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How to delete #annoying from the advertising strategy of your app?

  Updated   4 min read

As an app publisher considering advertising to monetize your app, you’ve landed in the right spot. Indeed, with our app builder you have the possibility to enable flexible advertising solutions, with the opportunity to manage them first hand. Today, we will also give you a few guidelines on how to avoid annoying advertising practices and make your ad placements more interesting and ultimately, more effective.
With our platform, you can choose between external advertising networks and our internal ad server. If you want to start generating ad revenues with your app, these Add-Ons can be enabled easily from our Add-Ons store. Now, let's look at both solutions and their pros and cons. 

External ad networks vs Internal ad server

Ad networks will provide you with diversified ad material. Depending on the provider you pick and the criteria you select, ad space can sometimes be left empty, when there is no related content available to display. Broadening your criteria can bypass this eventuality, but beware of relevance issues. On the contrary, targeted ad campaigns, even with a smaller reach, usually deliver more, ROI wise, than unqualified display at large.

The good news is, we've got you covered for this type of strategy: to make your app more cost efficient, with GoodBarber, you can choose several ad networks and rank them by order of importance. So, even if your first ad network doesn't have any ads available to display at a given time, the second one listed can take over and fill the empty space, thus optimizing your monetization strategy. 
For a more hands-on approach, you can rely on our internal ad server to circulate your own ads: set them up from the back office of your app and monitor their performance. Knowing your target is the golden rule of any marketing and advertising campaign, which is precisely what your GoodBarber back office allows. Just like the rest of your content, your ads should resonate with your audience. Identifying your audience’s interests is key to achieving this goal. 

Make use of the statistics displayed in your back office, connect your favorite external services (Google Analytics and Flurry) and get to know your users. Age, geographic location, genre, etc., target your campaigns accordingly and track their performance. This data will also help to close deals with potential advertisers and sponsors. For instance, let’s say your app is for an upcoming event, different stands and partners are probably already lined up. A good way to empower your app would be to offer them the opportunity to be featured in the advertising strategy of your app. 

Content and ads, a fine line

With new user behaviors and ad blocking going mobile, content and advertising should work alongside each other now more than ever. Back to our event app: if a food truck is present on location, it can be promoted through an mCMS map section, with more information, such as pictures of the truck, food served, or even a video. The internal ad server can circulate an ad (splash screen or banner format) and, last but not least, the app publisher can sell geo alert features as a way to further engage app users and drive people to the food truck. Nowadays, making Beacons and Geofencing part of a package offering is certain to spark sponsors’ interest.

The internal ad server is great in the sense that it a versatile solution. The life cycle of each app is different, but, let’s take the example of an event app again, leading up to the starting date, advertising space might not be as packed as during the event. Rather than leaving this advertising space empty, why not use it to advertise your own work? A specific workshop you want to drive attention to, a contest to win free tickets or even a side project.

The internal ad server offers another crucial advantage, managing the design of your campaigns. If you are creating a Beautiful App, it deserves beautiful ads too. Appealing ads are better incentives to begin with, tailoring them to match your brand identity makes for an even more pleasant user experience. We are all too familiar with the deterrent effect of intrusive ads. It’s all about display. Have you ever wondered why bloggers were able to make partnering with brands a business model without their readership suffering? Because, if sponsored content falls under the editorial line of a blog, in keeping with its visual identity, it blends in. The authority of the influencer gives it credit, hence the readers' interest, regardless of the format.

The same best practice can be observed for mobile apps, for content creators and other businesses alike. The bottom line is, your added value is your users’ engagement, so don’t jeopardize it.

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