Over the past 12 months, we’ve been talking to some of the brightest and best from the worlds of mobile gaming and in-app advertising. We’ve shared industry insights, best-practice tips, startup stories, and in-depth guides to some of the hottest topics around.
Given the data-driven nature of mobile, it only makes sense that we turn to data for our end-of-year roundup. So below, you’ll find the seven most-read articles we published on the Fyber Blog during 2018.
If you haven’t already read them, then now’s a great time to dive in. And if you have, then why not take a second look or share them around. Thanks for joining us on our journey this year, and here’s to a happy and prosperous 2019.
Beginner’s guide: From in-app header bidding to unified auctions
We take a deep dive into the world of mobile app advertising, looking at the evolution of the unified auction environment and how it can change things for the better.
“The adoption of a real-time, unified auction and this ability to actually compete for every impression is something we’ve been waiting for and hoping would happen,” explains games industry veteran David Pokress, executive vice president of global publishing at AdColony. “It’s how we all can compete more effectively for the supply.”
Read the full guide.
5 video advertising trends to watch in 2018
Dillon Becker, senior creative UA manager at AnchorFree and former video producer at Storm8 and Machine Zone, shared his predictions for this year, ruminating on trends like shorter video ads and influencer campaigns.
“Shorter ads…help keep your creatives more focused since you have less time for fluff,” Becker says. “Short-form videos can even pay off on YouTube and certain ad networks where users are often allowed to skip advertisements after 5 seconds.”
Read the full article.
5 best practices for rewarded video from Candy Crush maker King
Candy Crush is still crushing it, six years after the match 3 juggernaut first released on mobile. So developer King must know a thing or two about keeping players happy.
Here we share five tips from King on rewarded video, including avoiding overindulgence and keeping gameplay sacred.
Read the full article.
The price of programmatic: Making sense of second-price auctions
Programmatic auctions may look like magic—with their faster-than-the-eye bidding—but they’re really not.
In this breakdown, we shed light on the mechanisms behind second-price auctions in real-time bidding, discuss the concept of truth telling, and examine how header bidding is turning second-price auctions on their head.
Read the full article.
Dear waterfall, it’s time for in-app header bidding to shine
The revolution starts here. Header bidding is making waves in the mobile ad tech industry, looking to usurp the traditional waterfall model and open the door to more brand advertisers.
Header bidding helped drive CPMs by 30-40% for web publishers during 2017, and mobile publishers should sit up and take note of the opportunity, says Christy Wong-Taylor, Fyber’s vice president and general manager of global supply.
Read the full article.
From creating experimental successes to writing the book on rewarded video—How Game Hive did it
Game Hive’s first-ever game made $80 on day one. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was the start of something huge. “It was just the most magical $80 I’ve ever earned,” says co-founder Mark Wang. “Just like, ‘Wow, we can do this.’”
The team would go on to strike gold with 2015’s Tap Titans—now widely regarded as a king of the “clicker” genre and a poster child for rewarded video advertising.
“I’ve never seen players want more ads,” says Wang, “but we were just emptying all the impressions by every single ad provider we have, crazy as that sounds.”
Read the full article.
Here’s why Fluffy Fairy Games puts rewarded video at their core
Fluffy Fairy (now Kolibri Games) built its breakout hit Idle Miner Tycoon in just eight weeks. The game now has eight million monthly average users (MAU) and makes half its revenue from rewarded video ads.
It’s a success story built around releasing early, iterating on-the-go, and embracing the power of rewarded ads.
Read the full article.
