Tag Archives: mobile_ads_sdk

AdMob Native Express ads in a content feed

Today we're excited to announce iOS and Android sample projects that display AdMob Native Express ads in a feed. These samples address a common use case for monetizing apps with feeds or lists of content. The iOS (Swift and Objective-C) apps display Native Express ads in a UITableView and the Android app shows them in a RecyclerView.

Native Express ads work well in lists of content for two reasons. First, impressions are not counted until the ad is on screen, which enables you to preload the ads ahead of time. Preloading can help with optimizing scroll performance by making sure the ad is ready to be displayed when the user scrolls through the list. Second, you have more control over the styling of the ads, allowing you to create presentations that fit naturally with your content.

You can check out these sample apps by downloading them from our iOS and Android GitHub repos, and you can see them being coded in the Mobile Ads Garage YouTube series. Episode 11 walks you through the implementation for adding native ads into an Android RecyclerView. Episode 12, which will cover the implementation of native ads in an iOS UITableView, is due out next week.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding our SDK, feel free to contact us through our forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Mobile Ads Garage #11: Native Express in a RecyclerView

Episode 11 of The Mobile Ads Garage is live on YouTube! If you haven't seen it before, The Mobile Ads Garage is a video tutorial series that covers how to use the Mobile Ads SDK to display ads from AdMob and Doubleclick for Publishers. Each episode covers one aspect of the SDK, breaks down the feature, and shows screencasts of real implementations on both Android and iOS – all in a friendly format.

In a break with tradition, this video is a deep technical dive on one subject: Native Ads Express in an Android RecyclerView. You'll learn how to modify an existing RecyclerView implementation to include Native Express ads, all the way from updating the adapter to loading the ads. In addition, you'll get a clever trick that makes sure your ads are always sized to match the UI, so they fit right in with your content.

If you haven't used Native Ads Express before, you can see them in action in Episode 7. Andrew and Gary cover all the basics: loading ads, placing them in layouts and storyboards, and using CSS to style the ads to match your app.


If you like the video, save the Mobile Ads Garage playlist to your YouTube Playlist collection and you'll never miss an episode.

We'd love to hear which AdMob features you'd like to learn more about. The comment sections for the videos are open, and you're welcome to toss out ideas for new episodes and examples you'd like to see. If you have a technical question relating to something discussed in one of the episodes, you can bring it to our support forum.

Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Mobile Ads Garage #10: Ad Events

Episode 10 of The Mobile Ads Garage is live on YouTube! If you haven't seen it before, the Mobile Ads Garage is a video tutorial series that covers how to use the Mobile Ads SDK to display ads from AdMob and DoubleClick for Publishers. Each episode covers one aspect of the SDK, breaks down the feature, and shows screencasts of real implementations on both Android and iOS – all in a friendly format.

Knowing what's going on with your ads is a big part of maintaining a great user experience. In the latest episode of the Mobile Ads Garage, you'll see how to tap into the ad lifecycle so your app's informed of loads, clickthroughs, and other key events. You'll also get a detailed breakdown of the steps that occur in the life of an ad, info about which classes and callbacks to use for common tasks like pausing game engines and muting audio, and a real world example of how to put it all together.


If you like the video, save the Mobile Ads Garage playlist to your YouTube Playlist collection and you'll never miss an episode.

We'd love to hear which AdMob features you'd like to learn more about. The comment sections for the videos are open, and you're welcome to toss out ideas for new episodes and examples you'd like to see. If you have a technical question relating to something discussed in one of the episodes, you can bring it to our support forum.

Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Announcing rewarded video custom event support for AdMob mediation

Following its launchat the 2016 Game Developer’s Conference, AdMob’s mediation support for rewarded video ads has been a hit with publishers and users alike, with rapid adoption on both Android and iOS platforms.

Our growing list of mediation partners includes eight different ad networks. Choosing AdMob for your rewarded video mediation platform gives you access to ad content from all of them, while you develop against a single API from AdMob. Now, with the launch of custom events for rewarded video, you can also request and display rewarded videos from ad networks that are not directly supported by AdMob.

Our implementation guide for rewarded video adapters (Android| iOS) outlines how to implement an adapter that can serve rewarded video ads from a third party ad network. Special attention should be paid to steps specific to custom events that are summarized below:

Adding a custom event to your ad unit

To define a custom event, you must first create it in the AdMob interface at apps.admob.com. You can find instructions for creating a custom event in this help center guide.

Retrieving server parameters

The optional server parameter passed to your custom event is accessed via a special key. Here’s an example showing how to access the value in a rewarded video adapter:

Android

String parameter = serverParameters.getString(
    MediationRewardedVideoAdAdapter.CUSTOM_EVENT_SERVER_PARAMETER_FIELD);

iOS

NSString *parameter = [self.connector.credentials
    objectForKey:GADCustomEventParametersServer];

You can find additional documentation on rewarded video ads in our Get Started guides (Android| iOS), and more information about mediation is available in our mediation guides (Android | iOS). For any other questions about rewarded video mediation, you can reach us through our developer forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Mobile Ads Garage #9: AdMob Mediation

Episode nine of The Mobile Ads Garage is live on YouTube! If you haven't seen it before, The Mobile Ads Garage is a video tutorial series that covers how to use the Mobile Ads SDK to display ads from AdMob and DoubleClick for Publishers. Each episode covers one aspect of the SDK, breaks down the feature, and shows screencasts of real implementations on both Android and iOS – all in a friendly format.

In this episode of The Mobile Ads Garage, we discuss mediation, which is a way for publishers to get multiple networks of advertisers competing to display ads in their apps. We’ll show you how AdMob mediation works and what it can do for your business. Learn the pros and cons of mediation, see the details of implementation, and find out whether it’s right for your app. You'll also get screencasts for Android and iOS showing the integration of a third-party SDK, plus links to samples, written resources, and Gary the Graphics Guy acting like his usual, snarky self.

If you like the video, save the Mobile Ads Garage playlist to your YouTube Playlist collection and you'll never miss an episode.

We’d love to hear which AdMob features you’d like to learn more about. The comment sections for the videos are open, and you're welcome to toss out ideas for new episodes and examples you'd like to see. If you have a technical question relating to something discussed in one of the episodes, you can bring it to our support forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin v3.0.7

We recently launched v3.0.7 of the Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin. The updated v3.0.7 Unity package is available for download from the Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin GitHub repository.

Native Ads Express

This release introduces support for Native Ads Express. With Native Ads Express, you can create CSS templates that define how ads are presented in your app (things like image sizes, fonts, colors, and so on). These CSS templates are used to generate ad creatives that complement the native look and feel of your app. You can find more information on integrating Native Ads Express into Unity applications in our developer docs.

Android IL2CPP

The v3.0.7 release resolves compatibility issues with the IL2CPP scripting backend and the Google Mobile Ads Unity Plugin. This allows the use of the the IL2CPP scripting backend, a high-performance alternative to the Mono virtual machine and AOT compiler, in Unity applications with the Google Mobile Ads SDK.

The source code and a sample app for the plugin are available in our GitHub repo,asisa changelogfor this release. If you have any questions about Unity integration, you can reach us on our developer forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Use Google Mobile Ads SDK 7.11.0 to update apps for iOS 10

With the Firebase 3.6.0 launch comes the release of version 7.11.0 of the Google Mobile Ads SDK, which has been optimized for the latest release of iOS. Any app that supports iOS 10 should be built against v7.11.0 or higher of the Mobile Ads SDK. AdMob publishers can grab the latest version of the SDK using the Firebase/AdMob CocoaPod or via the Firebase manual download. DFP publishers can get the latest version from the Google-Mobile-Ads-SDK CocoaPod or via the Mobile Ads SDK manual download.

What changed?

With the rollout of iOS 10, the App Store’s privacy policy requires apps to provide a usage description when attempting to access privacy-sensitive data, such as a user’s calendaror Bluetooth. You may have seen the following errors when attempting to upload your app to iTunes Connect:

"This app attempts to access privacy-sensitive data without a usage description. The app's Info.plist must contain an NSCalendarsUsageDescription key with a string value explaining to the user how the app uses this data."

"This app attempts to access privacy-sensitive data without a usage description. The app's Info.plist must contain an NSBluetoothPeripheralUsageDescription key with a string value explaining to the user how the app uses this data."

The latest version of the Mobile Ads SDK has been updated for iOS 10, and will no longer cause these errors to appear.

Information for MRAID creative designers

To comply with the App Store privacy changes, we removed support for the mraid.createCalendarEvent() and mraid.storePicture() methods. You will now see that the mraid.supports("calendar") and mraid.supports("storePicture") methods always return false. Per the MRAID v2 spec, MRAID creatives should check for support of these features before using them, and correctly handle the case where they’re unavailable.

If you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact us through our forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Mobile Ads Garage #5: Interstitial best practices

A new episode of The Mobile Ads Garage has hit YouTube! If you haven't seen it before, The Mobile Ads Garage is a video tutorial series that covers how to use the Mobile Ads SDK to display ads from AdMob and Doubleclick For Publishers. Each episode covers one aspect of the SDK, break down the feature, and show screencasts of real implementations on both Android and iOS – all in a friendly format.

In the last episode, Andrew and Gary the Graphics Guy showed you how to implement AdMob interstitials on iOS and Android. Now they're back to show you how to put interstitials to work in the best ways possible. When is the best time to display? How early should you request an ad, and how often should your users see one? You'll get answers to these questions and more, along with cupcakes, cats who can play chess, and what appears to be a cloning incident gone awry.


If you like the video, save the Mobile Ads Garage playlist to your YouTube Playlist collection and you'll never miss an episode.

We’d love to hear which AdMob features you’d like to learn more about. The comment sections for the videos are open, and you're welcome to toss out ideas for new episodes and examples you'd like to see. If you have a technical question relating to something discussed in one of the episodes, you can bring it to our support forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

AdMob and Firebase have teamed up

During the keynote at I/O 2016, we announced that Firebase has become a complete mobile platform that helps developers build high-quality apps, grow their user base, and earn more money. AdMob is part of how Firebase helps publishers earn revenue, and now that the dust has settled on I/O, you might have some questions about what the change means and how it affects people already monetizing with AdMob ads.

How does this affect my existing apps?

The short answer is: however you want it to. The apps you've already built are just fine the way they are, and they can keep monetizing with AdMob exactly as they do now, without changes. We've also made sure that when you do make the decision to integrate Firebase, the process is simple and straightforward. You can link your AdMob apps to Firebase projects right from the AdMob console. Firebase Analytics comes out of the box with the Firebase SDK, and you're free to choose the particular combination of Firebase services that fits your app.

Do I have to use Firebase with my new apps?

Nope. If you prefer to use AdMob by itself, that's just fine. You can import the Google Mobile Ads SDK the same way you do now, and continue to create ad units, campaigns, and reports at apps.admob.com.

My app is small! How big is the Firebase SDK?

We know SDK size is a big deal for mobile developers, and Firebase has been designed from the start to minimize its footprint. Publishers can pick and choose which services they're interested in, and only need the gradle libraries and frameworks they actually use. In our testing on Android, for example, importing the Mobile Ads SDK using the firebase-ads:9.0.0 gradle library instead of play-service-ads:9.0.0 increased the post-ProGuard size of our banner example's APK by about 100kB (though your results may vary).

Which Firebase service should I start with first?

All of the services are built to help mobile developers through the “develop, grow, and earn" lifecycle, so it depends which stage you’re at. Analytics, though, is something that every app can benefit from. Just by registering a Firebase project and importing the Firebase SDK into your app, you can start monetizing more intelligently with Firebase's free and unlimited analytics solution. Things like sessions, user demographics, revenue from in-app products, and a lot more will appear in the Firebase Analytics dashboard, with no extra code required.

Publishers can also add their own Analytics events and track them to improve their monetization strategy. For example, by adding events to monitor how users navigate between screens within an app, publishers can better understand the flow of action and find the best places to show interstitials without disrupting their users.

Are AdMob's developer resources going away?

No. The developer site has moved to a new domain, and we've added new content where appropriate, but everything you're used to is still there.

Our samples for iOS and Android now include the Firebase SDK when they build. We've also changed our quick-start guides for iOS and Android to help publishers get on board with Firebase, and the guys behind the Mobile Ads Garage are cooking up a new episode right now.

For more direct support, Firebase has a bunch of options, and as always, If you have technical questions about the Mobile Ads SDK, you're welcome to stop by our support forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations

Mobile Ads Garage #4: Interstitials

The Mobile Ads Garage is a new series that covers how to use the Mobile Ads SDK to display ads from AdMob and Doubleclick For Publishers. Each episode will cover one aspect of the SDK, break down the feature, and show screencasts of real implementations on both Android and iOS – all in a friendly format.

With two episodes on banner ads on the books, the Mobile Ads Garage now turns its focus to interstitial ads.

Andrew and Gary the Graphics Guy are back this week with a detailed explanation of the interstitial ad lifecycle, how to load ads, and how to display at just the right time. Along the way you'll get screencasts of Android Studio and Xcode, plus links to guides, samples, and other resources.


If you like the video, save the Mobile Ads Garage playlist to your YouTube Playlist collection and you'll never miss an episode.

We’d love to hear which AdMob features you’d like to learn more about. The comment sections for the videos are open, and you're welcome to toss out ideas for new episodes and examples you'd like to see. If you have a technical question relating to something discussed in one of the episodes, you can bring it to our support forum.

 - , Mobile Ads Developer Relations