Download tracking is a feature that allows you to match clicks on an ad to an app install (meaning a user downloaded the app and opened it at least once). This allows you to determine the conversion rate for a particular ad and calculate the eCPM for the ad. An easy way to do this is to access Burstly’s website – it can calculate the eCPM for you automatically if you know your CPA (cost-per-action, equal to the “value” of a user for an app).

Here’s an example of why knowing your ads’ eCPM is so important:

Let’s say you’re running both third-party ad network ads and house ads in your app. You know that ad network A gives you a $1.00 eCPM and ad network B gives you a $2.00 eCPM, so it’s clear that you should run ad network B before you run ad network A to maximize your revenue, but what about your house ads? Where do they fit in? Using Burstly’s download tracking, you may discover that ads for another one of your apps result in one install per 1,000 ads shown. If this app is $0.99, then that gives you an eCPM of $0.70 and you should run house ads only if your ad networks can’t fill a request. If this app is $1.99, then you should run house ads instead of running ad network A since your eCPM is $1.40 versus ad network A’s $1.00 eCPM.

So, how do you get started with Burstly’s download tracking? If all of your apps run Burstly for ad serving, you’re ready to go. If not, just integrate our download tracking SDK (iOS only, download here) or integrate with our download tracking API. Once that’s done, just set up download tracking on each creative from its configuration page on our web UI. Check the download tracking box and enter the app’s bundle / package ID and the app’s CPA.

If you have any questions, we’re here to help. Just send us a note to support@burstly.com.

With the rise of freemium games, we saw a huge need to offer the same set of tools to the incentivized space that we offer on mobile display. That’s why we are excited to announce the first product to mediate mobile offers on both iOS and Android: Burstly Rewards. Burstly Rewards enables you to take control of the offer space from every aspect. You can now mediate multiple providers within one wall, mix in house and direct campaigns, match the UI to your app’s look and feel for improved user experience, and support multiple offer types (videos, offers, downloads – android only, and shares). All with the same underlying targeting tools that power our display ad mediation.

Need to shut off a certain partner who is not in compliance with any announced changes? Do so on the fly and move inventory to new partners without an app re-submission. As new partners become available they can also be included without an SDK update (partner dependent).

Burstly is launching two products that can be used individually or simultaneously within the same app: Rewards Wall & Reward Page.

Rewards Wall

The Rewards Wall enables app developers to mix and match 3rd party networks, house, and directly sold offers in one wall. The developer can optimize by selecting which providers they want to display, along with the number of offers to display from each. Burstly also brings the power of their mobile mediation platform to Rewards, offering advanced geo-targeting, frequency rules, and optimization to Rewards.

Rewards Page

The Rewards Page allows you to run an attractive reward-driven campaign through a customizable branded environment that utilizes the entire screen. The user can access the Rewards Page through custom branded buttons and/or banners throughout the game. The goal of this product is to offer a simple, yet high impact engagement that allows an advertiser to receive several brand opportunities or enable the game to extend its brand further. The Rewards Page also taps into the Burstly ad server for ultimate flexibility and control.

The Burstly Rewards product is in beta starting today and developers can request to join. Check out the TechCrunch post as well.

Although no one ad provider can provide 100% fill alone, a partner like Burstly can ensure that all your inventory is used effectively without any impressions going to waste. How does Burstly do this? Burstly allows you to chain different ad providers (such as ad networks and ad exchanges) as well as providing you with ways to cross promote your own apps and content (using ads called house ads) and attaching a dollar value to those house ads. This is important because ad network / exchange ads may not always be the ads that would yield you the highest eCPM. (If you’re interested in learning more about house ads and how they can increase your eCPM, click here.)

On the ad network and ad exchange side, Burstly supports a variety of networks.  Server and client-side support includes AdMob, Millenial, Brightroll, Flurry, Greystripe, iAd, and many more. With an extensive array of partners available through Burstly integration we can help you figure out which perform the best on your app to maximize your revenue.

If you have any questions, just head over to http://support.burstly.com and let us know!

Please note that if you are on an older version of the SDK its important to update to ensure forward compatibility. While we recommend you update your apps as soon as possible, an update will be coming in the next few weeks that includes expanded SDK support. Questions? Please let us know – we’re here to help! 

Interstitials are best displayed in natural breaking points of the app flow: before starting a new game, after a turn, before showing content to a user. Since the ad takes over the entire app screen, it’s important not to disrupt a user’s usage. For example, it would be extremely disruptive if a user were playing Pac-Man and an ad were displayed mid-game. Such implementations (including “auto-expanding banner ads”) can severely degrade user experience and app usage. A better implementation would be to show the user an ad after the user loses his last life, or even better, when the user passes a level (the ad here occurs after a positive event – winning – instead of after a negative event – dying).

Although interstitials are primarily seen in games, they can be introduced elegantly into other apps as well. For example, a news app may show an interstitial before an article is viewed, and a video app can show an interstitial before playing a video.

If you have any questions about interstitials and integrating them into your app, just reach out to us at support@burstly.com

So go ahead and check it out now: http://support.burstly.com

Let us know what you think, especially if there’s something specific you’d like to see added!

1. The ad server determines whether an ad is eligible to serve based on the targets and limits assigned to that ad. For example, if an ad is geo-targeted to be US only, it is ineligible to serve to a user in Canada. Likewise, an ad set to serve only on weekdays between 11 am and 4 pm Pacific is ineligible to serve on a Saturday.
2. Ads that are eligible to serve are grouped by tiers by ascending tier number. That means that all ads in Tier 1 must fail to load before the SDK will attempt to load an ad in Tier 2.
3. Ads within a tier are sorted based on their weights using a pseudorandom number generator. For example, consider the case of having two ads in a tier. Ad A has a weight of 100 while ad B has a weight of 50. Ad A will be the first to be attempted to load 66% of the time (100 / 150) while ad B will be the first in line 33% of the time (50 / 150).

Once this ordered list of ads is constructed, our ad server looks to see if any ads will always load (i.e. they are not third-party SDK ads. House ads and server-side feed ads always serve). If our ad server finds these, it truncates the ordered list sent to the client at the first occurrence of one of these ads.

It’s important to note that our SDK requests ads from partners only when ads are needed.  We do not keep requesting ads from ad networks/exchanges in the background or request ads from partners unless the ads requested are to be shown to a user. This ensures that your CTR is not artificially lowered by requesting ads that are not going to be seen by a user.

1. Full screen ‘canvases’ that are presented modally to a user and created by an ad SDK
2. 300×250 IAB medium rectangle ads that are added to a UIViewController that is then presented via presentModalViewController

We’ve designed the Burstly SDK to allow developers to use both of these interstitial monetization options that yield higher eCPMs than banner ads. If you’re interested in adding interstitial ads to your app using the Burstly SDK, here’s a quick tutorial.

Step 1:

Create an OAIAdManager instance.

Step 2:

Implement the required OAIAdManager delegates:
- (NSString *)publisherId; – return your Burstly publisher ID as a string
- (NSString*)getZone; – return your Burstly zone ID as a string
- (UIViewController*)viewControllerForModalPresentation; – return the topmost UIViewController subclass in your view controller hierarchy

Step 3:

Add logic to send the requestRefreshAd message to your OAIAdManager instance. This would be a good place to pause your game if necessary.

Step 4:

Implement three optional OAIAdManager delegates:
- (void)adManager:(OAIAdManager*)manager didLoad:(NSString*)aNetwork isInterstitial:(BOOL)isInterstitial; – This delegate is called when an ad is received. If isInterstitial == YES, the ad network presents its own modal ad canvas. If isInterstitial == NO, the ad network does not present its own modal ad canvas (this is the case when the ad network returns a medium rectangle ad). In this case, you should add the OAIAdManager.view to a UIViewController instance and then presentModalViewController with the UIViewController instance containing the OAIAdManager.view to show the ad.
- (void)adManager:(OAIAdManager*)manager adNetworkControllerDismissFullScreen:(NSString*)aNetwork; – This delegate is called when an ad network which presented a modal canvas dismisses the modal canvas. If the ad presented to the user is an interstitial canvas launched by the ad network SDK (that is, if didLoad: isInterstitial is called with isInterstitial == YES), this means that the interstitial canvas has been dismissed and your app can resume.
- (void)adManager:(OAIAdManager*)manager failedToLoad:(NSString*)aNetwork; – If you paused your game, you should unpause your game if aNetwork is equal to “adserve”. This means that the Burstly SDK was unable to retrieve an ad.

That’s it! If you have any questions or comments just let us know at support@burstly.com.

In our experience, interstitial ads command 2-5x higher click thru rates versus standard banner ads in the same app. Since many mobile ads are sold on a cost-per-click – CPC – basis (that is, you get paid per click), that means that each interstitial ad you show generates 2-5x more revenue than each banner ad you show. Also, some interstitial ads, especially video ads, are sold on a CPM basis (you get paid each time you show an ad, regardless of whether the user clicks on the ad). This means that you get paid for each and every ad you show – unlike cost per click ads.

Our developer partners have seen great results in monetizing their apps using a combination of both interstitial and banner ads. We recommend that developers include interstitial ads in their apps whenever possible. Since interstitial ads take over the entire app screen, we recommend interstitials be placed at natural breaking points in the app’s flow, for example at app launch or between levels or turns in a game.