AdMob: Difference between Network requests and Impressions

Insplisity

Lately I've been noticing quite a big increase between "AdMob Network requests" and "Impressions". On average, the difference was about 30%, but from February 28, it has jumped to 60% and it's staying there. I have no idea what could have caused this.

I've talked to a friend of mine and he has a 7% difference on average. Like I said, my was about 30%.

Could please someone share what is your average difference? It wold be interesting to compare results.

Thanks.

Apps

If you mean what part of the Network requests gets actually converted to Impressions, I got:

Jan1 2016 to today - 67%

Insplisity

Thanks, @anteos.

It's better put as you said it. For me, before the percentage of request turned to impressions was about 70%, which is very similar to your results. Now, it's about 50%. I have no idea what went wrong, but it all started on February 28. I contacted AdMob about this and let's see what they'll say.

Apps

@hendrixs
Seems like Feb 28 to today: 66%
But the numbers are not looking good for March. Worse than Jan and Feb -.-
Good you asked your AM, maybe it is something you fiddled with and can be fixed. Has it affected your revenue?

Insplisity

My AM just got back to me and she explained that these discrepancies are normal. She said that most of them occur with interstitial ads since those are pre-loaded, but not necessarily viewed.

Andromo started pre-loading interstitial ads since version 4.3.0 (released on June 16. 2015). I exported my data from AdMob (July 1, 2015 - Marc 3, 2016) and I found out that the percentage of AdMob Network requests turned to impressions was on average as follows:

July 4 '15 - October 7 '15: 55%
October 8 '15 - February 27 '16: 70.6%
February 28 '16 - March 3 '16: 54.5%.

A 15% up-shift happened in only a few days (October 8 to October 10) and
suddenly a 70% "conversion" was the new average. This lasted to February
27, and then - in one day only - there was another shift, but this was a
15% down-shift, so I'm back to around 55% conversions.

I thought that this could be related to the last Andromo version update, but I think it's not. @darryl, can you please confirm, that nothing was changed, which could have an effect on the showing of AdMob ads?

The AdMob Technical Team is still on the case, but it might turn out, that this is normal. :-/

EDIT: @anteos, yes, it has affected my revenue. Is the 66% "conversion" for you normal? Or do you also experience ups & downs?

Apps

@hendrixs
It is mostly normal and stable. The problem is the CPM keeps dropping even though we are entering a better ads season. It's getting quite frustrating actually. Keep giving apps out, keep getting less and less revenue.
Doesn't make sense.

Insplisity

I've checked my other account and that one is at 66% conversion rate, just as yours.

eCPM started picking up for me, I hope you'll experience the same, soon.

Apps

Thanks. I wish we all start making more money. Indies for the win!

meoldTest

@hendrixs
No, there were no changes in the last update that would affect AdMob. The MobileCore change was just for the trial and was a website change (disabling it from being included), and the YouTube fix was essentially the addition of one line of build script code to enable a permission.

My personal app portfolio is quite small and I usually don't pay too much attention to it since I don't make much, however for what it's worth, my apps were updated in Dec. and while Dec. and Jan. were alright, Feb. was down and March isn't looking great either. So for my stuff, I usually do see fluctuations like that.

Insplisity

Thank you, @darryl, great to hear that.

mediay

i believe since the pre-loading update, the Interstitial ads do not work as well as they should

meoldTest

@naqshbandi

As far as the interstitial pre-loading, Andromo's implementation is exactly how AdMob has outlined it should be done in order to adhere to their policies. The current behavior is better in my opinion.

mediay

the ctr rate was around 3%, after prel-oading it has dropped to less than a 1%. This has lead to a significant drop in rpm and net revenue. 

it take around to 4 to 5 interaction for Interstitial add to show, by which time the user most likely has left the app, i have other none andromo apps and the admob pre loading does not work like this

Interstitial

Interstitial

Interstitial

Interstitial

meoldTest

@naqshbandi

If I were to guess, it's because you only have one or two activities in your app and therefore limited possible opportunities to show an ad given AdMob's policies. The solution to that would be to add more content (activities).

mediay

some of the apps have many activities

Insplisity

@naqshbandi: The CTR's were better, because there were more accidental clicks. That's why AdMob enforced pre-loading. I was told this by my account manager. Basically, it was better for us, but worse for the advertisers. It's cool that Andromo implemented pre-loading so we can stay compliant.

Did you check the option in Andromo to show an interstitial on the first interaction? This way you don't need to wait for more interactions for the interstitial to show.

mediay

@hendrixs if you mean were it says "Require several interactions before showing an interstitial ad", yes

mediay

@darryl would putting a splash screen in the beginning of the app solve this issue, ie giving pre-loading time to load?

colinadams

@naqshbandi - no. You should disable the 'require several interactions ' option though.

mediay

@colinadams it has been on all apps

Insplisity

@naqshbandi:
If you don't have a check mark in front of "Require
several interactions before showing an interstitial ad", then you're OK.

Maybe you were on a slow connection and that's why you needed 4-5 interactions, before you saw an interstitial ad? It also depends on the country you're in. If you install a VPN on your device and connect to US or any other Tier 1 country, there will always be an interstitial ad available.

About the splash screens - Google only recommends them if the app has actually some loading to do in the background, which takes time. If not, then splash screens are discouraged.

mediay

@hendrixs have 4g and fiber, cant see speeds as problem in uk, all i know there is a problem just dont know what it is at the moment effecting the

AdMob Network requests" and "Impressions"

. It does not happen with mobilecroe or startapp. mine has been around 50% to 60% for a while

Insplisity

@naqshbandi: That is odd, for sure. I guess in UK you should always have an interstitial ad available at first interaction.

Thanks for sharing the Network request vs. Impressions data. I'm at 54.5% at the moment. I just don't understand how can this change for up to 15% in a couple of days. The changes are abrupt and they last for months.

szymon247

Hey guys. I've published a new app two weeks ago, it's gotten successful on third party stores, it's monetized by admob banner ads, and I'm getting ~20% impressions compared to requests steadily for a few days now, from all kinds of countries. Looking at its last week's statistics, it has a ~30% match rate after over 10,000 requests, and just a little over 2,000 impressions. I have no idea what might be the problem, as my other apps seem to have also dropped a little bit in impression/request ratio, but nowhere as much. 

Additionally question 2 - would adding FAN to the app in Andromo help? Would the missed requests be redirected to FAN then? Not sure what to do, as it's a seasonal app that could be making some money now, if it wasn't for this issue.

szymon247

An update to the above: I added FAN to the same app, only to see fill rate of 15%. Whenever I open the app, I get an ad normally. What is up? The app gets hundreds of installs a day on Amazon and GetJar. Is it related to third party stores?