Ad Tech

• Facebook Sees More Q4 Mobile App Downloads than Any Other Publisher Globally

  9 hours ago News

  

  Social Networking giant Facebook saw its mobile app downloaded more times than those of any other publisher globally in the closing months of 2018, according to a new report. The Facebook app was downloaded 800 million times through October to December last year, putting it a significant way ahead of the next best performing publisher, Google, which counted over 650 million downloads through the period. The numbers come from insights by enterprise-level data outfit Sensor Tower, which looked at downloads across both [...]

• Ad Tech Spotlight: Synative Playable Studio

  3 weeks ago News

  

  There are two main reasons playable ads offer a beguiling option for game developers, publishers, and marketing teams. Primarily, of course, they give a player a chance to try a game without having to spend a penny or download a kilobyte. Equally, there’s a good chance that those who do click through and download the game are likely to be readily engaged, retained users who are more willing to spend money. After all, if they like the playable demo enough to step [...]

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• Amazon Rumoured to Be Developing Game Streaming Service

  1 month ago News

  

  Amazon may be joining Microsoft and Google in the race to establish a leading game streaming service. According to two insiders who spoke to The Information (as highlighted by GamesIndustry.biz), Amazon hopes to launch the unconfirmed service in 2020. Streaming games allows consumers to ditch expensive gaming hardware, discs, and even the downloading of content. That’s because the approach typically streams titles directly from the cloud, in much the same way that TV and film streaming platforms like Netflix function. Amazon, of course, [...]

• GRIS' 'Sexually Suggestive' Facebook Ad Ruling 'Stupid', Says Publisher

  1 month ago News

  

  Facebook’s advertising methodology is under the game industry spotlight again, after the social networking giant deemed the trailer for a celebrated indie title too ‘sexually suggestive’ for distribution. In a tweet, Devolver Digital, the publisher of GRIS, claimed that Nomada Studio’s game had its game trailer rejected by Facebook for including an animated scene where a towering sculpture crumbles as birds pass in front of a looming moon. The news left many games industry observers scratching their heads. Kotaku, which spoke with [...]

• CrossInstall Debuts Download-Free Playable Game Demos on Google Play

  2 months ago News

  

  Interactive mobile ads specialist CrossInstall has secured a deal with Google that will see its Instant Playables platform offer game demos within the Google Play store. Instant Playables lets developers offer interactive demos of their games without the end-user needing to download a game, accessible via a ‘Try Now’ button on app store product pages. The approach has already proven popular with games makers and distributors on platforms including Facebook, Google UAC, and Snap. ‘Lite’ versions of games have long been popular [...]

• ironSource Debuts New Platform for Monitoring Return on Advertising Spend

  2 months ago News

  

  Mobile monetisation and marketing outfit ironSource has unveiled its new ROAS Optimizer platform, which offers users a means to monitor the return on advertising spend (ROAS). Only last week, we saw how advertising is increasingly valuable to casual mobile game revenues. But as the in-game and app-based advertising model continues to find a more established footing, its ecosystem is at the same time evolving into a rather complex beast. ROAS Optimizer hopes to address that complexity, while simultaneously automating bid optimisation with a [...]

• In-App Ad Revenues Muscling Out In-App Purchasing in Casual Mobile Games

  2 months ago News

  

  A new report from mobile attribution and marketing analytics specialist AppsFlyer highlights the fact that, throughout 2018, in-app advertising (IAA) has gradually replaced in-app purchasing (IAP) as the key revenue driver for casual mobile games. Historically, IAP has powered the soaring profits enjoyed by many mobile games. While premium pricing initially dominated monetisation models, as smartphone gaming sped out the gates with the launch of the iPhone back in 2008, IAP soon became the norm. Millions of players eagerly making modest purchases [...]

• Q&A: Reality Clash & the Arrival of Blockchain-Powered AR

  3 months ago News

  

  Reality Clash is an in-development mobile AR shooter that integrates blockchain, cryptocurrencies, dynamic in-game advertising, and geo-mapping technology into the gameplay experience it offers. Yes… there are a lot of tech buzzwords in that opening line. We’d only need to throw in AI and VR and it might seem like a parody of contemporary marketing parlance. But in truth, there’s often a meaningful reality hidden somewhere behind the hype of headline-grabbing tech trends. And it just so happens that Reality Clash [...]

• 'Non-Intrusive' Programmatic Advertising: The Future of AR & VR Monetisation?

  3 months ago News

  

  This week UK monetisation outfit Admix revealed that it had secured an impressive USD$2.1m (£1.63m) in funding to further develop its AR and VR advertising platform. As reported by Tech.EU, Admix was only founded in 2017, with a focus on allowing developers to place advertisements programatically that sit contextually inside content. A simple, hypothetical example would a be a VR game set in a sprawling city. Admix’s platform could allow a developer to assure that programmatic ads appeared only as billboards on [...]

• Germany: A Tale of Two Ecosystems

  4 months ago News

  

  ExchangeWire has been running events in Germany since 2013; and in that time I have had a firsthand look at the workings of the local digital advertising market. Like in most markets, Google, Facebook, and Amazon dominate in Germany. But there is an interesting split between the remaining 20 percenters. The German 20 percenter market can be described as a tale of two ecosystems: the ever-evolving in-app ad market, which is mostly based in Berlin; and the slow-moving, legacy web-based ad [...]