Boost your App Revenue with Tapgage Interstitial Ads

edited April 2013 in Announcements

We added a new ad platform for our developers in Andromo 3.0.6: interstitial ads served up by Tapgage.

What are interstitial ads?

Interstitial ads are full-page ads that appear ‘between’ activities
in your app. Since they really grab the user’s attention, they can be
more effective than banner ads at generating clicks. However, you don’t
want to show them too frequently, or you may risk annoying some users.

Screenshot showing a Tapgage interstitial ad

Screenshot of an interstitial ad

How often should you show an interstitial ad?

Unlike banner ads, which don’t interrupt the user’s flow through your
app, interstitial ads occupy the full screen and need to be dismissed
by the user. Although this can make them very effective, if shown too
often they can become frustrating to your users. When choosing how often
to show interstitials, you need to balance the increased revenue
potential from showing more ads, with the possibility for decreased
revenue potential from having fewer active users.

Since user tolerance for interstitials can vary greatly from one app
to the next, there is no universal answer to this question. (You might
even want to annoy your users a little bit in a free app when you also have a paid, ad-free version available.)

Andromo lets you set the minimum time between ads from 10 minutes to
24 hours. You should choose an appropriate interval based on how often
you think your users would want to see an interstitial ad. Keep in mind
that shorter times aren’t always better — setting this value too low may
cause some users to uninstall your app, decreasing your app’s long term
revenue potential.

Tapgage settings on the Monetization tab of the Andromo project settings

Experiment and use analytics

You may wish to experiment with different interval settings, and take
advantage of the new app analytics to track how your users respond to
the different versions.

If you have Google Analytics enabled in your app, an event will be
generated whenever a Tapgage ad is shown. You can use the “Secondary
dimension” feature in Google Analytics to differentiate your Tapgage ad
impressions by activity (“screen name”), app version, and other useful
metrics.

Tapgage events per activity in Google Analytics

Tapgage events per version in Google Analytics

All for the low price of…free

There is no additional charge to use interstitial ads. Simply sign up for a free account at www.tapgage.com, and enable the interstitial ads on the Monetization tab in your Andromo project settings.

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Comments

  • Nice writeup Lorne!

       I added Tapgage to one of my apps yesterday, and set Andromo to show an add every 20 minutes.  It got a constant 20% CTR or click thru rate for the first 24hrs.  In layman's terms: If 100 people used/installed my app, 20 of them clicked on an advertisement. Pretty impressive. 

    Just for some kind of comparison (not really fair), Admob get's about a 1% CTR.  

    Admob typically avg 500 clicks per day.
    Tapgage ads got 1,400+ clicks yesterday.

    I was worried that there would be a lot of uninstalls and bad feedback, but the results from last night are 4 new 5 star ratings on Google Play and not a single complaint about ads.  I really think it somehow made my somewhat boring app look better/more alive.  The ads are pretty easy on the eyes and very tempting.

    This comment was my favorite of the bunch:

    "Keep it up

    Props
    to you and your team man. Prob the only app that does exactly as the
    description says. No bull either. Hope you have plans for future apps I
    know they would be awesome."

    I guess I have to thank my "Team", Andromo and Tapgage haha :)  Good job team!




  • edited April 2013
    Other things worth mentioning...

     The interstitial is shown as soon as the first activity is clicked on.  The user clicks or decides to dismiss by press in the "X" in the corner or I found that the phone's physical "back" button works too.  If the user is still using the app after 20 minutes, another ad will appear.

    Free apps tend to get lots of uninstalls. The good thing about the first initial ad is the fact that it could get a click well before the user tries your free app and decides to uninstall it. 

    I also noticed that when the app is closed at let's say 5 minutes of use... if the user decided to open it back up before that 20 minute mark, they won't see another ad immediately (tested on 2 different Galaxy Note IIs).  The timer set by Andromo remained.  Very nice.

    Pandora (free) users have seen interstitial ads before and shouldn't be shocked to see them.  The trick will be finding the right ad frequency that brings the most revenue.  You can also create in-house ads in Tapgage to promote your Pro or Upgraded no-ads version.  Good stuff.



  • Yes, the CTR is very big, but what about the eCPM?
    My eCPM is 0.73$ and for a click I get 0.002 $. Not so good.

  • My eCPM is $.88,  $.86,  $.78,  for the last three days.  Yeah I'll agree with you there.  $.004 if I did my math right.  Honestly I did expect better pay for such obtrusive ad space.  Maybe we'll know more in a few days.  I'm working on in-house ads now but they aren't running for some reason.  Documentation is very vague.  :(
  • I suspect a lot of the ads you're seeing on Tapgage currently are CPA ads (cost-per-action) rather than CPC ads (cost-per-click).

    Tapgage has said they are still in the process of ramping up their ad inventory for some locations and it may take some time to get higher eCPMs; in the mean time you will see a higher proportion of ads that are cost-per-action (e.g. paid for an actual install) rather than cost-per-click.

    I think all advertising networks struggle with a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. The increased traffic from Andromo apps should help Tapgage attract even more advertisers.

  • Yeah, I'm not so impressed yet either, earning $0.67 in the same time that I earned about $20 with Admob.

    And there is basically no documentation at the Tapgage site. What do the DA and HA percentages do in the Adfill settings?
  • edited April 2013
    I couldn't find any info but I'm guessing that DA is Direct Advertisement and HA is House Ads.  I haven't changed them from the default 25%. Still, none of my house ads are being displayed.  :(

    It's odd that you have to log out of your Tapgage account to find the wiki, glossary and more info on the main page.  Once logged in, there needs to be tool tips ("?") next to every button or drop down menu for all the new novice Andromo users.  I sent them an e-mail about it.  Kinda frustrating to figure out in my opinion.
  • edited April 2013
    30 minute edit timer got me on my above post. :)  ...continued here.
    Thoughts that ran thru my head when setting up Tapgage.

    I
    couldn't find any info but I'm guessing that DA is Direct Advertisement
    and HA is House Ads.  That section could not be more vague.  I literally
    laughed out loud when I figured it out what they were referring to. 
    Why not spell it out?  There's plenty of space for words instead of
    abbreviations.   You can't exactly Google search for "DA" or "HA" and
    get an answer. :)  I logged out and checked the glossary, wiki etc.  No
    mention of those abbreviations there either.  So I would assume that
    adjusting those percentages should affect how often your own
    advertisements show up.  I haven't changed them from the default 25%.
    Still, not a single house ad I set up is being displayed.  :(  Broken? 
    What file type are we supposed to use?  I tried PNG, maybe it's looking
    for .jpg.  Are animated .gif acceptable?  No idea...no documentation
    that I can find.  Do I have to fill out every single ad size to make it
    work?  Maybe...I only tried one file resolution.  I guess we have to
    duplicate our ad graphic a dozen different sizes?  I don't know. I
    didn't get an error message when I uploaded only one size.

    It's
    odd that we have to log out of our Tapgage account to find the wiki,
    glossary and more info on the main page.  (Am I missing something?) Once
    logged in, there needs to be tool tips ("?") next to every button and
    drop down menu for all the new novice Andromo users.  I sent them an
    e-mail about it. 

    Also, when you setup a house ad, you choose
    your graphic(s) but never see them again.  It's scary to hit the "run"
    button and never see a preview of what it will look like until it
    eventually shows up on your app.  I really don't have time to hit
    refresh every 20 minutes till I hit the lottery and see my House-Ad.  
    You have to view it in the app to make sure you chose the right
    graphic.  I still haven't figured out how to edit the house ad once it
    has been uploaded via Tapgage.  Delete the campaign and restart.
    Overall, it works (minus house-ads so far) but it's very frustrating to figure out in my opinion. 

    I
    explored and used Admob to its fullest potential, but Tapgage is giving
    me a headache. :P  With all that said, I'm still VERY grateful that
    Andromo team put this in place for us.  Kudos! :)
  • Just realized.  I think maybe you have to pay to run your own House Ads, unlike Admob which is Free.  Just a guess.
  • edited April 2013
    Hi Guys,

    I am just chiming in. I am actually the CEO of Tapgage.

    1. @aszpu, @lorne is correct. Majority of our campaigns are actually performance based campaigns (Cost Per Install). You only get paid when someone actually clicks on an ad, installs the app, and opens it up. Our algorithm performs the best when there is significant amount of traffic where we can optimize and maximize the eCPM. In many scenarios the traffic is very little for our algorithm to actually maximize the eCPM. However, with the partnership with Andromo it will help us get more traffic which in return will help us get many more CPC (Cost Per Click) and CPM (Cost Per Mile) advertisers. Over the next 2 months our main focus will be maximizing the eCPM and building a stronger sales team.  

    2. @Thoyloak and @Turbomike thanks for pointing it out! Yes DA means Direct Advertisement and HA means House Ads. Sorry for the confusion and I apologize on behalf of Tapgage for not making it clear. I have realized that we have not made a post about the HA/DA functions on our Knowledgebase and will put it on my “to do list” and will have it done. @Turbomike thanks for the tip and instead of the abbreviation I will have them label it as “House Ads” and “Direct Ads” to make it much clearer. 

    3. @TurboMike I really appreciate your feedback. The “Tool Tip” idea is great to make things much more user friendly and we will have this done. Also I have noticed the flaw as you pointed it out where users cannot see the preview of the ads they just uploaded. Previously they could, but I guess with the new upload page that functions ended up vanishing. This is a crucial function and I will have this as a priority and have it fixed ASAP. Also the House Ads option is totally free. I am not sure where you are seeing that it’s a paid option. If you have a Direct Ad set up you will have to enter a bid amount. The bid amount is whatever you are charging the Direct Advertiser and is not deducted from your balance. For the House Ad no bid is needed. Again @TurboMike your feedback and suggestions was extremely valuable to me. I will work on them ASAP and will notify you once they are up and running. If you can email me I would gladly give you some advertising credit for giving such valuable feedback.


    I do understand we are still a fairly new ad network but all feedback, suggestions, criticism, will be great as it will help us build a better and stronger ad network. I hope you do not give up on us yet and promise with your help you will see better eCPM, higher revenue, more advertisers, and a more user friendly dashboard. If you have any questions please feel free to email me Arfan(at)Tapgage(dot)com or Skype me (ArfanChaudhry). 

    Kindest Regards,
    Arfan Chaudhry
  • edited April 2013
    Hi Mr. Chaudhry,

    Thank you for addressing those little issues and clearing other things up.  I'm definitely not giving up on Tapgage.  The Andromo team made a wise decision!  Count me in.  The potential is clear and we're making money that we certainly weren't before. 

    I'll send you an e-mail about the free advertising credits.  (How cool is that!). 

    Thanks again,
    Mike
  • edited April 2013
    So are we OK just leaving HA and DA at the defaults if we're not doing anything with them (I'm not even sure what the difference is between them)?

    Also, I've noticed that on my phone (Google Nexus 4 with Android 4.2.2), the actual ad graphic shows up very tiny on the screen (I was actually originally thinking HA/DA might have something to do with sizes). But on my tablet it is about the size I would expect. Most of my app users are on phones, according to Google Analytics.

    Although I'm still seeing abysmal results on ad revenue from Tapgage, it has at least had the effect of increasing the sales of my paid ad-free versions! ;)
  • @Turbomike I have received your email and will be sending you an email shortly. Also we have started working on the suggestions you have given us.

    @Tholyoak It's strange your seeing a small ad size for the Nexus 4. I'm going to look into the screen resolution for it and see what our resize is set as. Also here is some information about DA (Direct Ads) and HA (House Ads) by clicking here. Also I'm sorry to hear about the revenue part but rest assure we will be doing some heavy advertising start early next week and wil be hitting hard on the sales side to get more advertisers on board which should improve your revenue. 








  • Sounds good, Arfan.  "rest assure
    we will be doing some heavy advertising start early next week and will
    be hitting hard on the sales side to get more advertisers on board"  Fingers crossed and rooting for ya.  :)

    P.S. I noticed a type-o in a couple of places where House Ads (HA) and Direct Ads (A) are mentioned.  At the top and right side of the page I think it should have read (DA) instead of (A).



  • Let the new ads run for 24 hours, and was not happy with the results.  My phone also showed the same ad every time for a dating service.  Here are the stats.  615 Impressions, 49 clicks, and ZERO revenue.  Whatever it is that they are serving, my people are not interested!  This is the one thing that I don't like about andromo, there are so many great ad networks out there, and we can't use them because we can't add the code to our apps.  hope you make it easier for us to do that.  Why TagGage?  because there are many more established and useful ad networks that we could be using. I will keep and eye on this thread and see if people are having more success later on.  I want to use this type of advertising, but I don't think Tapgage is ready for PRIME TIME yet.
  • Has anyone been able to get their House Ads running?  Mine say Active, but they don't display for some reason. 

    arfan_tapgage I noticed that the website could use a Favicon.  It would be helpful for people that leave a lot of tabs open while browsing/building.  I have trouble finding and getting back to my Tapgage tab quickly sometimes.

    I spotted an "App Wall" option below "Interstitial", but haven't tried it...wondered if it was ready to be used yet.  Sounds interesting.



  • @Turbomike thanks for pointing out the error I have gotten it fixed. 

    @heybert00 I am sorry you feel that way. I will admit one of the biggest problem we are facing is actually monetizing developers with little impressions. This is because most campaigns are performance based campaigns which require a substantial amount of impressions for the algorithm to determine what the best campaigns are to show. However as stated before we are working hard to get many more CPC and CPM advertisers on board which should solve that issue. 

    @TurboMike Can you email me the problem your having with House Ads I can definitely take a look into it for you. Also I can definitely put in a Favicon. The "App Wall" function will not work right now as we put the development on hold at the moment. Sorry for the inconvenience. 
  • Has anyone been able to display their own In-House ads?  Mine still say "Active" but never display anything.
  • Hi!

    I've just implemented TapGage in my new app, with a 10 minute interval of showing ads, but I haven't seen any yet. What does 10 mins actually mean? That an will be shown only after a user has been using my app for 10 mins? Or is an ad shown per 10 minutes of total usage time?

    Thanks!
  • By the way, I forgot one more thing - a lot of custom built apps show interstitial ads when you want to exit the app! Would this be possible to implement in Andromo, just as a feature, which a "developer" can choose to enable or disable? Thanks.
  • @hendrixs The third post explains how interstitials appear.  The exit function you mentioned would be interesting. I've seen them before and think it's a good time to show an ad also.

    I currently have house-ads working in Rectangle 300x250 format.  They look perfect on my Galaxy Note II.  There was a bug that has been fixed by Arfan and Tapgage team.  Full or half screen house ads are not working for me, yet.


  • Hi turbomike,

    thanks for your reply, I appreciate it!
  • I've just started implementing Tapgage - no revenues yet, but I hope that CPC model will be implemented also, and that the payouts will be shortened from 60 to 30 days.

    By the way, I'm grateful for Tapgage, but I would like to know, why would a developer choose Tapgage over AdMob's Interstitials (for those developers who can implement whatever they wish)? What makes Tapgage different or special? I thinks that's quite important for the long-term outlook of the company and attracting advertisers.

    Thanks!
  • I had 113 impressions so far, 29 clicks (impressive CTR - 25 %), but no revenue (0,00 $).

    Tapgage has potential, I just hope that they up their game! They haven't had any press releases since December 2011, their founder says he's "lazy" and a "serial entrepreneur". This doesn't give me much confidence, but let's wait and see what will happen. I hope they start getting more advertisers real soon. A friend of mine is using AdMob's Interstitials and he's making tons of money with simple apps like I have, but he codes them himself and he can use whatever he wishes and whatever platforms he wants.

    And an answer to my previous question would make me more relaxed. :)
  • Update: 262 impressions, 63 clicks, eCPM $1,20, Revenue $0,32.

    OK, I'm happy that at least something is happening. :) I'll give another update in about 15 days or so.
  • @Hendrixs @turbomike... Hello Gentlemen, I'm also with Tapgage! Happy to answer those questions. 
    - We may have an exit interstitial in the new future, we've discussed that and what it may or may not take away from the use experience.  Thoughts?
    - Admob doesn't rule the world yet.  We work with a lot of developers that don't like Admob, they don't have the kind of ability to serve Publisher like we do.  They are in it for big volume... and mainly focus resources on the big guys.   They also don't focus on one product set, they are a jack of all trades and a master of none.  Over the next few weeks as we hit those cpc campaign's you will see the difference in eCPM vs AdMob :)
  • @salmantapgage: Hi, thanks for joining in and for your reply, it is much appreciated!

    You are right, showing ads while exiting an app may hurt user experience. To be honest, it does bother me when I see exit ads, but I'm not sure how most of other users react to these things. I also felt uncomfortable (at first) using AdMob banners in apps or AdSense on my websites, but now I see that people don't mind those. Maybe an exit ad could be implemented as an option only and we could decide if we ant to use this option or not.

    I'm looking forward to the CPC campaigns!

    And again, a big thank you to Andromo and Tapgage for enabling us to use interstitials now.
  • edited April 2013
    Tapgage is not working for me as far as revenue from ads goes. But it's been apparent that I'm selling more of my paid apps because people want to get away from the ads, which is at least some benefit (though just to me, and not to Tapgage).

    However, I received a complaint yesterday about one of the ads. Is there any way we can disallow certain types of ads like we can with other companies? The ads shown in my apps really aren't appropriate for the users (which might actually also explain why there isn't much in the way of revenue). In fact, the screenshots above are very deceptive. Those particular ads would be OK. Instead, all I'm seeing are ads for a dating site (which isn't really appropriate for my apps). The complaint I got yesterday was about a scantily clad woman advertising a gambling site (which is even less appropriate for my apps), and caused the user to uninstall.
  • @tholyoak: thanks for the info, it's good to know this! I don't see my Tapgage ads, probably because I use Android 4.0.3 (a lot of bugs in it, waiting on an upgrade), but I see them in BlueStacks emulator. Yesterday I saw a game ad, which was OK.

    But, this gives me worries: I had 825 impressions so far, 156 clicks (19% CTR), and $1,23 of revenue. At the same time, I'm seeing a lower CTR for my AdMob ads, and lower earnings from those ads, even if I now have AdMob enabled on the Dashboard (which means that I should earn more)! So basically, Tapgage ads are taking away my users, and I don't get any revenue from it.

    I'll leave Tapgage in my apps for the rest of the week, and if there is no improvement in revenue, and I'll earn less from AdMob that I did BEFORE implementing ads on the Dashboard, I'll temporarily remove Tapgage.
  • @salmantapgage Hello! I'm sticking with you guys, even if I'm not very happy with current eCPM, but can you please give a bit more info, what do you plan to do in the future to improve eCPM? How is it going with implementing CPC ads? I'm also seeing the same ad in my apps (Monster Games) for a week now. Are you working actively to improve your ad network? Is there a way for us to help you somehow? Thanks!
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