Google has moved to expand its AdMob advertising service by adding two new types of ad experiences called playable ads and multiple-option video ads. These new ad experiences will be rolled out to AdMob developers over the next few months. Playable ads are a type of rewarded ads that Google says will fit the game flow more naturally and will take into consideration the player’s preference so that the game play is not interrupted.
As the name indicates, rewarded ads are a feature of the AdMob advertising platform meant to allow players to earn incentives such as an extra life for their slain character or a boost to their character’s power in exchange for watching a short video ad that may last from six to 60 seconds. Playable ads are expected to work exactly that way as well. Google notes that rewarded ads have been used by more than 45 percent of AdMob’s top 1000 gaming partners in order to generate revenue from their apps. Building upon that premise, playable ads are intended to further assist developers in monetizing their games. Further, the multiple-option video ads are designed to let players select which video ads to watch in exchange for in-game perks and incentives. Another ad feature from Google is the similar audiences for the Universal Ad Campaigns (UAC) tool. The search giant plans to roll out the feature in beta starting in May to a limited number of advertisers in order to help them reach players with similar interests with their best customers. However, it remains to be seen when this feature will be widely available to advertisers. UAC uses Google’s machine learning system to look for loyal users across Google’s main website, the Google Play Store, and YouTube as well as millions of other sites and apps encompassed by the Google Display Network. It will then analyze millions of data to help developers advertise their new games to the potential audience who are most likely to patronize their product.
Additionally, Google is also launching a beta for video ads in the Google Play Store over the coming months as part of efforts to help developers attract more players with video content apart from the ones displayed on their Google Play page. Finally, Google unveils a new feature for ad bidding called Open Bidding, which is still in beta. It lets ad networks bid to serve ads in an app at the same time in a unified auction. Ad networks like Smaato, Index Exchange and OpenX are already using the feature, and Google plans to add more networks over the next few months.