More flexibility to help publishers to optimize app revenue

For app publishers, revenue remains a key business priority with searches for “app monetization” growing over 35% from 2021 to 2022, according to Google Trends. As the evolving privacy landscape and economic uncertainty continue to present challenges for the apps industry, we’re sharing some updates to help publishers increase revenue and grow their businesses with AdMob.

Greater choice through increased inventory access with multiple calls

Based on publisher feedback for more control and flexibility with their monetization strategies, we are updating our previous guidance for app publishers making requests to Google from third-party mediation platforms. For those app publishers using multiple calls, there is no set number of calls for a given impression when accessing demand through AdMob Network or Ad Manager.

Some app publishers regularly use a multiple-call setup on third-party mediation platforms to provide more buying opportunities for their ad space from specific networks like AdMob. Multiple call is the practice where a publisher makes ad requests to the same network multiple times for a single impression opportunity — typically with other networks as part of a waterfall mediation chain.

For many publishers and end users, a single call continues to be the optimal solution. If a publisher wants to test a multiple-call setup, we recommend they begin with reasonable waterfall lengths when testing; excessively large waterfalls of ad requests may not always deliver sustainable performance improvement.

While more ad requests with multi-call setups can increase inventory access, publishers may see trade-offs like higher ad load latency within their apps, affecting the user experience. A complex multiple-call setup also typically requires more hands-on management from the publisher to maintain. Publishers who test multiple call setups should consider a balance of overall user experience, publisher overhead, and publisher revenue.

Advertisers and buyers, including Google Ads and Display & Video 360, may have their own approach to bidding on multiple-call setups and may factor this into their models and buying behavior.

An excessive number of calls may increase query and server loads, which could interfere with a mediation platform’s reliability standards. In such instances of excessive ad requests, AdMob and Ad Manager may take action to prevent system impact.

Improvements to AdMob bidding and revenue optimization

AdMob bidding, our real-time bidding solution from AdMob, continues to help publishers increase their inventory value while streamlining mediation management. In the past year, we’ve accelerated efforts to onboard more buyers with their own SDKs to participate in unified bidding and waterfall mediation. These high-quality buyer integrations help ensure optimal performance in AdMob mediation and drive more revenue for publishers.

We are continuing to provide choice for publishers over how they monetize their mediation setup. For publishers using AdMob or Ad Manager as their mediation decision layer, we are experimenting with increasing the amount of calls allowed within Google-managed waterfalls. We are currently testing this feature in limited access.

AdMob is committed to helping publishers remain competitive and grow their apps businesses. We will continue to incorporate feedback from our publisher partners into our product development.