As a typical publisher, you have a variety of options for monetizing your app. You may have direct-sold ads, “house” i.e. cross promotional ads, or third-party network ads. Within the 3rd party network set, you again have dozens of network options, each of which may pay differently based on the time of day, targeting parameters, the type of app you have, and much more.

Traditionally, you would manage displaying these ads manually through our Tiers and Weights system. You might review the eCPMs being earned in each of your App’s zones and then adjust the order accordingly. For the last few months, however, SkyRocket’s team of software engineers and data scientists have been actively developing an automated version of this. This new toolset takes into account your inventory value, serving availability and the best performing ads to drive the highest revenue possible. In turn, you can now light up optimization through your zone settings and let SkyRocket do the heavy lifting.

Revenue Lift

SkyRocket’s proprietary algorithm works to assess the performance of each ad in your zone and intelligently makes decisions as to which is best served. In production test cases, revenue from ads served through auto-optimization performed an average of 25% better than control groups. While the optimization logic takes into account a variety of ad unit factors, the foundation of the formula assesses expected eCPM performance. This logic applies to all ad channels – Network, House, and Direct.

What are the pre-requisites to effective optimization?

For effective optimization, the SkyRocket Ad Server needs several accurate data points.

House/Direct ads – Campaign prices must be set to accurately calculate revenue for the ads and determine the value of the campaign.

Network ads – Revenue is retrieved from the network, so it is important that network credentials are updated and all ads are efficiently mapped.

For Autopilot ads, this is done for you. Learn more about how to set up and manage your network.

To assist you, we’ve set up alerts along the way. For instance, an alert will show when key prerequisites are not in place.

Learn more about general best practices for optimizing through SkyRocket.

Zone & Tier-Level Optimization

SkyRocket offers two ways of optimizing your apps’ zones:

Zone Optimization

SkyRocket will optimize every house, direct, and network ad in the selected zone. This requires the least amount of management and is recommended for publishers that want to take a hands-off approach to ad serving, or have too many zones to make effective manual decisions.

Tier-Level Optimization

A more advanced approach is Tier-Level Optimization.  An instance of this is:  You want to serve some of your direct ads first, regardless of price. In this case, you may want to place those in Tier 1, optimize Tier 2 and assign all your network ads there – now allowing these ads to compete based on best revenue performance. This is useful when you want direct control over only one part of your inventory or don’t have access to complete revenue data for certain ads.

How do I turn Optimization on?

From the SkyRocket Dashboard, you turn Optimization on by editing your zone.

Once you enable optimization for a specific zone, any ad or network ad you assign to it gets automatically prioritized. In other words, SkyRocket will display the ads in the order which will maximize your revenue. You will not see any tiers on your zone anymore, you will see one tier called the optimized tier.

Helpful links

• Knowledge Base articles:
  • Optimization Prerequisites
  • Network Mapping
  • Tiers and Weights

Burstly is excited to announce completion of our Adobe AIR Native Extension (ANE) for the SkyRocket SDK.

This is the newest addition in our growing line of plugins designed to support developers that build once and deploy to multiple mobile platforms. Each open-sourced plugin allows developers to leverage both TestFlight and SkyRocket functionality, which frees them to remain within the environment of their choice, and eliminates the need to write the middleware required to integrate the SkyRocket SDK.

One Publisher’s Plugin Story

Sunstorm Games, responsible for over 85 games and 250 million downloads, successfully integrated the SkyRocket SDK into a variety of titles, including Super ICEE Maker (iOS, Android), Figure Skating (iOS, Android), and the new Sunnyville Series (Sunnyville Salon and Pets Salon). In all of these integrations, the developers solely used the Unity editor, never having to write any native code. This efficiency success story is a great example of how SkyRocket’s flexible open-source plugins made it possible for a platform-driven company to quickly and effectively monetize their applications.

If you’re interested in accessing either the new Adobe AIR or Unity plugin for your mobile development platform, let us know!

Helpful links:

• Github:
  • Adobe AIR Native Extension: https://github.com/burstly/BurstlyANE
  • Unity Plugin: https://github.com/Burstly/BurstlyUnityPlugin
• Readme file & Documentation
  • https://github.com/burstly/BurstlyANE/blob/master/README.md
• Related blog posts:
  • Introducing SkyRocket Plugins!

• Apps
• Reporting

App-Specific Access

Organizations with larger teams often break up their development and trafficking operations based on Apps. Additionally, these same organizations may have specific studios that work on specific intellectual properties. SkyRocket’s new App-level Permissions make it easy to segment users within organizations and only share Ad Management and Reporting features relevant to the apps they work on.

What Can Restricted Members See?

In the Apps menu of the SkyRocket Dashboard, users who have been assigned to specific apps will have the ability to view all apps within that organization, but they will be restricted from engaging deeper and editing anything except the app(s) they are permitted to use. Similarly in the Zone management view, restricted users can see which ads are assigned but won’t actually be able to edit them. Finally, reporting is only available for the apps to which a user has permission.

Reporting-Only Access

It’s common for enterprise organizations trafficking an extensive amount of ads to tightly manage the personnel that can create and serve campaigns. However, there may be a wider group that needs access to the reporting for business intelligence purposes. SkyRocket’s new permission option allows Admins to restrict access for select users to reporting only.

What Can Restricted Members See?

Users in an organization that have been given reporting-only permissions have access to the following:

• Reporting tab/pages
• SDK Adapters/Downloads page
• Account settings

Setting Permissions

To enable app-level permissions, simply visit the Organization page and select Members from the left sidebar. If the Member sidebar is not available, you are not an Admin for this Org and cannot set permissions.

If you’re an admin for your Org, you you can click on the permission for the specific member. For a full description of how to use, this feature visit Org Roles.

Until today.

We’ve restored in-app updates for all users and now you don’t have to set the device identifier at all! In fact, you can remove that line from your app.

Quick refresher on how in-app updates work. When using a beta of an app, the developer uploads a new version. While in the app, a message appears that a new build is available. See image below.

Not interested in the in-app updates feature? No problem! To turn them off, you will need to set the following SDK options in your code before calling takeOff:

[TestFlight setOptions:@{ @"disableInAppUpdates" : @YES }];

Using the same technology, we’re updating Tester Identification. When using the latest beta SDK (2.2.0), you are now able to view which beta tester created each session without setting the UDID. This works for any beta tester who has created a TestFlight account and has linked his device to TestFlight. This is done automatically, with no code on your part.

It’s completely App Store safe and uses no private APIs. In addition, this feature only works during the beta phase of your app only on registered TestFlight beta users. It does not identify production users in any way.

Helpful links

Support doc:

• How do I implement in-app updates?

Jason Gregori works on the iOS SDK here at TestFlight. Say hi to him on Twitter: @jasongregori.

The IPA and provisioning are an integral part of the app beta testing process so it’s great to understand your options and hear from the experts on how others have used them in their TestFlight workflow.

The Basics

• An IPA: iOS App Store Package, everything needed for an iOS device to load and run your app.
• Provisioning Profile: The bane of beta distribution! This is a profile created in your Apple Developer Account that contains the UDIDs of the devices to which you wish to distribute your beta app. Here are the two types of provisioning:
  • Standard iOS Developer Account allows you to create these types of IPAs:
    • Development
    • Ad hoc
    • App Store
  • Enterprise iOS Developer Account allows you to create these types of IPAs:
    • Development
    • In house
    • Ad hoc

Where it gets interesting

There are some big differences between what you can do with a Standard iOS Dev Account and an Enterprise Account inside of TestFlight. With 70% of TestFlight users uploading ad hoc builds on iOS, we know that most people are familiar with that process being limited to 100 UDIDs. The Enterprise account allows you to create builds that can be distributed to more than 100 testers and doesn’t require a UDID; so long as you’re in accordance with Apple’s Enterprise Dev rules.

What this means is: With Enterprise signed builds on our system, we’ve seen deployments to teams with tens of TestFlight testers and thousands of TestFlight testers based on the team’s needs!

Furthermore, for your security, if you’re using an Enterprise signed build, we make sure to only distribute to the users that you have permitted with a TestFlight account. This way, you can track and make sure your app isn’t ending up on unauthorized devices. So, the only action you need to take is to choose your list of approved TestFlight testers with a connected device and you are ready to deploy!

Now, while we aren’t launching anything new today (we’ve supported enterprise for the last two years), we wanted to write this post and address some of the developer questions we’ve been seeing about Enterprise vs Standard iOS dev accounts lately. If you are working on a large team or need some flexibility that the Enterprise signed IPAs can offer, please read into some of the links below and get your app off the ground.

Additional Resources

• How do I prepare a build for distribution through TestFlight?
• How do I manage permissions for an enterprise signed .IPA?
• Setting up your provisioning profile

Jon Janzen is the Lead Developer for TestFlight Engineering. He is a fan of Apple, Linux, wood working, and he fixes bugs for scotch. He currently lives in Edmonton with his wife and daughter.

Compelling Ads Monetize Better

Ad networks specializing in rich media creatives have come a long way in providing more engaging and relevant content that monetize better. The trade-off for publishers, until recently, has been the need to ensure device compatibility when displaying script ads across multiple screen sizes and orientations on both platforms.


This is no longer the case with the advent of standard frameworks such as MRAID (Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions) that bridge the gap between HTML/Java-Script based ads and the native capabilities on the device. Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB, the consortium that designed the MRAID framework) has also introduced VAST, a video content delivery protocol that helps reduce friction with buyers by allowing third-party ad tags within video players.

We are thrilled to announce that the latest SkyRocket SDK 2.0 supports both MRAID 2.0 and the VAST 2.0 frameworks. The best part is that you do not have to update the SDK in order to support these frameworks.

Ad Networks

From the early days of ORMMA (Open Rich Media for Mobile Advertising) to MRAID, we’ve seen tremendous improvements in both the stability and functionality of these APIs. They key to adoption has been agreeing on and defining these standards so that agencies/vendors/ad networks can feel comfortable including them in their media buys. We’ve created partnerships with a variety of ad networks which support MRAID. We work closely with these networks to ensure a smooth delivery of rich media ads to your app.

These networks are available in your SkyRocket Dashboard:

• BrightRoll
• Jumptap
• Millennial Media
• mNectar
• PaeDae

We strive to make this seamless for the publishers by including functionality that properly targets and segments rich media by SDK version. For example, if there is a request from an SDK version for rich media that’s not supported, a rich media ad won’t be displayed. Conversely, when the SDK version calls for a supported rich media ad, it will be served as expected. There’s no additional action needed from the publisher.

Vendors

We’ve served rich media from these vendors:

• Phluant
• Crisp Media
• Celtra
• Medialets

If any of these vendors deliver tags to you, these can run as Direct or House Ads in your SkyRocket Dashboard.

SkyRocket SDK Requirements

Before we dive deeply into the power of the toolsets, you’ll just need to confirm you’ve integrated the minimum supported version of the SDK as listed below. It is highly recommended that you integrate the latest version of the SDK as it will always contain the most recent fixes and updates to rich media support.

Some helpful tips

The MRAID Web Tester tool is the approved, standard test tool for MRAID units and can help provide next steps when an MRAID ad isn’t serving as expected.

To help determine where the issue lies, we customarily take the script tag and place it in the MRAID Web Tester. Generally, there are two possible results and routes to take.

1. If it’s not functioning properly in the web tester, then it is likely an issue with the tag itself. When this result occurs, you’ll want to reach out to the ad network and/or rich media vendor and inform them that their tag is not functioning as expected in the MRAID Web Tester. Often times, the rich media vendor will tweak the tag and use this tool themselves before sending back the revised script tags.

2. If the ad displays properly in the web tester, but does not function properly in app, the recommended next step is to reach out to the Burstly support team to help debug.

Then the Ad Network and, in turn, the rich media vendor gain insights from the feedback that the MRAID Web Tester tool provides. The tool produces console logs that the vendor can review to ensure their ad complies with the MRAID standard.

Helpful links

• Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions (MRAID) – http://www.iab.net/mraid
• Support document
  • Script Ads

One of SkyRocket’s key features is Ad Network Mediation. We provide a single SDK to integrate with dozens of ad networks which empowers mobile app developers to have control over their ad network partnerships.

Each integration, however, can still involve several steps. You will need to set up an account with the ad network, provide that application ID, enter reporting credentials and any custom parameters to SkyRocket. Not to mention, maintaining the relationship with the ad network and keeping track of collections.

For certain ad networks, SkyRocket can take over and handle all of that for you. This is Network Autopilot: We’ll set up your account, manage the reporting process for the Ad Network(s) you select, and get you paid on time.

Ad Networks
We offer a range of trusted ad networks from which to choose. We’re continuously working to expand this list but today we support:

• Adfonic: Banners & Interstitials with European inventory
• Drawbridge: Banners & Interstitials with global inventory
• Hunt: Banners, Interstitials & Rich Media support with South American inventory
• Jumptap: Banners & Interstitials with US/CAN/UK/AUS inventory
• Komli: Banners & Interstitials with Asian inventory
• MdotM: Banners & Interstitials with global inventory

Payments
We’ve simplified the payment process, too. You only have to set up your payment preferences once in the SkyRocket dashboard. That’s it. Click here for the step-by-step guide and the fine print is available here.

More to come!
We’ve got even more features in mind for Network Autopilot. Stay tuned!

Helpful links
Support docs

• Create a New Network (Autopilot)
• Payment Info

Asim Memon is a Product Manager for SkyRocket. He spends a lot of time analyzing LA traffic and ad tech. He lives in Pasadena with his wife and two daughters.

SkyRocket’s new Device Targeting page provides the most efficient way to target device families, carriers, screen resolutions, and much more. As we designed the new toolset, our goal was to provide a simple one page experience that provides maximum flexibility. By blending efficient drill-downs, extensive targeting options, and preset management tools, it’s now easier than ever to reach key audiences across the mobile landscape.

Device Targeting
The new targeting toolset offers a tree-expansion system that provides flexible growth in a world of ever-growing mobile device counts. Given the scope of Android fragmentation and the fluid expansion of devices across a wide variety of brands, we put special focus on devising an interface that can grow with the industry. With the Device Targeting module, you have the ability to drill down from Mobile device type to platform to Device Family and Model groups. The tree system makes it easy to select or de-select entire groups, giving you the ability to efficiently target to or away from a wide array of mobile devices.

Carrier Targeting
Carrier management provides tree-expansion functionality similar to device targeting. This module offers extensive carrier targeting in the US, as well as across a wide array of international territories. It can be useful to blend geo-targeting with carrier selections to help strike the most effective regional results.

Screen Resolution Targeting
This new targeting toolset helps you reach the most granular breakout of screen sizes. This is useful when working with artwork that has specific display requirements, or when looking to lock-in on phone or tablets fitting within a specific range.

Other Targeting Options
In addition to the new targeting options above, SkyRocket provides these options:

• Platform – Select between Burstly’s supported platforms.
• OS Version – Partner platform selections with OS version range selection.
• Density – Choose from several Android density options.

Targeting Presets
If you engage in an extensive amount of targeting, our Preset tool makes it easy to create once and apply on the fly across your campaigns or creatives. Once you have finished making all of your targeting selections, you can access the toolset at the top of the page to save your selection for re-use during another campaign/creative setup.

As with the industry itself, the targeting options will continue to expand. We hope to offer the most comprehensive choices available, so please reach out and let us know if we are missing anything you need.

Helpful links

• SkyRocket Support Documentation:
  • Advanced Device Targeting
  • Standard Device Targeting

At Burstly, our goal is to empower developers by providing effective tools at every stage of the app lifecycle. We’re continuously building features to make it easier to beta test, analyze, and monetize. One such tool that we’re proud to open-source is our Unity plugin for the SkyRocket SDK.

With the new Unity plugin, developers don’t have to write the middleware required to integrate the SkyRocket SDK. This plugin eliminates the need to learn another programming language and provides a simple drag and drop method to include in any Unity project.

By open-sourcing the plugin, we hope to gain valuable feedback from the growing community of Unity developers and will offer continued support of the framework.

The plugin is available via github and is fully compatible with the latest version of SkyRocket 2.0.

Helpful links:

• github repo
• QuickStart Guide
• Support forum topics:
  • Unity Plugin: Android Plugin overrides UnityActivity
  • Unity Plugin: destroyAdPlacement same on Android?

One of SkyRocket’s biggest features is Ad Network Mediation. With one SDK, you can integrate dozens of Ad Networks. Once you integrate, it’s critical to understand which of your networks have the highest eCPM. Perhaps some work better on certain days or on certain apps, or a network is particularly strong with your international users.

You can use this revenue information to then prioritize which networks should have first dibs on your apps’ available inventory. This can be done using our auto-optimization feature which lets you optimize select tiers (more on this below) or you can choose to do it manually.

The reporting dashboard and reports construction page help you view revenue trends across each of your networks and optimize accordingly. We’d like to spend a few minutes explaining how to correctly set up ad network reporting to make sure this works off the bat.

There are two main steps to this:

1. Add reporting credentials.

Unless you signed up via Autopilot, you will need to create an account with the Ad Network and register your app there. For SkyRocket to retrieve that data and consolidate it with the rest of your app’s information, you will have to provide SkyRocket with either the reporting API information or user credentials. Click here for more details.

2. Map your SkyRocket app to the network’s app.

Now, let’s confirm that SkyRocket matches the name as set up with the network. Mapping enables SkyRocket to make sure we are displaying the correct network revenue against the correct creative in our dashboard. This is as simple as editing your network ad and selecting the app from the available list. Get the step-by-step guide here.

A Note on Auto-Optimization

You may have noticed that SkyRocket now lets you auto-optimize your zones. SkyRocket will use historical and predicted network performance to verify the performing network ads are served first at the right time so you don’t have to manage the tiers and weights yourself. The above two steps are critical to get the most out of our optimization.

As always, our support team is ready to answer any questions you may have throughout the process.

Asim Memon is a Product Manager for SkyRocket. He spends a lot of time analyzing LA traffic and ad tech. He lives in Pasadena with his wife and two daughters.