App Monetization
Design and optimize an ad monetization stack while protecting retention and product experience.
Earning Potential
Generate revenue directly from your app through in-app advertising formats. Core income stream for mobile game developers, utility apps, and media apps.
What you will learn
- Choose ad formats that fit the product
- Understand mediation and bidding
- Improve fill rate and eCPM
- Balance ARPDAU with retention
Common mistakes
- Adding high-friction formats without testing retention
- Comparing networks only by headline eCPM
- Ignoring latency, fill rate, and user geography
Core concepts
Ad Mediation
Ad mediation manages competition among multiple app advertising demand sources.
eCPM
eCPM expresses advertising revenue per one thousand impressions.
ARPDAU
ARPDAU measures average revenue per daily active user.
Ad Fill Rate
Fill rate measures how often eligible ad requests result in delivered ads.
Rewarded Video
Rewarded video gives users an in-app benefit for choosing to watch an advertisement.
App Monetization
Design and optimize an ad monetization stack while protecting retention and product experience.
Ad monetization foundations
Understand formats, placements, eCPM, fill rate, and ARPDAU.
Start with an ad platform
Implement a straightforward stack and connect product analytics.
Google AdMob
Google AdMob is Google's mobile app advertising and monetization platform for Android and iOS developers. It provides Google demand, banner, interstitial, native, rewarded, app-open, and video formats, plus mediation, real-time bidding, reporting, brand-safety controls, and integrations with services such as Firebase. It suits developers of many app categories that want an accessible first monetization stack or a mediation layer, provided ad placement, consent, policy compliance, retention, in-app purchases, and user experience are optimized together.
Firebase
Firebase is Google's application development platform for building, operating, measuring, and improving mobile and web products. Its services include Google Analytics for Firebase, Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring, Remote Config, Cloud Messaging, A/B Testing, App Distribution, authentication, databases, hosting, and other backend capabilities, with integrations into Google Ads and BigQuery. It is a foundational toolkit for product and engineering teams that need shared app infrastructure and experimentation, but it is not a neutral substitute for cross-network mobile attribution or an independent marketing data warehouse.
Add mediation and bidding
Create competition across demand sources and manage waterfalls or in-app bidding.
AppLovin MAX
AppLovin MAX is AppLovin's in-app advertising mediation and yield management platform for mobile publishers. It runs a unified auction across supported SDK bidders, networks, and AppLovin demand, while providing waterfall controls, testing, ad review, creative reporting, analytics, and impression-level revenue data for optimization and attribution workflows. It is best suited to game and app teams with meaningful ad volume that want competitive demand and detailed monetization operations, particularly when AppLovin's user-acquisition products are also part of the growth stack.
Unity LevelPlay
Unity LevelPlay is Unity's app and game monetization mediation platform, built from the former ironSource product and still accessed through parts of the ironSource account infrastructure. A single SDK connects multiple ad networks and supports real-time bidding, waterfall management, automated optimization, reporting, testing, and common formats such as rewarded video, interstitials, and banners. It fits mobile developers that need active control over a multi-network monetization stack, especially game teams already using Unity services or ironSource integrations.
DT FairBid
DT FairBid is Digital Turbine's independent mobile ad mediation platform for app developers and publishers. Its SDK connects supported ad networks and lets teams combine real-time bidding with managed waterfalls, control network priority and placements, run experiments, inspect reports, and test whether adapters and ad instances are configured correctly. It fits mobile businesses that want a mediation layer separate from a single dominant demand source and are prepared to manage integrations, auction settings, privacy requirements, and user-experience tradeoffs.
Expand demand
Add complementary ad networks to improve coverage and fill.
InMobi
InMobi is an independent mobile advertising company offering advertiser buying, exchange, and publisher monetization products. App developers can integrate its SDK directly or connect InMobi through supported mediation and bidding setups to serve formats such as banner, native, interstitial, and rewarded ads, with reporting and campaign optimization across global demand. It is especially relevant to publishers seeking diversified mobile demand and international reach, including strong coverage in Asian markets, while results depend on geography, format, consent, and mediation configuration.
Chartboost
Chartboost is a mobile advertising and monetization platform with a long-standing focus on games and app developers. Publishers can access Chartboost demand directly or through mediation partners, use rewarded video, video and static interstitial, banner, and related formats, and manage placements, CPM controls, reporting, app review, and authorized-seller verification; Chartboost also offers its own bidding-based mediation product. It fits game studios seeking another specialized demand source or mediation option alongside broader app advertising networks.
Liftoff Monetize
Liftoff Monetize is Liftoff's mobile app monetization business, incorporating the Vungle SDK and advertising exchange. It supplies global advertiser demand through direct SDK integrations and partner mediation platforms, supports major in-app formats, and offers real-time bidding, reporting, ad-quality controls, and optimization assistance intended to increase competition for publisher inventory. It is most useful as a demand source for game and non-game apps that already operate a mediation stack and want additional scale beyond their primary network.
Digital Turbine
Digital Turbine is a mobile growth platform spanning app distribution, on-device discovery, advertising, exchange demand, mediation, and offerwall monetization. Its distribution products work through device makers, carriers, alternative stores, direct channels, and technologies such as Ignite and SingleTap, while newer Launchpad positioning unifies more of the discovery and installation workflow. It is best for app marketers and publishers seeking reach outside conventional store advertising, particularly when they can manage partner eligibility, device coverage, attribution, user consent, and regional availability.
Optimize revenue and retention
Measure frequency, session depth, retention, and revenue together.
Firebase
Firebase is Google's application development platform for building, operating, measuring, and improving mobile and web products. Its services include Google Analytics for Firebase, Crashlytics, Performance Monitoring, Remote Config, Cloud Messaging, A/B Testing, App Distribution, authentication, databases, hosting, and other backend capabilities, with integrations into Google Ads and BigQuery. It is a foundational toolkit for product and engineering teams that need shared app infrastructure and experimentation, but it is not a neutral substitute for cross-network mobile attribution or an independent marketing data warehouse.
AppsFlyer
AppsFlyer is a measurement, analytics, deep linking, and data collaboration platform built for mobile-first marketing teams. It attributes installs and downstream events across paid and owned channels, supports privacy-preserving measurement frameworks, connects campaign data to business outcomes, and offers fraud prevention through Protect360 plus audience, clean-room, and cross-platform capabilities. It suits app businesses that need an independent measurement layer across many media partners and can invest in disciplined SDK implementation, event governance, consent, and data validation.
Google Analytics 4
Google Analytics 4 is Google's event-based analytics platform for measuring activity across websites and apps. It organizes user interactions as events, supports conversions, audiences, explorations, attribution reports, and advertising integrations, and can link directly with Google Ads for audience sharing and campaign analysis. It is a core measurement layer for teams that need to connect acquisition spend with on-site behavior, lead quality, ecommerce outcomes, and cross-device customer journeys.
Looker Studio
Looker Studio is Google's browser-based reporting and data visualization product, with a no-cost self-service version. It connects to Google Ads, Analytics, Search Console, spreadsheets, databases, and partner sources, then turns those inputs into shareable dashboards with calculated fields, filters, and scheduled reporting. It suits marketers and agencies that need reusable client or internal reports without building a custom business-intelligence application for every campaign.