How do ads work on mobile phones? [closed]

Question

After doing a lot of research on how mobile phone applications and games work i noticed one thing that was mentioned a lot, particularly with Android development, and that is ad integration. I was a little confused how the ads work and how it benefits the developer. I decided to ask my friend to use his phone and played Angry Birds, launched a task killer application, and played another game that was a free edition. I noticed that in the application the ad was in the bottom of the screen far from any actual obstruction to the use of the program, but on the game it was ether on the far left or in the case of Angry Birds, it was in the top right. Nothing appeared to be obstructed when the add would show up.

My question is for a better understanding of how the ad way of income and development works? Does the ad bring income to the developer based upon how many users clicked it? Do i have control of the ad and its size and where it is located? In the case of angry birds it did not appear to be to bad. So besides the overly verbose, above, how much control does a developer have if they choose to integrate ads into their game or application?

Thank you for your help and helping me understand how mobile phone markets work.

Answer 1

It entirely depends on which ad provider you choose to work with. Some of the big players are

• Admob
• Mobclix
• Greystripe
• Millenial Media

There are many others, but those are a few to get you started.

There are different ad types such as CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per mille) ads. CPC ads are paid by the click (usually on the order of pennies per click but it can go up to dollars if you're lucky). CPM ads pay per view. Their rates are per thousand views. You can probably expect banner ads to average about $0.15 USD to $0.40 USD, but that can vary as well.

Ad formats vary, but generally the ad provider will at least have banner ads which are usually something like 320x48 or 320x50. Other slightly less common sizes include large ads such as 320x250 and full screen ads. Larger ads tend to have higher CPMs, but are more intrusive and harder to fit on a phone window unless you have a dedicated ad activity/dialog/pop up sort of thing.

Generally, you do get to decide where you place the ad, how many you include, how often the ads change and so on. Your decisions on these topics will greatly impact how annoyed your users are by the ads (reflected in your Market ratings) and also how often they interact with them (reflected in your ad revenue).

Answer 2

This is a guess based on other such advert schemes.

The developer of an app showing such ads will receive a cut from the click. I.e if the ad is displayed for £0.10 per click the developer will get a percentage of the 10 pence. £0.03 for example (estimate) for every click on an ad inside their app.

As to size(limited I imagine) and location (totally up to developer), that will most likely be up to the developer and within certain limitations. For more on that Link