime. This ensures daily payments with fixed rates to app owners for each participating user without compromising their user experience or damaging existing monetization strategies.
Additionally, BrightSDK offers UA assistance, providing marketing funds and help from a team of UA professionals to its trusted partners.
But Bright SDK goes even further offering one of a kind solution for the Monetization Of Non-Active Users on platforms like Windows/Mac, Amazon, and WebOS (in case the users give their consent and unless they opt out or uninstall the app – the publisher will keep getting their daily rates).
Conclusion:
Reiterating the Pareto Principle: 20% of efforts will yield 80% of results. Instead of fixating on solving an unsolvable – Diversify! Allocate 20% to IAA, 20% to IAP, 20% to fix issues brought to you by IAA, 20% to collaborate with Ad Quality professionals, and 20% to explore new innovative monetization solutions. And if each of those 20s will bring you even half of the promised 80s – it would be without a doubt an astonishing success!
To be clear, this strategy is far from being radical or pioneering: the world’s largest mobile gaming studios are already adopting it. You can find them and their games on bright-sdk.com
P.S.
Ads will always be an irreplaceable monetization revenue stream in the mobile world. Ads are the reason billions of people were granted free access to millions of wonderful games and apps. But monopoly always leads to abuse and fraud. So our advice:
1. Use big well-known Ad Networks trusted by the biggest mobile studios
2. Prioritize quality over revenue or at least look for the balance and compensate for the revenue loss with Innovative Monetization Solutions like Non-Ad BrightSDK3. Prioritize your responsibilities – focus on monetization and leave Ad Quality to Professionals