The ability to precisely identify and target individual users – what the industry calls “addressability”– has long been at the heart of digital marketing. Unlike traditional analog media, addressable media allows advertisers to create personalized experiences that resonate with users on a granular level. But in recent years, the rise of privacy regulations and platform-level changes like Apple’s ATT framework have all but ensured the demise of persistent,…
“Getting new users on your application is just step one. A successful mobile strategy is three-pronged with acquisition, in-app engagement, and retention.” Phil Golas, VP Technology and Activation, Spark Foundry In today’s competitive digital landscape, user retention is key to brand success. With mobile as an always-on touchpoint, brands can go beyond transactions to build lasting relationships through personalized engagement, in-app experiences, and app-driven…
“Loyalty program is synonymous with apps. It should be the best experience of your brand” - Ashley Travis, Sr. Director Media, Loyalty, Digital Merchandising, Pizza Hut In today’s mobile-first world, apps have evolved into the heartbeat of modern brand loyalty. With users spending an average of five hours daily on mobile devices and dedicating 90% of that time to apps, the role of mobile apps in shaping consumer behavior has reached unparalleled significance. Apps…
In today's rapidly evolving digital advertising landscape, InMobi is proud to be at the forefront of innovation, spearheading the integration of attention metrics across global in-app and mobile web inventory. As the industry faces new challenges and opportunities, we recognize the need for more sophisticated measures of ad quality and effectiveness. As part of our commitment to driving industry-wide change, InMobi has been actively involved in the recent Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)…
There’s no shortage of complexity app performance marketers are faced with when navigating the path towards a privacy-first future, and things got a bit more complicated recently when our partners at Singular and AppsFlyer reported on their discovery of an iOS bug in SKAdNetwork (SKAN) 4 that was causing conversion values to reset due to a faulty API connection between SKAN and Apple Search Ads. While Apple quickly sprang into action with a fix, media partners must now account for bug-impacted…
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the hottest topic in the tech world, and it's making waves in ad tech, revolutionizing the way the demand-side and supply-side interact in the Retail Media space. One company leading the charge in AI-powered solutions for Retail Media is InMobi Commerce. So, why is AI such a big deal for InMobi Commerce? Well, in the recent times, it has become clear that AI is the key to enhancing Retail Media programs, enabling brands and advertisers to run efficient…
Safeguarding our publishers and the privacy of end users comprising all audiences, particularly children, has always been a top priority for InMobi. We have taken it further by releasing a new feature that allows publishers to enable a mixed audience for their mobile apps. Publishers with apps directed to adult and children’s audiences can now declare if their app is directed to a mixed audience or only to children on the InMobi Publisher Dashboard. Publishers must also pass the age restriction…
The Three A’s of Advertising: AI, Attention, and Addressability Our industry’s ability to connect brands with consumers has never been more challenged as we face the positive and negative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) combined with the ongoing deprecation of mobile Ad IDs (MAIDs) and the imminent demise of cookies. The rapid rise and increasing adoption of AI brings an entirely new level of uncertainty by offering efficiencies that insert yet another…
U.S. Privacy Laws have certainly accelerated consumer protection measures over the last couple of years. Following Virginia with the VCDPA and California with the CPRA, Colorado has now become the third state to roll out a privacy law for its residents. How is CPA different than the recent U.S Privacy Law? The Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) is very similar to the VCDPA and CPRA. However, there are some differences that you need to be aware of if you have users located in these three…
LTV is one of the most common app developer acronyms around. But for those who are new to the app industry, LTV stands for “Lifetime Value,” meaning the total app revenue that a user generates over their lifetime engagement. In other words, this is the projected value an app developer can anticipate from their users so they can optimize strategies to maximize revenue and profitability. Mobile app developers are always looking for ways to maximize the value of their users,…
Updated April 28, 2023 In their 2022 annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announced a new version of SKAdNetwork (4.0), which aims to introduce significant changes for app marketers and ad networks to measure more data on app installs while maintaining user privacy. After much industry speculation, SKAN 4.0 was released on October 24, 2022 along with iOS 16.1. What’s new with SKAdNetwork (SKAN) 4.0? Designed to answer some of the gaps observed in…
We have released InMobi SDK 10.5.8 in Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS. Publishers using AdMob, AppLovin MAX, DT FairBid and Unity LevelPlay as their primary mediation, or publishers using the InMobi SDK as a direct connection, can leverage the latest SDKs. We are investing more in Kotlin and Swift as the industry is moving toward programming languages that make advertising SDKs more lightweight and efficient. Let's look at the advantages of Kotlin and Swift: …
When Apple launched its AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework, Apple’s SKAdNetwork (SKAN) became a familiar term and attribution framework for app performance advertisers. However, there was early hesitancy to this change as advertisers lost the ID-level deterministic targeting and measurement they had been so used to. So how is adoption looking as we approach the second anniversary of ATT and SKAN? What is impacting adoption? What are the future milestones that might drive adoption…
Since the arrival of SKAdNetwork (SKAN) 4.0, Apple’s privacy-preserving attribution framework for iOS, the app performance ecosystem swiftly came together to aggressively test and deploy its new features with early results showing great promise. The frequency, depth, and delivery of performance insights significantly improves in SKAN 4 compared to earlier versions, generating a renewed sense of optimism about the future of iOS performance among marketers, regardless of where they sit on the…
Welcome to your one-stop resource for all the tools and insights you need to succeed in the privacy-first world with Apple's AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) and SKAdNetwork (SKAN) 4.0 attribution framework. Not sure where to start? Well, you’re in the right place. Over the last few months, we’ve put together a wealth of resources that should get you on the right track regardless of where you are on your privacy-first journey. So, whether you have only 4 minutes to spare or a little…
Apple’s 2020 AppTrackingTransparency announcement helped advance the advertising world towards a privacy-first future, but for some, the waves of change that followed proved difficult to keep up with. So, when Apple announced iOS 16, nearly a year after the enforcement of ATT, it’s fair to say that many of us waited with great anticipation for any new privacy surprises Apple might introduce to the app and advertiser ecosystem. But we can all take a collective sigh of relief. The…
Creating successful retail media campaigns that consistently deliver results can seem daunting for many advertisers. InMobi Commerce has partnered with a specialty grocery retailer to provide their advertisers with unparalleled access to high-impact, performance-driven media. With our self-service, AI-powered optimization platform, advertisers can effectively “set and forget” their retail media campaigns and trust they’ll hit their advertising goals. …
When evaluating retail media platforms, advertisers are looking for the most effective ways to reach their target audience and achieve their advertising goals. While some advertisers might have the time and resources to manually select keywords and optimize campaigns daily, why would you want to? With InMobi Commerce’s self-service, AI-powered optimization platform, advertisers can effectively “set and forget” their retail media campaigns and trust they’ll hit…
As the mobile ad tech industry continues to create innovative and future-proofed ways of offsetting the effects of Apple's ATT framework and preparing for Google’s upcoming Privacy Sandbox, today’s app developers and advertisers are under increasing pressure. From both sides of the ad tech ecosystem, they are respectively tasked with respecting consumer privacy preferences while also maximizing creative ad experiences, increasing measurability, and maintaining addressability to increase…
When evaluating retail media platforms, advertisers are looking for the retailers that most effectively help reach their target audience and achieve their advertising goals. While some advertisers might have the time and resources to manually select keywords and optimize campaigns daily, why would you want to? With InMobi Commerce’s self-service, automatic optimization platform, advertisers can effectively “set and forget” their retail media campaigns and trust they’ll…
For both established marketing options like in-app advertising and for more nascent platforms like native in-game advertising, ensuring ads are viewable is crucial. To discuss the latest trends on all things viewability, I recently chatted with Janelle De Rivera, Director of Product Management for Moat Analytics at Oracle Advertising. Check it out! Top Quotes From Janelle Viewability Defined: “Viewability is a measure of whether or not an ad had a chance to be seen by a user. It gives marketers…
In light of all of the changes happening around addressability, identity and privacy in digital advertising overall and mobile advertising specifically, especially on iOS, what does the present and future look like? For a deeper dive on the topic, I recently chatted with Davide Rosamilia, Product Director at ID5. Check it out! Top Quotes From Davide How App Publishers Are Thinking About Addressability and Identity Today: “This is a fairly new issue. From the recent changes with…
This article first appeared on The Drum From appointment-based viewership to on-demand content consumption, over-the-top (OTT) marketing has made major strides in the way consumers consume content worldwide. With the complete shutdowns of movie theaters and dining choices, consumers increasingly chose at-home entertainment to watch content on OTT apps in the last year. However, this change in content consumption patterns seems to have translated into a permanent shift in behavior, with consumers…
This is a guest post brought to you by InMobi in collaboration with MoEngage In 2020, over 40 million people in six countries across Southeast Asia - Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, came online for the first time. This trend led to Southeast Asia becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing internet markets containing, arguably, the largest number of digitally engaged users. The Covid-19 pandemic was the biggest driver of rapid digital adoption by consumers…
Now that iOS 14.5 is live, many iOS users are opting out of IDFA (Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers). This makes advertisers depend on SKAdNetwork (SKAN), Apple’s own solution for tracking app installs in a privacy-compliant manner. Since the announcement about these changes first came out last year, there has been quite a lot of talk around alternative solutions to SKAdNetwork, with some mobile…
InMobi is excited to launch UnifID, a new solution which allows publishers to seamlessly integrate with identifiers of their choice with minimal hassles. With advertisers and marketers spending more than 20% of their marketing budgets on identity solutions, it has become imperative for publishers to integrate with multiple ID partners and provide ad buyers with acceptable identifier-based solutions. UnifID does…
In an effort to improve transparency in the programmatic mobile in-app advertising ecosystem, the IAB has released three key tech standards since 2019: app-ads.txt, sellers.json and the OpenRTB supply chain object (also sometimes known as Schain object). For all demand-side platforms (DSPs), it’s important to understand what each tech standard entails and how it benefits their operations: App-ads.txt: Ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) is…
As Apple begins to enforce its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework this year, iOS app publishers will be required to get user consent in order to show them personalized ads. As a result, advertisers will end up having a smaller pool of addressable users on iOS devices. However, not all user-level tracking is going away. For one, expect 20-30% of all iOS users to allow tracking. Additionally, Android hasn’t changed its…
While many marketers are beginning to understand and appreciate supply path optimization (SPO) in the browser world, what does SPO mean for the brands and agencies that advertise in mobile apps? While the core principles of SPO remain the same throughout the overall programmatic advertising ecosystem, implementation looks different in app than it does on laptops/desktops or even in mobile web environments. For a more detailed look at what SPO stands for and what it means for…
Apps and mobile web are the building blocks of the mobile ecosystem, and both serve the mobile users well, in their own way. For instance, users browsing for content or searching for answers normally visit the web as it tends to be simple and fast due to its inherent linking structure and search functionality, but the same users turn to apps for a better user experience on an ongoing basis. This interchangeable use of apps and mobile web is driving a billion-dollar ad industry that both in-app…
Identity has been a hot topic for a while now in the ad tech world. While state-triggered regulations (GDPR in EU, CCPA in CA, etc.) have made user consent the king, the industry itself has also prioritized user consent, and that has made first-party data much more important than ever before. Let’s take the example of Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework to understand this a bit more.…
02
February
As real time bidding (RTB) and programmatic advertising become more popular than ever before with digital marketing professionals of all stripes for buying and selling, it helps to understand the key players in programmatic buying. With programmatic now becoming the default for digital advertising and media buying in many parts of the world (programmatic ad spending is expected to grow even in 2020, according…
22
January
In programmatic advertising, data is the lifeblood of entire supply chain. As we’ve noted before, without quality data underpinning transactions, digital programmatic advertising would not be nearly as effective. But where does this data come from, and how is it processed? To dive into the many nuances of data management in programmatic, be sure to check out these whiteboard videos featuring Prajwal Barthur, VP of Products, Marketing and Advanced TV at InMobi. …
15
September
IAB introduced the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) in 2018 to help digital advertising platforms comply with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive (ePD) when processing personal data or accessing and/or storing information on a user’s device. While it was a step in the right direction, the first version of TCF did not meet certain needs that ad buyers had. …
The InMobi Exchange is now available through a direct connection on Google’s Display & Video 360 (DV360) platform for advertisers across the globe. What does this mean for advertisers? This means that all advertisers, agencies and Agency Trading Desks (ATDs), who work with DV360 as their choice of DSP can now access 100% of InMobi’s SDK supply and audiences directly via the platform. Media buyers can leverage both Open Exchange and Private Marketplace deals on the InMobi Exchange directly…
How do ad networks and ad exchanges stack up? In short, ad networks offer dedicated support, while ad exchanges are largely technology platforms that serve as an open digital marketplace. Note: Need some reminders to level set? Check out this blog post for all of the ad tech definitions you’ll need to follow along, and this blog post for how programmatic media buying works. How Ad Networks and Ad Exchanges Stack Up As MarTech Advisor has noted, “An ad network is an aggregator that collects…
19
June
In March of 2019, the IAB released app-ads.txt, Authorized Digital Sellers for Mobile Apps. App-ads.txt is a repository of authorized sellers that publisher hosts in their developer website to prevent unauthorized selling of their inventory. If you haven’t implemented app-ads.txt yet, read our blog to find out more about how app-ads.txt works. App-ads.txt is an easy and simple solution to adopt, however, It is important for publishers to ensure correct implementation so that buyers can access…
12
June
Ads.txt (Authorized Digital Sellers) is a solution that helps buyers identify authorized sellers in the programmatic world. Ads.txt was first released in May 2017 for website and mobile web publishers and then on November 30, 2018, the IAB announced the release of app-ads.txt, Authorized Digital Sellers for Mobile Apps. What is app-ads.txt? The publisher creates a repository of authorized sellers, a .txt file hosted in the root domain of their developer website, that can be accessed by buyers, using…
19
February
InMobi regularly hosts, participates in and contributes to a series of events, meetups, webinars, sharing best practices with partners and thought leaders, across the globe. In this edition of the InMobi Event Diary, we are looking at the highlights and developments from the InMobi webinar on “Being Mobile-best in a Mobile-first India”. 2018 is slated to be the year of big transformation in India as mobile comprises 52.7% of all digital ad spend, up from 38% in 2017. India has emerged as the…
10
May
Established in 2009 Youzu Interactive is a global entertainment company with blockbuster games such as League of Angels, Youth of Three Kingdoms and Furious Wings. Youzu Interactive Co. Ltd. partnered with InMobi, the largest independent ad network in China, to acquire quality gamers for ‘Youth of Three Kingdoms ’ at scale. Download Case Study
17
November
We’re proud to be supporting the State of the Developer Nation Survey run by our friends at VisionMobile. This is the 12th developer survey, focusing on a 360 view of developer tools, skills and salaries. The survey features questions on topics like programming languages, platforms, app categories, new technologies, revenue models, IoT verticals and tools. It’s a survey made by developers, so the questions will be relevant plus you will get to learn something new - and it only takes 15 minutes!…
12
October
Rewarded video is the perfect way for developers to integrate ads into their app that incentivizes the user with in-app coins or currency for watching the entire video. With rewarded video advertising, everyone wins. The user is rewarded with relevant goodies, the advertiser has the user’s undivided attention while the video ad is playing which results in higher performance and therefore, the publisher earns more revenue. Such user opt-in advertising experience brings superior user retention,…
28
September
This post first appeared in EContent In the march towards automation, greater control and transparency, more advertisers are opting for programmatic buying of digital impressions than ever before. Be it banners or video campaigns, the ability to cherry pick which impressions matter and bid on them has empowered the advertiser ecosystem, delivering better results and greater efficiency. By 2017, U.S. mobile programmatic media buying is expected to reach $21.22 billion, or 78 percent of overall mobile…
20
September
This piece is the second and final part of the blog post series around rewarded video pro-tips for game developers. Here is the first part - The 6 Ultimate Pro-tips to Master Rewarded Video - Part 1/2 , in case you missed it. In the following sections we’ll introduce three additional tips to help gaming publishers ride the rewarded video monster wave like a pro monetization surfer: 4. Keep a close eye on the rewarded video results for diminishing effectiveness Rewarded video offers great returns…
22
September
In celebration of 9 years of continued success in the mobile ad space, InMobi launches Publishers’ Pulse, an interview series in which thought publishing leaders share their history, unique perspectives and outlook on the rapidly ever changing mobile tech industry. In this first edition, we sat down with Hussam Hammo, CEO and founder of Tamatem to learn more about the exciting gaming industry in the Arab world and middle east region where Tatatem is king. About TAMATEM Irene: What is Tamatem’s…
26
August
We’re happy to announce that our friends at VisionMobile have just published the State of the Developer Nation report for Q3 2016 - the latest trends in the developer economy which you helped shape! The report includes insights and analysis based on responses from over 16,500 developers globally across multiple research areas including Mobile, Desktop, Cloud, IoT, and Augmented / Virtual Reality, as well as Machine Learning. It focuses on four major themes – each with its own visualization: Mobile…
24
August
Rewarded video is an incredibly popular and high performing ad format that never gets old. When implemented thoughtfully, rewarded video ads stand as the biggest revenue generator for many game developers, while also adding value to the core mobile game experience. At InMobi, upon completion of nine years of solid experience helping gaming developers from all over the globe getting started with in-app monetization and ongoing personalized 24/7 optimization, we would like to share six practical pro-tips…
05
August
Originally published on The Financial Express Author and media theorist Steven Johnson got it right when he said,“Chance favours the connected mind.” And in this era of humankind, the internet is driving the connected mind. It stands as a testament to the great strides we have made and it has changed the world for the better. This level of connectivity has just deepened with the onset of the smartphone era. Rich content is accessible to everyone on the planet, no matter where they are—or is…
06
July
Originally published on Mobile Marketer In the age of data-driven digital and mobile marketing, where mobile ad spend is forecast to account for 72 percent of United States digital ad spend by 2019, we are at a critical inflection point of changing the mobile advertising currency from impressions to audience segments. The shift from desktop to mobile has advertisers following suit, and they are not looking back. Campaign success is now portrayed as the ability to grow a brand's audience by converting…
09
May
We’re proud to be supporting the new developer survey run by our friends at VisionMobile. This is the 11th developer survey and it’s entitled Developer Tools Benchmarking - as you can understand, the focus is on developer tools. The survey features questions on topics like programming languages, platforms, app categories, tool categories, revenue models, IoT verticals - and, of course - tools! It’s a survey made by developers, for developers - so all questions are highly relevant and will give…
27
April
Game Developers Conference 2016 took place recently in San Francisco, and boy was it a great one! InMobi hosted and moderated a panel with some of the top gaming publishers in the world, including Michael McHale, General Manager of Glu Games, Henry Lowenfels, VP of Biz Dev at Scopely, and Amit Khanduja, CEO of Reliance Games.The panelists represented some of the largest publishers in the industry, while the majority of the audience was made up of indie developers and representatives from smaller…
19
February
What the future holds and how we can stay ahead is, no doubt, the most common query amongst business decision makers and entrepreneurs. It’s that time of the year when everyone is looking at predictions, but it is equally important to look back on what worked and what didn’t. Each year, mobile advertising commands greater attention as it captures more of our day and reshapes all the critical touch points through the customer journey. According to comScore, 2015 was the year the number of mobile…
13
January
Currently the third largest smartphone market in the world, 2015 proved to be a significant year of growth for India's mobile economy. InMobi and TUNE teamed up to help you make sense of what India's mobile consumers did in the past year.
05
January
In September 2015, Apple announced that iOS 9 will feature content blocking, which allows users to block ads and give them more control over their experience with ads. Apple’s decision to allow content blocking on iOS 9 acknowledges a significant ongoing shift in how advertisers connect with consumers online, especially in the mobile marketing space. Consumers now have the power to block traditional forms of online advertising—and sources of much-needed revenue—including pop-up…
23
December
InMobi data architect Amareshwari Sriramadasu shares her experiences I love coding and debugging. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say. When I was a kid, I never sought out to become a developer, but with my Bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering, and a Masters in engineering, specialising in Internet sciences, I guess I chose my own career path without knowing. I grew up in India and my father was a postman in our village, while my mother was a stay-at-home-mum. I’m…
21
October
While the mobile ad space is certainly still developing, most advertisers understand the importance of tracking clicks and installs. Savvy advertisers use these data points to streamline and optimize their ad spend. Some of these same advertisers are also tracking impressions to understand their click-through rates (CTRs) as well as adding a layer of accountability to ad-network reporting.Impression tracking is available through a few mobile attribution & analytics providers. Tracking impressions…
25
September
Here’s a question. What can you do in 20 minutes? Die a couple of times playing the Horde mode in Gears of War? Watch an episode of Two and a Half Men? Make and drink a pot of tea? Read? Go for a walk? Write a postcard to a friend? Take a shower? Eat some cake? Or just sit around doing nothing? Instead, what if you can actually be ready to make $$$ in under 20 minutes? Over six months ago, we asked ourselves a question - If we had to start with a clean slate, how could we make it super-simple for…
10
September
苹果的iOS 9操作系统将于9月16日开放下载，其中包含了许多项改变，可能会影响到您App的广告变现效果。我们希望借此机会向您重点说明这些改变并告知您如何减少可能会对您的广告收入产生的影响。 InMobi SDK更新信息 为了确保流畅的用户体验，并使您能够通过我们的SDK减少本次iOS 9升级对您App广告变现效能的不利影响，我们将于第一时间发布对于iOS9系统的全面支持，包括支持新的优化以及苹果推荐的最佳实践方案。同时我们也建议您及时对iOS…
03
September
This fall Apple will release their latest operating system, iOS 9, which will include a number of changes that might impact your app’s monetization. We would like to take this opportunity to highlight the changes and how you can minimize the impact on your revenues. Update to the InMobi SDK To ensure a smooth experience and minimize the impact on your monetization through our SDK, we plan to release full iOS9 support once the Gold Master build is available. We plan to also support the new enhancements…
26
August
Every quarter we release the latest trends and insights on the app economies of the world. These are based on the analysis of millions of app downloads and impressions on the InMobi network. Today we release a set of six infographics along with detailed global and regional reports on The State of App Downloads and Monetization based on Q2 2015 data.Here’s a sneak peek for you.Leading App Destinations of the WorldIn Q2 2015, Indonesia continued to surpass USA and China as the leading app download…
06
July
Updated July 2, 2019 - Check out this case study to learn more about how we helped Kiloo boost ad revenues by 20%!Why Subway Surfers Continues To Be A Top Title If you love playing games on your smartphones like I do, it is also likely that you periodically check out the top apps/games on the store, in search of your next addiction. The past few years have seen many garage (read indie) games achieve blockbuster status, Flappy Bird or Ketchapp’s 2048 come to mind. However, there are few games that…
08
June
Scott Falbo has created over 100 iOS apps over the past seven years. Scott released iJuror in 2010 to help lawyers with jury selection. I interviewed Scott to understand how he thinks about monetization and user acquisition for iJuror. Inspiration for iJuror Murtza: What excites you most about developing mobile apps? Scott: I think the most exciting part is that I can literally spend an afternoon on the computer and create something that can have a positive impact on the lives of others. It's an…
05
June
With over 1.4 million apps in the App Store, every common search returns hundreds of apps. For example, searching "todo list" shows 1,952 results. But this does not mean the gold rush is over for indie app developers. It does mean indie app developers need a marketing strategy outside of appearing in the App Store search results. One strategy for marketing a mobile app is to use desktop web traffic to drive installs. Some people will hear about your mobile app while browsing the web from a non-mobile…
14
May
Rewarded video is the popular kid on the block - with visually immersive experiences and skyrocketing ROI. Deciding to use rewarded video is a no-brainer, but here are few key pointers to keep in mind to ensure you have a winning strategy. 1. Present Perfect: Ensure that the Placement and Reward are Correct Design the placement and virtual reward of your rewarded video in such a way that it both entices the user into interacting with the ad, and also serves the two orthogonal objectives of: Ensuring…
05
May
First impressions are everything. Or so someone said. In the world of mobile, this holds truer than anywhere else. With such a large plethora of mobile apps and websites competing for the user's’ share of mind and time - the 1st impression can make or break the app’s story. It is no wonder then that the app experience or user experience has expanded to include the ad experience as well. Hence the rise of Native Advertising. Richard Branson famously said “You don’t learn to walk by following…
04
May
When you are pitching a journalist to write about your mobile app, shorter emails perform better. But if your email should only be a few sentences, what’s the best way to share more information? Include a link to a press kit. A press kit’s purpose is to make it easy for a journalist to write about your app. Imagine a tech journalist’s life. They are getting contacted many times a day by different app developers for the same reason. If they can't find information about your app, they might lose…
16
April
In the previous blog, we laid out the regional landscape for app developers in terms of share, app install costs and app earnings. We also explored the OS landscape across regions. In this blog, we move forward and explore the dynamics of a booming mobile app economy - factors driving mobile app growth and it’s interconnectedness with smartphone adoption. The story starts with smartphones, as it always does. For the first time ever, there are now more active mobile devices than there are humans…
01
April
With 2.6 million [1] apps available and 150[2] billion app downloads, Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store have come a long way since their 2008 launch. With more developers than ever before and smartphone penetration on a rise in emerging and developing countries, the mobile economy is booming. As developers pursue user acquisition and monetization strategies, many questions need answering. Which countries are driving growth? Which markets download the most? What OS has the majority market…
11
March
Over the last two years, we sought out and met hundreds of app developers across the world to ask them two simple questions - “How would you describe your app?” and “Who is this app designed for?”While the specifics vary, the responses’ structure was almost always a variant of the following sentences: “Have you used app A? It’s kind of like that, but with X being a key differentiating concept”“It’s an app that lets users do XYZ”“The audience for this app is very similar to…
19
January
App development presents many of the same issues involved in other software development initiatives. However there are particular confidentiality, intellectual property, privacy and distribution considerations that should be kept in mind when developing a mobile app.1. Confidentiality : Protect your ideas before you are ready to announce them to the worldThe tech industry is constantly breaking new boundaries and everyday people are thinking of new and innovative ideas. Consequently, confidentiality…
15
January
Have you ever noticed those ads that pop up just as you were thinking about the service/product they promote? How about the ads that start showing up on every website or app you use to the point of being annoying?Retargeting ads have become pretty common with many marketers turning to them to get more sales, engagement and installs. This also means that there are some great marketers running optimized retargeting campaigns … and then there are some that are not so great.So what do you need to know…
26
December
In our #FactOrFiction weekly blog series, we’ll take a prevalent assumption in the mobile gaming world, and separate fact from fiction, with insights from data. Got a myth that needs some busting? Tweet it to us or post it on our Facebook page and we’ll have our experts look at it! THE ASSUMPTION: Users acquired through video ads deliver higher Lifetime Value(LTV) than other ad formats Nothing showcases your game’s features better than a video trailer. Just like movie trailers are popular with…
24
December
To help indie developers gain access to the collective wisdom of the industry, InMobi has partnered with YetiZen to present a series of lectures that explore the business of gaming. Tune into Mike Cohen's talk, as part of our ongoing lecture series with YetiZen, focussing on what kind of user acquisition (UA) strategy an indie developer should adopt. UA tactics should ideally include a comprehensive marketing strategy encompassing tactics like social media, daily deal apps, 3rd party app stores,…
19
December
Fellow developers, it’s myth busting time!In our #FactOrFiction weekly blog series, we’ll take one prevalent myth in the mobile gaming world, and separate fact from fiction. Got a myth that needs some busting? Tweet it to us or post it on our FB page and we’ll have our experts look at it!This week, we take a peek into the increasingly popular trend of launching app trailers The MythAll successful games launch their trailers before the game launchWith PlayStore and AppStore now supporting app…
19
December
Do only big budget games get featured on the AppStore? Is an iOS-first launch absolutely imperative to a game’s success? Do all successful games launch their trailers months in advance? There’s only one way to find out.Join the InMobi team as we try to separate fact from fiction in the world of mobile games.Every week, we’ll take one prevalent myth in the mobile gaming world, and pull it apart piece by piece. Our experts will do everything it takes (fires, wrecks, bloodshed etc) to unveil the…
Whether you are promoting your app on paid channels to drive downloads, or running a retargeting campaign to engage with existing users, you probably understand well the importance of tracking conversions and measuring RoI for your mobile campaigns. However, mobile attribution is fraught with several challenges, including a fragmented ecosystem of device identifiers across platforms and operating systems, poor quality of identifiers leading to inaccurate attributions, and a constantly evolving tracking…
13
November
if integration_mode==”SDK"
then
maximize_monetization
else
lower_monetization
App developers looking to monetize their apps through ads integrate with either an ad network SDK or an ad network server-to-server API connection. While a server-to-server connection, typically an API connection does work to serve ads in your app, we have found that it is not the best solution. At InMobi, we work with thousands of app developers and recommend that they pick the InMobi SDK…
11
November
In our previous blog we discussed how the delay between a user clicking an ad and being taken to the app store might result in lower installs for your app. We also saw how synchronous tracker redirections, one of the major reasons for these post click latencies, may lead to about 20% click loss for your app install campaigns. But that is only half the story. Another reason for click loss is the time taken for the app store to load after the user has clicked on the ad unit. Before we understand the…
03
November
As an app developer promoting your app on paid channels, the install rate ( i.e the percentage of users downloading the app post clicking an ad) is the metric that matters the most to you. While improving ad-relevance and enhancing ad-experience are the right strategies to improve this metric,there may also be several technical reasons that may lead to losing a user who had the real intent to install your app.Post-Click Latency - i.e the delay between the user clicking the ad, and being taken to…
31
October
There is a slight chill in the air as wisps of clouds cover the full moon sky. The gentle yellow flicker of the Jack-O-Lanterns lends a haunting atmosphere to the night. A young child shrieks as a ghoulish hand appears out of nowhere. A scene from a scary movie? Well, think again. This year, InMobi embraces the spooktacular wonder of Halloween by providing our publishers with customized frames that include all the elements of this holiday celebration. For years, app developers have enthusiastically…
27
October
To many, the world of mobile ad attribution might look complex and patchy, where two of the most popular mobile tracking parameters: Device Identifiers and Device Fingerprinting, are fighting a constant battle between maximum inventory coverage and minimal losses.Device Identifiers offer 100% accurate ad tracking, but are available only on SDK inventory and may be absent at click-time in certain countries and for certain publishers.Device Fingerprinting, although readily available, is a probabilistic…
16
October
Targeting in the good old days used to be somewhat of an art. To know and understand exactly how to position your product to a specific slice of customers used to be a derivative of decades of experience. With every passing digital generation, the ability to sift through consumers and target the one most-likely to consume and engage with your product is more of a science. Mobile is a different beast altogether. At InMobi, we enjoy thinking of this challenge as an interesting yin & yang between art…
24
July
Anything is possible in the world of gaming. In the real world, however, your game can get obliterated in no time if you don’t listen and talk the language of your users. You might have a fantastic product on your hands. But communicating this on the right channels, at the right time, in the right tone is the order of the day. The gaming world has definitely tapped marketing in a big way. However advertising dollars can only get you that far if you are a small game developer. More importantly,…
25
July
EDIT:Here's what happened in episode 1, episode 2, episode 3 and episode 4.At InMobi, a large chunk of our day is spent on trying to find answers to difficult questions. Questions such as how to design the next-gen big data platform, what the best Star Wars movie is or what the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow is. We also furiously discuss, dissect and decode mobile games. Playing mobile games is an activity that you will commonly observe at InMobi - at the cafeteria, in cubicles and sometimes…
10
July
The world of mobile ad attribution is changing rapidly. From custom solutions offered by mobile ad platforms to independent solutions offered by pure mobile ad attribution players, and in more recent times changes introduced by Google, the world of mobile ad attribution has never been short on options and excitement. We help make sense of major changes in the attribution landscape.Shift Towards ID StandardizationApple IDFA has been in existence for a while and Google announced its new Advertising…
09
July
With the multiverse of apps available in the mobile ecosystem, managing and growing your user-base amongst your suite of apps is a challenging proposition. Apart from focussing on building beautiful apps, you also have to focus on the three pillars - user acquisition, retention AND monetization, and each pillar requires time and effort. There are several solutions to these challenges that work in unison to grow and maintain your user-base. One simple solution that works in retaining your users within…
06
June
插屏广告（或称全屏广告），由于其展示面积远大于传统的横幅广告，更容易吸引用户关注并相应获得更高的点击率和转化率，因而其广告变现效率也远高于传统的横幅广告（一般来说，广告变现效率高达传统横幅广告的9倍）。加上其灵活部署在App加载或下一关切换等正常用户交互过程衔接点的特性，相当于额外增加了可供变现的广告流量，因而成为了App开发者竞相关注的行业热点。而InMobi的插屏广告，由于技术和平台的先天优势，不仅能够接收到大量来自海外的高eCPMs插屏广告投放，而且拥有横竖皆宜的自适应匹配技术来帮助提升用户体验，在更高收入的前提下获得更好的用户体验，更是成为了App开发者竞相挖掘的“高纯度金矿”。为了帮助中国App开发者更好地挖掘这座金矿，InMobi联合芒果聚合推出了“插屏风暴”促销活动，凡在在6月6日-7月31日期间注册…
17
June
Using mobile ads to monetize is an integral part of the mobile apps ecosystem today, with a large number of developers relying solely on advertising revenue to sustain their businesses. For this purpose, certain unique device-level identifiers are sent to ad networks to allow them to serve targeted and more relevant ads. Apart from better monetization, uniquely identifying devices is extremely important as it helps ad networks do conversion matching (attributing app installs to the source), frequency…
09
June
Mobile gamers are a fickle audience and a game that may have been at the top of the charts yesterday, is easily forgotten today, as more and more apps (with minor differences) flood the app stores. It is becoming imperative for game developers to not just consider monetization potential when implementing ads, but also the impact it has on the game play experience. Having a loyal user base is as much about your game, as it is about how you implement ads in your game. One wrong move and you are likely…
29
May
Desktop advertising has come a long way from the first banner Ad in Oct 1994. As display advertising evolved and matured, there eventually arose the need to move away from segment-based buys to very-fine grained individual buys. Programmatic buying empowered marketers to achieve the efficiency desired, growing disproportionately with the rise of display advertising. Interesting as it seems, mobile advertising adapted itself to the ways of the display advertising world. Consequently, early mobile…
15
May
“Any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black” - Henry Ford.In 1908, Ford created a revolution in the automotive industry with the color black. To some extent banners did the same for the digital advertising industry (and by extension mobile advertising) in the early 2000s. But as the target audience becomes more tech savvy and the competition in the digital space burgeons, both users and developers have begun to ask for more - More options, more innovation and…
06
May
With a strong emphasis on user privacy, the mobile app ecosystem has gone through several changes over time (such as deprecation of UDID, MAC address and so on). Recently, Apple introduced certain updates to their app submission guidelines wherein each developer must declare their intended usage of the Identifier for Advertising (IDFA) and respect Apple’s Limit Ad Tracking requirement. InMobi respects user privacy and its SDK is in compliance with all of Apple’s policies.What is IDFA?The Advertising…
02
May
インモビジャパンの篠原です、今回からこのブログを通じてインモビのプロダクト紹介や、スマートフォン広告のグローバルトレンドなどお伝えしていこうと思っています。初回は、インモビが先般リリースしたネイティブ広告について、紹介していきたいと思います。…
29
April
We at InMobi often use the phrase “10x thinking” when set strategic goals or validate ideas. Its a way of saying we believe in going after problems that are 10X harder to solve. It also means we don’t believe in doing incremental improvements. Improving the user experience for mobile ads is one of them. Late last year we took an ambitious goal of improving the ad experience on mobile devices by 10X. The march towards that goal started with a committed effort to build the most advanced…
29
April
Today is an exciting day for all mobile app developers around the world. InMobi’s Native Ad platform is now open to any developer looking to monetize his/her app. The InMobi Ad SDK is a critical component of InMobi’s Native Ad platform which allows you to create ad layouts in the shape, form and function of your choosing. And today, we have released InMobi Ad SDK 430 to help your app monetize with these beautiful ad units.What's newMade for Native Interstitials and Native Content Ads:Through…
29
April
Over the last few years, one of the things that constantly bothered me was that we were powering an entire industry on the back of banner ads, which we never liked. InMobi has worked with more than 30,000+ app developers, fielded 4 billion+ ad requests per day, and helped them monetize their apps on the back of our best-in-class technology and global scale. However, along with helping developers monetize at scale, we also want to give users a great experience. So, early last year, we decided to disrupt…
22
April
Introducing InMobi's All-New Developer Experience from InMobi on Vimeo. In the past, InMobi has empowered developers to understand their users deeply and take the most relevant actions, track conversions across multiple mobile marketing platforms, leverage best in class ad monetization and more. A few months ago, we set out to deliver this complex world of offerings through a really simple and intuitive interface. Today, we are rolling out massive improvements that are focused around the following…
06
March
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C Clarke. For people who aren’t aware of the inner workings of an ad network, user targeting can seem like magic. User targeting refers to advertisements being placed in such a manner that they reach appropriate consumers based on various traits such as demographics, location, interests etc.Understanding user behaviour is instrumental in delivering an enhanced consumer ad experience. Consumer attention to ads,…
05
March
The market for mobile app analytics is crowded yet fragmented. Despite there being several different tools to help app developers capture key metrics and analyze user behavior, many solutions only focus on a single problem. The result is that many app developers are forced to install multiple SDKs to achieve one overarching purpose: understand user behavior and respond with appropriate action.Here’s how it often plays out. An app developer installs one SDK for ad campaign tracking, another to capture…
27
August
And so gamescom is over and members of the games industry have dispersed across the globe once again. This was InMobi's first foray (as an exhibitor) into this giant of gaming events so now that the dust has settled it's time to re-cap on exactly what makes this gathering of gamers so special. Each Summer keen representatives from every facet of the gaming sector descend on Germany's fourth largest city. Dominated by the stunning gothic cathedral and the River Rhine, the city is an unlikely backdrop…
Rovio Angry Birds crossed the 100-million download milestone in no time; Temple Run has registered over 100 million downloads and OMG POP Draw Something acquired 15 million users in two weeks, before Zynga bought them. The rapid and huge success of these games has led to the launch of new or extended titles that have changed the fortunes of many studios overnight. From serious developers to brand and media companies - new and established, everyone is dreaming of making it big in the world of mobile…
17
May
As an app developer, you want to acquire users efficiently by optimizing marketing spends across different channels. This becomes even more important at the time of an app launch when the lifetime value of a new user is still unknown. It's too early to determine an agreeable CPI to drive installs and thereby justify the marketing budget needed for user acquisition. Given that early users of the app are the most valuable, it is imperative that you optimize your marketing mix appropriately to maximize…
In our earlier blog post , we talked about 3 mistakes developers commonly make. Ad monetization on tablets can potentially jump 3-4 times when these mistakes are eliminated or rectified. In this blog we focus more specifically on Android apps and a couple of tricks to optimize them for tablets. The fragmentation of devices on the Android platform across the of continuum form factors, resolutions and OS versions can make the task of selecting and requesting the right slot size seem fairly daunting.…
It is common knowledge that Tablets provide a much higher and superior monetizing opportunity when compared to smartphones. Since Tablets have more premium and high value users, if done right, Tablet-optimized apps can make 3-4x more money for the developer. But ironically, due to simple and basic mistakes, Tablet apps at times make half the money that a Smartphone app makes through ads. Half the monetization when these apps should be making more than double! So, what's wrong with this picture? From…
In 2012, Facebook & What's app dominated the social networking space on mobile devices, accounting for 85% of usage in North America and securing #1 position in most markets. However, in 2013, Asian Newbies such as Line and Kakao have redefined social networking on mobile. With 74 million users in less than 18 months and already profitable, Line, a messaging application from NHN Japan, has adopted a completely different strategy for acquiring and monetizing users on mobile devices. On the other…
Last night, Wednesday 24th April, saw London Grace Bar welcome some of the biggest names from the mobile app developer ecosystem through its doors for the first ever InMobi Developer Party. With 200 industry pros in attendance, the night provided the perfect platform for developers to network discuss new business ideas over a few drinks and a bite to eat. The event proved to be a particularly special event for Somo designer Dan Sherratt, who took home the coveted prize of a Marmalade license and…
At InMobi we are constantly working on making it easy for our customers/partners to integrate faster and make life easier. We are very excited to share this with all of you (and as always look forward to your feedback and suggestions). Sending more information as part of an ad request improves monetization. As sending more information is not always easy, we have built a new tool, InMobi Diagnostics, to help you. With Diagnostics you can: Integrate faster Improve eCPM Integrating faster Developers…
Privacy is always a priority topic for discussion in technology circles, and only the other week we saw Google summoned to appear before European data protection officials regarding their privacy policy. As InMobi has developed in size and stature - particularly over the past year, we have also grown in sophistication through continuing to evolve and improve the services that support the smooth running of our ad network. A significant part of this has been in achieving external recognition for our…
This week, InMobi made a significant change to its core ad serving algorithms and data systems resulting in massive improvements in publisher eCPMs and advertiser ROI. Internally known as project Dark Knight, this change had been in the works for the past 8 months and cut across the entire stack making massive overhauls to every system being used at InMobi. As a result of this change and associated changes which will follow over the next few weeks, users will be able to see far more relevant ads…
Why HTML5 and why now? When it comes to touch-screen mobile devices, native applications have led the way in terms of performance, speed and tighter integration to specific platforms. Unbound by the need to conform to standards, native apps could rapidly take advantage of the latest hardware and operating system innovations, while Web technologies always had to wait for the international community to agree and implement standards first. But with the HTML5 specification coming to fruition, browser-based…
There is no doubt that there has been a radical shift in 2012 with regards to mobile. In Australia, mobile consumption usage has reached a tipping point, with the rising penetration of smartphones and publishers and brands realising that in order to deliver an optimal digital user experience, they need to evolve their screen strategy to meet ever demanding user expectations. The Australian Online General and Mobile Advertising Market report, released by Frost and Sullivan in October, predicts a strong…
The first wave of Telco revenues was driven by text and voice. Thanks to shortened innovation cycles in the mobile eco-system, the revenue mix of Telco industry is now poised to change. Increase in usage of mobile devices to access Internet and penetration of Internet enabled smart phones have accelerated data related revenue growth of Telcos.Smart Phones leading Mobile Internet adoptionAccording to eMarketers global media intelligence report, the total number of mobile Internet users will be close…
The 2012 Game App Developer Conference held last week in Taipei brought together over 250 attendees across mobile game developers, investors and other industry stakeholders to discuss some of the opportunities and challenges that the Taiwanese developer community faces. The Taiwanese digital gaming industry began to emerge in the early 1990s when personal computers gradually replaced television as the common platform on which games were played. The trend of online gaming continued into the early…
As part of this week's launch of InMobi Lifetime Value Platform, we hosted a webinar for a deep-dive into the product. The slides are available for download and viewing on Slideshare. Ready to get started? Sign up for our beta program today. How was the session? Let us know with this quick survey.Don't forget: We're giving away $500 in free advertising dollars to the first 25 developers who integrate and go live with LTVP before Dec 31st. Get started today! Given the large…
The accelerating trend towards Appification of everything over the last few years has thrown an interesting wrench in the mobile ecosystem: On the one hand, cost of user acquisition is going through the roof while on the other hand, monetization hasn't kept pace. This imbalance fuels the need for developers to maximize the life time value (LTV) of each user acquired - This entails the science of understanding each user and optimizing her value on acquisition, monetization & engagement dimensions.…
Let China sleep, for when she awakes, she will shake the world. -Napoleon And indeed she has! Whether it is a change in the country's leadership, the $1.5 billion war-chest that Baidu, a home-grown tech behemoth is expected to unleash for mergers and acquisitions overseas or even the latest Bond flick that features Shanghai & Macau China is now more in focus than ever before. Big, crowded, complex My colleague Arun wrote about app discovery, independent app stores and the need to localize in an earlier…
At InMobi, we work with thousands of developers across the globe and one question that we frequently receive from them is around how to make more money from ads. In this blog post, I would like to address that question, but in a slightly different way - I would like to share with you some of the common but deadly mistakes that developers looking to monetize their apps using ads should avoid. Most often we have noticed that avoiding these alone can result in increase in revenues, sometimes up to 100%!…
I am a fervent believer that mobile is today, and will be in the future, one of the strongest channels for true brand engagement, and I am talking TV-level top of the funnel break through the clutter brand engagement. (I also believe that mobile will be one of the first marketing channels to perform very well at the very top of the funnel and at the very bottom of the funnel. Think about consumers making calls for bookings. I mean it is a phone! But, we can talk about that 1-2 punch in another blog.)…
I've often wondered how different mobile app developers in emerging markets like India are, from their peers in established markets like US and Europe. In a diverse country with a population of more than a billion, a scorching pace of telecom growth and a young bright demographic, what do Indian app developers aim to achieve? Does the motivation to build something that gets users hooked, solves problems, creates a business that makes money (hopefully tons of it!) change as we transcend geographies?Smartphones…
With the release of iOS 6 for Apple mobile devices, developers and ad networks are finding that they will need to implement a new strategy when developing and advertising their latest apps. This was apparent as reports trickled in about the changes that occurred to Apple's App Store. App Store Redesigned Once the users finished testing out the new iOS 6 options, they were eager to find all their favorite apps and new apps to install into the extra row on their app home screens. Unfortunately, they…
Great Insights lead to great actions and when it comes to managing an app business, knowing what insights to look for matters the most as its easy to get overwhelmed by the abundance of datthat can be tracked or measured. In my previous post, I introduced the notion of LTV, what it means for an app and how one can measure it. The obvious next point of discussion is how and what developers should do to maximize the LTV of app users. Before we dig into this deeper, it is imperative to realize that…
With low barriers to entering the app market for everyone, making a totally addictive game or an awesome app is not enough to guarantee success. Effective marketing to ensure maximum app discovery and promotion are both key to unlocking high volumes of installs, establishing an app community and paving the way to a greater business success.With an estimated 500million + activated Android devices globally Google Play is the place to be right?Why should you also include alternative appstores in your…
Its not surprising that the traditional marketers favourite tool has eventually found its way into an app developers life sooner than expected and with good reason. Lets face it your app is your business and you want to measure, monitor and control the value your users bring to your business. Customer Lifetime value -CLV or LTV, as different people choose to call it- is the new metric that app developers across the world gravitate towards for measuring the effectiveness of their marketing spends…
Its here the season for OS updates! Apples iOS 6 announcement that accompanied the marketing launch of iPhone 5 on September 12th has generated plenty of excitement among developers, consumers as well as industry-watchers. By now, the updates to Maps, Siri, the tighter integration with Facebook, the nifty Passbook and easier ways to manage calls have been written and spoken about. Registered developers have been able to access the Xcode 4.5 Golden Master (GM) seed since September 13th for testing…
Nokias launch of it flagship WP8 handsets, the Lumia 920 and 820 was an exciting piece of news not just for the Windows Mobile (WP) platform but also for developers who are looking to expand their mobile app business beyond Apples iOS and Googles Android. WP7, despite the combined force of Microsoft and Nokia, could not make any serious inroads into the smartphone eco system and offer a strong 3rdalternative to Apple and Google. The result of which was that the WP platform never caught on with developers…
With an estimated 28M active iOS and Android devices, South Korea is one of the biggest and most attractive markets for app developers trying to gain a foothold in Asia. It also helps that it is the unofficial home of the Android ecosystem, largely due to Samsung and LG, two of the biggest Android phone manufacturers in the world, based out of here. But if developers think that all they need to do is to simply localize their apps and release it on Google Play or App Store to be successful in South…
China! The word conjures up an interesting concoction of images:the Great Wall, Tai Chi, worlds manufacturing hub, burgeoning market of eager consumers an intriguing past and promising future. With more than 1 billion mobile subscribers, it is this immense opportunity that the Chinese mobile market represents that attracts hundreds of mobile developers looking to launch and grow revenues in China. It would be an understatement to say that this market is complex. For starters, the Google Play market…
Statistics show that 66 percent of newly developed mobile apps fail at launch. The only way to avoid as many failures is by testing the apps with human testers versus computerized/electronic testing. We want developers to be a success, thats why were really pleased to announce our partnership with Global Telecom Testing. One of the reasons we love GTT, is that they have worldwide testers who can perform In-Country QA testing on actual mobile devices! No more half-hearted automated testing. Now you…
Tablet sales in Australia are growing exponentially by the end of this year, tablets are expected to reach nearly 40% of households. Consumers love their large screen sizes and user-friendly experiences, so these devices are already having a huge impact on web usage. Results from Mobext and InMobi's research study on Connected Devices in Australia reveal how increased tablet usage is impacting consumer behavior, and how usage of other devices is being impacted. Tablets provide complementary experiences…
Does your app work the first time your user opens it? Statistics show that 66 percent of newly developed mobile apps fail at launch. The only way to avoid as many failures is by testing the apps with human testers versus computerized/electronic testing. We want developers to be a success, that's why we're really pleased to announce our partnership with Global Telecom Testing. One of the reasons we love GTT, is that they have worldwide testers who can perform In-Country QA testing on actual mobile…
This is a guest blog by Claire Owen. London's silicon roundabout was awash with hopeful, if sightly nervous, app developers last Wednesday evening as we saw the finale of AppCircus London 2012! The concept behind the AppCircus roadshow is to provide a platform to some of the most creative and innovative apps in the market, app creators get exposure to fellow developers and key industry specialists as well as the opportunity to receive a nomination to present at the Mobile Premier Awards during the…
The leap second was a one second adjustment made to the atomic clock at 23:59:59 UT (just before 8pm ET). This caused havoc across the entire internet world and brought down several sites including - Reddit, FourSquare, Yelp, LinkedIn, Gawker StumbleUpon, and more. See the news coverage here: http://bit.ly/NjREt0 When the time came and the clock automatically added a sec, one of the utilities that ensures all of InMobi server clocks are insync started to act up, and caused all our servers across…
Interested in monetizing your Marmalade App? Make money from your Marmalade app through the display of rich, targeted adverts from InMobi - the largest independent ad network. With over 10,000 app partners and thousands of global advertisers, we can reach 578 Million users in 165 countries. InMobi has a dedicated sales network which is instantly capable of monetizing your mobile ad inventory in any region of the world. We know your market InMobi has 700+ employees in 25 global locations and over…
"A joint research on Smartphone apps for education (Macromill X InMobi)", 21 June. "Every second user feels educational apps are effective InMobi Japan and research firm Macromill conducted a joint research on Smartphone apps for learning. (Research period: May 15 - June 7, 2012) In Japan 51% of the Smartphone users have learning application in their Smart phones. Among them English conversation and English vocabulary are the most widely used applications. Furthermore, every second person who uses…
We had a great time on Thursday welcoming developers into our new London office. We held our inaugural meetup on the topic of Location Based Services. There was a great turnout - and I want to thank everyone who came along - especially our presenters. We had Ricky Brundritt talking about Bing Maps developer tools. Bing have some really high resolution imagery for maps and it will be interesting to see if they can take significant market share from Google. Next up, Shazad Rehman discussed the Pearson…
Can you build brand awareness and engagement on your mobile? If this sounds like a familiar question, that's because it is exactly the debate the marketing industry had around online advertising just over a decade ago. We've clearly resolved the online branding and engagement argument and how. So take the premise of online brand engagement and turn it up to 11 and you'll begin to understand the potential of mobile brand engagement. Just as online advertising began with a cost-per-click model, mobile…
The InMobi team had a brilliant time at OTA12 this year. As well as sponsoring the Saturday breakfast, we were also handing out our ever-popular bottle-opening iPhone cases. Thanks to everyone who came to our talk on Saturday morning - even if a few of you were bleary eyed! We'll be putting up our new Economic Calculator on the site soon - until then, you can use our older Excel based calculator to work out how much your app could be earning. Everyone who attended should have received a special offer…
How do you know which ad network is working hardest for you? It's an important question. You're spending money on ad campaigns on multiple networks - which ones are driving the most downloads? Which are driving the cheapest way for you to acquire customers? We've come up with a cross-platform and cross-network way for you to track how well your advertising campaigns are performing. Here is a single dashboard which lets you view reports, track how many people are downloading and installing your apps.…
I've just come back from a fantastic weekend hackathon - Apps For The High Street. 15 teams competing to produce useful apps for a range of London businesses. InMobi were there handing out jelly beans, $75 in free add spend, 10% bonuses from ad earnings, and - of course - our famous beer-bottle opening iPhone cases. We saw some incredible presentations - apps which help small businesses manage loyalty cards, apps to remind you to buy cakes when it's your friends' birthdays, and even an app to call…
It's here! Get started straight away - download the iOS SDK and download the Android SDK. As we mentioned previously, iOS app developers don't have to worry about the UDID related app rejection that Apple recently put into motion. InMobi Ad SDK 350 does away with UDID and uses ODIN1 instead. Transmitted only once encrypted, no one can spy on it. You can read more about the companies other than InMobi employing ODIN1as an alternative to UDID. Features We've got a load of new features for you. The…
The app world woke up a few days back with a scare when news about Apple going through with its UDID deprecation plan hit the industry. While this definitely has substantial effects on a lot of app developers and companies that provide services using UDID, it is not new information as this idea has been floating around for over 6 months. At InMobi, we respect the decision to deprecate the UDID keeping in mind the privacy of users. We are in the business to provide value add to users and any solution…
We had a great time at the #foolsAPI at The Hub. Huge thanks to our friends at Apigee, Vodafone, Pearson, and SoundCloud for showing off their APIs and helping people create some really innovative products. I spent the day giving out beer-bottle-opening-iPhone cases, talking about our HTML5 SDK, eating cupcakes, and judging apps for the grand prize. [gallery link="file" columns="2"] There were loads of great entries - and many bizarre ones - but the InMobi prize of $250 went to What A Plan for their…
There's been a whole lot of Sturm und Drang around apps which uses the iPhone's UDID to track users. We're getting reports of Apple banning apps which access UDID - although there's nothing official yet. Frankly, it's well overdue. Users want their privacy respected, app developers want to know if their advertising campaigns have been successful, and ad networks (like InMobi) want to make sure we're sending relevant adverts to users. UDID was the easiest way for people to do all of that - but it…
There have been a lot of extraordinary claims recently that mobile ads could use up to to 75% of your phone's battery. Well, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So - let's take a look at the original Microsoft research paper. The first thing to note is that the paper doesn't claim that ads are responsible for 75% of battery drain. In one case, the researchers only looked at the first 33 seconds of usage when playing a chess game. Naturally, at start up, an app will open…
We had an awesome time at the Mobile World Congress last week. We gave out loads of goodies - including our ever popular Beer Bottle Opening iPhone Case. If you've got an event that you want the InMobi Developer team to come to - let us know! [gallery columns="2" orderby="rand"]
We're teaming up with CELL·SDK to give developers some great prizes. CELL·SDK allows you to use C# to create applications on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It's a fast and easy way to create cross platform apps. CELL·SDK has a huge range of features which we think Developers will love. So, if you want to be in with the chance to win a CELL·SDK Starter License, an iPad 2, a Nokia Lumia 800, and $250 in InMobi Ads Vouchers - enter the competition now.
For a year or so now there's been a great deal of buzz around HTML5 and all the changes it will bring to the mobile web. And, to be fair, there's a great deal of truth to that. The spec introduces a whole host of new APIs and specifications that are geared towards the kind of applications we all have been building in recent years. More specifically, this means easier geolocation, storage, graphics and 3D rendering. Oh, and don't forget projections of HTML5-enabled handsets reaching a staggering 1…
InMobi has teamed up with Pocket Change, an interesting new start up from the Bay Area. They have an SDK that allows developers to monetize their mobile games one quarter at a time, as if it was a coin operated arcade machine. We realize that ads work well for many apps, but there are some developers who are interested in other ways to make money. So how does Pocket Change help you make money? It allows you to monetize each turn. For those of you following along at home, you can check out either…
PhoneGap makes app creation easy You can code in your standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript (and don't forget some awesome device API hooks) instead of Objective-C or Java and build apps quickly. This is not just for building out prototypes or hackathon apps, there are a few really popular apps that utilize PhoneGap to manage their codebase across multiple devices. There are many advantages to the native approach, and many to the PhoneGap approach. But one thing is for sure, PhoneGap lets you get up…
The InMobi developer community is thousands of developers strong and represents billions and billions of ad impressions on our network. Over the past year and half I have met hundreds of mobile app developers from organizations of all sizes. This includes the one-man garage start-up, all the way up to 50 person companies, spanningmultiple geographies. In building this programI experimentedwith many different tactics. Based on this success, Huawei asked me to present at a thought leadership forum…
One question I often get asked is if a developer can make more money from selling an app than from using advertising. I thought I'd step you through why advertising may be financially advantageous. Let's assume that you sell your app at 99 cents - or 99 pence - or any "cheaper than a cup of coffee" price point. Most app stores charge you 30% for the privilege of selling your app. So, straight away, you're at 70c per user, per app. Still, 70c isn't bad, is it? One thing we're very keen to talk about…
Hey InMobi Developers! I'm really excited to join the Developer Evangelism team and work out of the North American office here in sunny San Mateo! I look forward to working together to ensure that the mobile developer community thrives and gets paid! For a bit of background, I was most recently the developer evangelist at an early stage startup in San Francisco and am on the board of Mobile Monday Silicon Valley. At MoMo, I head up organizing the developer-oriented events so if you live in the area,…
There are two really important things you have to do when adding adverts to your apps or sites. Don't piss off your users. Don't advertise your competitors. Luckily, InMobi gives you total control over the adverts that you display. Here's a quick walk-through to show you how to expertly manage what ads are shown. To start, visit My Apps / Sites in your dashboard, and click "Manage Filters". Category Filtering This is the easiest way to filter adverts. InMobi offers over 40 categories…
I know I speak for everyone at InMobi when I say, "Steve Jobs we salute you!" You were one of the most inspiring and innovative leaders the tech world has ever seen. We're filled with sadness at the news of your passing. InMobi is an iFund company and we're extremely proud just to be in an ecosystem created by You! Your innovations have changed the lives of billions of people on this planet. May you rest in peace. Sincerely, Naveen Tewari Founder and CEO of InMobi
Follow Us: #MMAF2011 Please join us at theMMA Forum London | 4-5 October, 2011 Rob Jonas VP & Managing Director Europe and Middle East InMobiThe Creative Revolution in Mobile: How to Capitalizing on the Immersive Experience of Mobile Advertising 5 October, 2011 Dear colleague, Please join me at MMA Forum London, 4-5 October, 2011. This event offers a global view only the MMA can deliver, exploring how mobile marketing is working in Africa, India, Japan, China, the US, and beyond.…
If you're new to advertising with InMobi, these tips from our campaign team, will help improve your campaign performance and prevent your from making costly mistakes. Start With Handset Targeting InMobi's handset targeting is the best place to start with, when considering how to set up your campaign. Targeting users of every handset is costly and unnecessary. Think first about what type of audience you want to target and what devices they are using, For example, if you're targeting a premium audience,…
The Challenge To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Sonic The Hedgehog, Sega released a brand new iOS game called Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. Available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, the hit game features great track variety, critically acclaimed multiplayer modes, and superb production values. The Solution Graphical display banner ads were run across iOS inventory in North America. A dynamic landing page featuring the game trailer and a link to download that game was also developed. Handset…
I thought I'd give you all a sneak peek of what we've got coming up for developers. We realise that one of the most important parts of what we deliver to developers is documentation. Without good documentation, it's really hard to integrate an SDK and know what all the options do. So, we're revamping our documentation and placing it all into a Wiki. We'll constantly update it, ensuring it has the very latest information about our new SDKs and their features. We'll be launching later this month. …
Discussion around HTML5 continues to heat up. InMobi was recently quoted in this article from Mobile Marketer on the subject:HTML5 mobile rich media allows advertisers to go beyond-the-banner ad, said Gregory Kennedy, director of global marketing at InMobi, Palo Alto, CA. These campaigns are designed to enrich the brand narrative the advertiser has with the consumers. Brand engagement tracking tools allow advertisers to measure performance of these campaigns and using HTML5 provides scale across…
For a limited time, Mopapp presents and exclusive offer to all InMobi develoeprs. If you register now, you'll get four additional free months of the Professional Mopapp plan.
Mopapp - a developer's tale from Marco Bellinaso on Vimeo.
Follow this link to sign up: https://www.mopapp.com/signupinmobi
Last week, the InMobi team (well... just me...) went to Twitter DevNest in London. It was great to meet so many interesting Twitter developers - and to hear on the interesting things they're doing. While there, I gave a presentation urging developers to look beyond UK/USA for revenues. By looking at some of the popular Twitter apps and websites which run our advertising, I aimed to show that there are great revenue opportunities all over the world - Indonesia, South Africa, Venezuela. Dev Nest Presentation…
When it comes to developing apps, there's no doubt that you need to do more than just serve iPhone or Android. There are lots of different platforms and you need a way to target customers on each one. Research your customers' needs and provide a solution that works for as many of them as possible. Your potential customers probably use a wider range of handsets than you would expect. But coding natively for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and all the rest can be a real chore - and it's very expensive. It's…
The ChallengeThe Intel Corporation is a global leader in technological innovation and is known for producing computer processors used in the majority of PCs and other devices sold in the world. For the launch of their new Intel CoreTM processor family, they selected the InMobi network to run a mobile campaign. The campaign was designed to increase purchase intent and awareness of Intel products.The SolutionDisplay ads were developed that helped convey the benefits of the new Intel CoreTM processor…
The engineers at Nokia Seimens Networks have written an excellent article about the level of traffic signalling in mobile apps which use advertising. Around the world, people pay varying amounts to access data. You can't assume that your customer is on an "unlimited" plan. Even if they are, you don't want to waste their battery or congest the mobile network with needless requests. With our mobile-web platform, it's easy to reduce the amount of requests you send to us: // Use the MkhojAd.php…
My name is Terence Eden and I'm InMobi's new Developer Community Manager. If you're a developer, I want to hear from you: What you think InMobi could do better. What platforms you want us to target. How we can make life easier for you - especially if you're an individual developer or small business. Why you choose InMobi - and if you didn't choose InMobi, why not. Where you see the mobile advertising world going in the next year. So whether you're just getting started in mobile development, or you've…
To help correct AdWhirl integration issues, our team has created new adaptors for developers who are using AdWhirl with InMobi. These new adaptors should fix all the integration problems for both Android and iOS.
AdWhirl iOS SDK
For iOS developers, download these new adaptors from InMobi and update the ones AdWhirl provides.
Download Links: http://developer.inmobi.com/wiki/index.php?title=InMobi_AdWhirl_Adapter_SDK_3.6.0
Please contact helpdesk@inmobi.com if you have any questions.
Thanks to the team over at Tapptics for producing this step-by-step InMobi SDK integration guide.
We love it when people from the community get involved. Keep up the great work.
LAST UPDATE 12.01.2011 Financial planning and developing ad sales projections is dry and boring topic, but no one would deny that it's also core aspect of building successful business. Because app developers and entrepreneurs tend to be busy bunch, (we know this because we're an organization of entrepreneurs ourselves) we put together complete Economic Toolkit for App Developersin Excel, which is free for you to download here. The model takes you through step-by-step, with instructions on how to:…
The people at Tapptics were kind enough to provide us with a sample set of icons that are FREE for developers to download. The graphics come in a variety of formats which makes them ideal for use in any smartphone application.
Download the zip file here
3 Billion impressions and six months later, the World Developer Fund is empty. As of January 31 2011, we officially closed the program. We view it as a huge success and hope the hundreds of developers around the world who participated feel the same way. To commemorate the fund, we undertook our first ever global analysis of our network data focusing on iOS and Android app ad inventory. You can download and read all about it here. While stats are great (we love our stats, don't we?), in this case…
Last Friday, the friendly folks over at Admob released some very interesting databout their network size, growth and composition across the world. We took this datand dissected it in order to conduct comparison of the InMobi network versus the Google / Admob network, to see how we stack up. The results are very interesting and help substantiate the remarkable growth InMobi has experienced in just four years, with only $15 million in funding. With over 1 billion ad requests daily the InMobi network…
We have put together a special offer for PeerFly community affiliates who want to work with InMobi. If you sign up for an account with InMobi we will add a 10% bonus for all PeerFly users. For more information about this offer please follow this link: http://peerfly.com/blog/2010/11/10-inmobi-deposit-bonus/
While here in Austin at 360iDev we actually received a number of questions from developers about monetization on the new Windows Phone 7 system. We passed along these questions to our contacts at Microsoft and have the following answers. 1. If I want to run ads in my WP7 app where do I get the SDK? Microsoft offers a free ad SDK which you can download from this link: http://advertising.microsoft.com/mobile-apps 2. Who is operating the WP7 ad program? Where will my check from? Microsoft is operating…
InMobi is proud to have been selected as one of four different ad networks who are working with Microsoft on the launch of their new Advertising SDK for Windows Phone 7 Apps. The new SDK will feature access to a real real-time, bidded mobile ad exchange which enables multiple ad networks to bid on mobile inventory at the exact moment when an impression is served, increasing yield and reducing waste. Their exchange is a first for our rapidly growing industry. Click here to read the full story.
We want to thank everyone for showing up at the Silicon Valley Android Users Group last night. InMobi is very happy to be working with such an engaged and energized group. "Hey guys, it was great to share some learnings about the Android market and advertising metrics. There were quite a few who were interested in looking at the presentation afterwards. We have posted it on our blog for everyone to download. Let us know if you have some issues accessing it or have other questions. For the fastest…
Hopefully you've noticed all the InMobi news these past couple weeks. Very exciting times for sure. Our US launch, a big article in Techcrunch, and finally our $2 Million World Developer Fund. So far the response has been excellent. Hundreds of developers have shown interest and new applications are launching daily. We've had two great meet-ups in San Francisco and connected with some great developers that way also. Thanks to all the early believers out there who have helped us get this…
The InMobi community joined dozens of mobile industry companies across the world helping provide relief to the Haitian people. We launched a US campaign yesterday with a click to text call to action campaign running through our mobile ad network. Consumers will be encouraged to simply text the word HAITI to 90999 to give $10. When prompted, they reply with YES to confirm a one-time gift. The $10 donation will appear on their next mobile bill and 100% of the donation will go to Red Cross to help those…
