Although we wrote just yesterday about how mobile ad spending isn’t really a huge source of income for Google et al, Google apparently is undeterred. They just announced several updates to the way that people can use Google to to drive new ad installs, including expanding where these ads can be shown, offering advertisers the option of creating interstitial video ads and improving bidding based on prospective installers.
Google states that people now have the option of showing app install ads on both the AdMob network and the mobile Google Display Network. This is a fairly significant increase in potential user base, since the AdMob network reaches 650K apps, but the mobile GDN shows ads on over 2 million websites.
Video Ads
Another major thing is allowing app developers to use interstitial videos to display how a game works. According to one app developer, using videos to advertise apps has increased their installs while lowering their costs. I normally don’t mention these things, since Google always digs up someone to say that thanks to Google’s newest feature, there’s a line of trucks filled with gold outside of their HQ, but in some cases, I can see where video would make a huge difference.
For example, Game of War spent $40 million to make their ads featuring Kate Upton, which is fairly pricey and sounds ridiculous for a free video game app – until you discover that they are reportedly making one million dollars a day off the game.
Improved Bidding
However, I think the best part of what Google is now offering is their improved bidding options.
With the conversion optimizer, you can spend more money to show ads to people who are most likely to purchase items in your app. If you’re an app developer that creates games, this is huge. People who have already made in-app purchases are far more likely to do so again, so if you’ve got a free app that makes money this way, it’s hard to imagine a better way to bid.
