Using pubCenter in your Windows Phone app and not satisfied with the revenues? You are not alone. Read on to find 9 ad-providers as pubCenter alternatives on Windows Phone.
Ad based free apps continue to be one of the primary monetization strategies of many app developers and therefore having premium advertisement providers, who can offer high fill rates and reasonable ecpm is an absolute must for any app ecosystem to attract developer interest.
pubCenter woes
Microsoft’s pubCenter is generally the primary choice of developers when it comes to advertisement provider choice on Windows Phone apps. However, Microsoft’s pubCenter has lately given a lot of reasons to developers to look for other alternatives, with its low fill rates, reporting downtimes, extremely low eCPM etc. WMPowerUser has helped raise the issues developers are facing with pubCenter on couple of different occasions with following articles:
- Developers complain about PubCenter, but Microsoft has a solution in the works
- Microsoft’s PubCenter continues to disappoint Windows Phone developers
No developer likes to see a downward sloping graph of revenues specially when his user base is growing. Windows Phone user base continues to grow at a fast pace and we hardly see any developer complaining about his app downloads growth being slow. However, they do complain about fall in revenues if pubCenter is the only ad platform they are using in their windows phone apps.
pubCenter alternatives
As Windows Phone ecosystem continues to grow, a lot of ad-providers (including google) have started offering their service for the platform and many developers have started adopting more than one ad providers. Below you can find a list of advertisement providers that are available for Windows Phone and can be used as alternatives to pubCenter platform or in conjunction.
1. Google AdMob
Google recently announced AdMob for Windows Phone 8 with launch of a beta version sdk.
Be aware that, in order to use AdMob for Windows Phone 8, you would need to upgrade to the new AdMob platform, otherwise you will not see an option to add a Windows Phone app in your dashboard. This new AdMob platform is not yet available in all the countries.
2. Smaato
Smaato has been available on Windows Phone from WP7 days, and has improved over time with its WP8 sdk offerings. It provides rich media ads, banner and text ads, location based ads and many more ad formats for Windows Phone 8 apps.
3. Vserv.mobi
Vserv.mobi is a fairly new ad provider for Windows Phone 8 but many developers have found it to be providing better fill rates and eCPM in certain regions.
4. AdDuplex
AdDuplex is loved by all Windows Phone developers for its cross-promotion network. Even though AdDuplex does not provide a monetization option to the developers, its usefulness in driving more downloads of your apps can definitely increase your revenues in longer run. What’s more, they keep running monthly contests and give away free Windows Phone devices and a lot more.
5. Inneractive
Inneractive is another popular advertisement provider on Windows Phone. Nokia briefly partnered with them to provide NAX ad-platform, however they later moved everyone to Inneractive’s platform itself.
6. AdDeals
AdDeals is an ad service by Ahead Solutions, the makers of the popular AppDeals app. The Windows Phone SDK allows developers to have their users benefit from AppDeals offers while earning free traffic and downloads for their apps. It does not provide a banner ad network, but a offer wall, which is shown to user only when they want to.
7. InMobi
InMobi is not a new name in advertisement domain and has been around for quite a while on android and iOS. They offer advertisement for both Windows Phone 7 and 8. InMobi also provide ads for Windows 8 (both HTML and native) apps.
8. MobFox
MobFox is an open mobile advertising platform, which allows it to be integrated with any mobile platform. They provide an Ad-Request API that you can use to request ads dynamically.
9. LeadBolt
LeadBolt provides developers with a single, unified SDK solution for monetization, analytics, cross promotion, crash reporting and advanced developer tools, including re-engagement and supports Windows Platform.
AdRotator for Windows Phone
Using multiple ad-providers can be tricky, specially when they provide different eCPM and fill rates in different regions. Thankfully, we have AdRotator for Windows Phone, which eases the use of multiple ad-platforms and provides a remotely configurable option to switch your ad-providers. AdRotator currently supports PubCenter, AdDuplex, Smaato, Google AdMob, MobFox, Inneractive and Inmobi.
A Lookback
I have been experimenting with different ad providers on Windows Phone for over a year now and you can read my earlier post (a year old) on Advertisement provider choices for Windows Phone App developers.
It is good to have alternatives to pubCenter on Windows Phone, however personally I would like Microsoft’s pubCenter to come back to its past glory days (read: Elbert Perez’s 2011 pubCenter earning report) , instead of giving developers reason to quit.
What is your experience with pubCenter? Did you find any of the pubCenter alternatives useful? Do you use any of them in your app? Share your experiences in the comments below and let everyone know what is the state of advertisement based monetization choice on Windows Phone platform and if you are satisfied with it or not.
Pubcenter is disappointing… Microsoft should abandon it or give it to a new set of people to run. They just dont know how to run advertisement based business. I dont even understand why would any advertiser choose to advertise with pubcenter. Google’s ad platform allows anyone to signup and start advertising even with smallest of budget. But bing advertising is not open for everyone.
if pubcenter allowed developers and publishers to advertise their apps same way admob does we should be seeing more fill rate and happy customers and developers. After all the number 1 ad targetting on a smartphone is for apps downloads but we see very few ads of apps on pubcenter because of high entry barrier for advertisers…
I hope u get my point.
Thanks for the call out for AdRotator Kanishk :D.
It’s also worth noting Vserve[.]Mobi can also be a front end for many other AdProviders as they will also collect ads from multiple sources as well as their own. However AdRotator doesn’t currently support them due to their API at present.
Thanks for AdRotator and your insights Simon. :)
AdShufflr is a new entry in this field. Will try it and update on this. http://adshufflr.com/
The main point is they are having inbuilt logic to handle pubcenter fail case. :) :)
http://adshufflr.com/Sample.aspx
Thanks for pointing to this….
A good platform for promotion. There campaign pricing is very very low…. :)
thank for shareing,useful article!
is there any way to use multiple like adduplex with admob in same page ? does google allow this ?
Yes, read the part in this article where I talk about AdRotator. As far as I know google allows it, but I would recommend you to read Google AdMob’s TOS for the scenario you are looking for.
If you wish to integrate admob for windows phone 8 app you could follow this comprehensive tutorialhttp://www.windowsapptutorials.com/windows-phone/how-to-use-google-admob-in-windows-phone-app/
Hi Kanishk,
i started using adrotator in my App, i would like to know where i can place my remote config file for free. i thought placing xml file in google drive, drop box or one drive will solve the problem. seems it is not taking that file. any suggesstions?
Thank you
Hi Venkatachalapathi. You can sign-up for a free Microsoft Azure account and host upto 10 websites for free. See more details here: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/websites/
In case you are a student you can also make use of Microsoft’s DreamSpark program to get more benefits including Azure subscription and free credits. For more details, please see: https://www.dreamspark.com/
What is the current state of these alternative libraries?
this post is outdated. Admob is no longer supported on windows 10. I am a windows developer and using ms ads network, but the earning is low compared to Android and Apple. The worst part is that I have more users on windows phone apps, yet lowest money.
Ads is not really a good choice to earn revenue with windows phone, so in app purchase or app sale are better options.