AdMob - better performance in android activity

Question

I have android application where I implemented AdMob ads.

My layout code is very simple - added AdView into LinearLayout:

<com.google.ads.AdView
    android:id="@+id/adMob1"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    ads:adSize="BANNER"
    ads:adUnitId="{AdID}" />

In MyActivity in onCreate() method I am calling:

    boolean showAdds = true;
    if(this.showAdds) {
        AdView adView = (AdView) findViewById(R.id.adMob1);
        adView.loadAd(new AdRequest());
    }

On some older android devices (tested for example on Samsung Galaxy S1) after AdMob implementation the app is very very slow. But when I set "showAdds" variable to "false" -> the loading of MyActivity is much better.

Is there any possibility to make the application with admob faster?

Thank you for all comments.

Answer 1

I too have been struggling with AdView increasing app load time. My solution was to move the ad code into a delay handler (within onCreate)…

final Handler handler = new Handler();
handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
  @Override
  public void run() {
     AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder().build();
     adView.loadAd(adRequest);
     adView.bringToFront();
  }
}, 5000);

So now the app starts quickly and then after 5s the adview is loaded. (p.s. .bringToFront is used because my app layout uses a mixture of XML and code, so this stops adView from being hidden)

Answer 2

The adView loads a webview internally on first startup. It needs to create cookie stores etc. This will cost up to 2 seconds. If you load a webview before the adView it will benefit from it (maybe on your start up screen).

I found this hint here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-admob-ads-sdk/LdUVIZ2AW6M