There has been a lot of buzz recently around the free-to-paid monetization strategy that several well-known iPhone app developers have employed to drive monetization of their apps.  Some app developers, including the ones behind such popular titles like iCombat and iShoot, have even gone so far as to publish their own developer case studies which make a very compelling case for building both free and paid versions of apps as a way to encourage trial and drive conversion of the paid versions.  We at AdMob have long advocated the building of free versions of apps as a way to dramatically expand the potential audience size of an app and to encourage trial, so it’s great to see app developers reach the same conclusion based on their own personal experiments!

However, we believe that the importance of free apps goes well beyond their potential to drive users to a paid version of the same app.  Several app developers have created their own app ecosystems, within which they cross-promote other apps in their portfolio to what seems to be an increasingly brand-loyal user base.

Two recent examples of app developers that have achieved significant success with this cross-promotion model are Storm8 and Optime Software, makers of the popular World War™ and Tic Tac Free™ iPhone apps.  Each currently has 5 titles in the App Store Top 100, which suggests that the power for cross-promotion and the development of significant end user affinity for specific app developer brands and titles is very strong.

In addition, as part of our regular discussions with publishers, we have recently heard strong demand for functionality that makes it easy for publishers to cross-promote their apps and sites and to co-mingle house ads with paid ads depending on business needs.  It is within this context that we are excited to announce the beta launch of our House Ads product, which enables publishers to use AdMob’s ad serving platform to build, host, and serve ads that promote their own apps and sites.

A house ad is an unpaid ad that you create to run inside your own mobile site or application that promotes another of your mobile properties.  As an example, you could run a house ad inside of a free app that encourages the user to upgrade to the paid version of the app.  Here’s how it works:

•    Go to http://www.admob.com and log in to your AdMob account
•    Click on the Sites & Apps tab
•    Click on the House Ads Beta link at the top of the Sites & Apps page
•    Create your house ad using our house ad creation tool
•    Select the site or app that you want to run house ads on and use the house ad allocation slider to determine how much of your app or site traffic to show house ads on
•    View house ad performance statistics by clicking on the reporting link next to each house ad on the Manage House Ads console on the House Ads Beta page

The House Ads Beta is available immediately to all publishers, not just iPhone developers.  If you are an iPhone developer, you do not need to resubmit your app to the App Store in order to enable house ad serving via AdMob.

Finally, as we have been talking with our publisher partners about what should be next on our publisher product roadmap, we have heard some concerns about our recent decision to discontinue support for ad requests that come from mediation layers.  In order to ensure that we are focused on doing what is best for our publishers, we have decided to temporarily delay the discontinuation of support for mediation layers until we can introduce a comprehensive plan that meets our publishers’ needs while also continuing to provide advertisers and end users with the best possible experience on mobile.

And last, but certainly not least, we would like to thank all of our publisher partners for their feedback and suggestions on how to make our products better.  And, as always, we welcome your continued feedback at appdevfeedback@admob.com.

Ali
VP of Product Management