Mobile Advertising Solution : AdMob

Like I said some days ago, I'm currently looking for the best ads solution to use in VGTrailers, my Flash Lite developer challenge entry.

I contacted 6 companies and got 4 replies.
I already reviewed Smaato, I'll now review AdMob

AdMob is the solution I'm currently using on my mobile version of WillNa
I really like their publisher program, with analytics, smart support and their Google group.
Plus their new House Ads product seems very interesting : include ads for others of your products on your site or app...for free !
I also note they are one of the ads networks Smaato is linked to...

Their solutions includes Web, pittyPhone and Android support...but no longer 'any' client support.
They abandonned the Client Solution early this year, right when I was about to use it.
So, while my AS code was ready, I had to look back to existing mobile ads solutions.

Why, if they dropped their Client Solution, AdMob is still a solution ?
Because the xhtml their api gives back is easy to parse.

If you want to know more about their API, you should browse their AdMob for Developers Wiki.

Using urlencoded key/value pairs parameters, you could ask for an ad.
You should use ma=xhtml&f=html_no_js to get a useful return.
Good points, a 'test' parameter let you make test (only text) and an optional 'k' (keyword) parameter will help you to get targetted ads. Hint : don't use 'search', it won't return anything on false search!
Bad points for Flash Lite developer, you NEED to send ip, user agent and headers.
And no way to ask for a specific ads size (even MMA's one)....

Like you know, you can't retrieve ip, user agent and headers within Flash Lite.
To bypass this problem, I wrote a server side PHP script which gives them back to my Flash Lite app...
But it means you had to make 2 requests to got your first ad !
1 - get ip, user agent and headers
2 - using these data, ask for ads
On some phones, Flash Lite player won't let you make 2 requests on the same frame...
So you need to handle this problem using a frame to ask information THEN, on success, jump to the frame which ask for ads.

It's not that easy, unfortunatly.
The tests I made with my AdMob renderer were successfull but I didn't test on a lot of REAL platforms.


Besides technical point, I still don't understand why they support pittyPhone & Android but not Flash Lite or J2ME or WiMo....
They aren't alone, a lot of others ads network got a SDK for each platform, so it seems I'm missing a point : why not use a common API ?!
If you have hint, post a comment please !


Their previous Client Application solution was very easy to use, if they ever re-open it, I will be the first to promote it but, waiting for this time, I'll avoid my 'hacked' solution.
I personnaly will use it ONLY if I don't find a better solution and, only after tests on more phones....

See you soon for the 2 others reviews !

Mobile Advertising Solution : Smaato

Like I said some days ago, I'm currently looking for the best ads solution to use in VGTrailers, my Flash Lite developer challenge entry.

I contacted 6 companies and got 4 replies.
From my developer point of view, the best of them is Smaato.

Smaato selects ads from others ads networks (from their homepage : AdMob, Third Screen Media,...) so no need to register in every ads network, only register on Smaato.

They made a test server available so you can ask for test ads without problem.
And I won't talk about their support who get an answer to every of my questions...and I got a lot (Thanks Robert!)

XML API is very well done and documented.
Among the cool features of the API, I noticed
- clean XML results
- IP and UserAgent are optional parameters, unlike other solutions
- ask any MMA standard ads size you want (XLarge, Large, Medium, Small), linked or not to phone' screen size since they don't userAgent
- ask any number of ads you want (so you can place 1 or X ads on a screen)
- keywords and categories target : you can almost 'select' the ads you want for better CTR.

I spent some days making a SmaatoAdRenderer, it wasn't very difficult but I wanted a generic one.
So I thought I find THE ads solution I was looking for and, with my renderer ready, asked for a publisher ID (ie registration).
And, then, the dream came to an end : Smaato is a professional solution for... professionals.
You MUST be able to reach 1 million ads/month else Smaato will close your account.
I found it out 1week ago and I'm still sad thinking about it.

Anyway, I got back to the 3 other solutions !
Like I did with Smaato, I'll share my impression soon....

In App advertising - first look

As announced, I plan to release VGTrailers using in-app ads....

When I first looked to this kind of solution 1 year ago, I only found one company which, hélas, stopped it 2 months ago!

Now, the play has changed : almost half of the mobile adversting companies have an in-app ads solution.
Well, in fact, they have in-pittyPhone ads solutions !
Some of them also had Android solution and one had also BlackBerry and Palm solution...
Problem is these solutions need a SDK...it's not an API you can plug in using Flash Lite : no Actionscript SDK !

So I contacted 5(!) of the mobile advertising companies which seems to have a full API to find a solution.

See you in some days for, I hope, some results!

PS: If you already succeed to include dynamic ads on your Flash Lite app, please give me some feedback!

VGTrailers : video submitted to Flash Lite Developer Challenge

Here is the submitted video of VGTrailers, our entry to Flash Lite Developer Challenge.

You could see it's a very limited app...but, hé!, we made it in less than 1 month, using only sunday and some late hours ;)

Anyway, it was fun and we'll release it soon.