Since Apple’s App Store launched last July, a number of ad networks have emerged that allow iPhone developers to place advertising in their apps so that they can generate revenue, even when an application was initially sold for free. But as the number of ad networks available has increased, developers are being faced with a new problem: once they’ve deployed an application with a certain ad network, it’s tough to switch to a new one. Typically developers have to issue updates to their apps, which can take days or weeks to make it through Apple’s approval process.
Adrollo, a new service that launches today, is looking to help developers make this process more efficient, allowing them to switch between different ad networks on the fly without having to submit a new application to Apple. At launch the service has support for five different ad networks, with more on the way shortly.
After integrating Adrollo into their application, developers can view their current ad setup from the service’s web panel. From there they can specify which ad networks they’d like to rotate between and how often they’d like their ads to appear in their application. Developers can also set up Adrollo to automatically switch between all available ad networks, optimizing CPM rates to ensure that their apps are generating as much revenue as possible (it can also fill an ad unit when the current network runs out of inventory, which can be a problem on popular applications).
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3876388&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
AdRollo – Free Your Ads from iPhone Developers on Vimeo.
Adrollo co-founder Sam Yam says that developers can make as much as twice as much money using the optimizations available on the platform. Yam acknowledges that there are a few other options for developers to pull ads from multiple ad networks, but that they come with their own issues. Some services aggregate ads from various networks on the server-side, then send them to the iPhone applications, but Yam says that these typically only support basic ads. Adrollo supports all ads served up by the networks, and also allows developers to include their own ads in their applications (for example, you could place an add for your premium app in the free ‘lite’ version).
Adrollo is going to be available to developers for free. Yam says that the company’s monetization plan is to eventually begin offering its own ad inventory, which will also be deployed through the platform.