The Complete Ad Revenue Resource Center

The platform you use to earn ad revenue will depend on the type of publisher you are, but for web and app publishers, Google, Amazon, and Prebid are the most popular ways to earn ad revenue in the programmatic space.

Of course, you don’t have to choose just one of these three if you work with Playwire. Playwire’s platform combines the demand of all three of these massive platforms, in addition to many others, to provide the highest possible demand for our publishers’ inventory.

Absolutely. In some cases, this is a really smart move. Ad revenue is an important part of most publishers’ revenue strategies, but it can be combined with various other income streams. For example, you can offer a monthly or annual subscription fee to remove ads and access premium content. Alternatively, you might sell products or digital goods in your app or on your website, in addition to selling ad inventory to brands.

Definitely. While the breakdown isn’t always the same, you can generally assume that video ads will be more valuable than basic display banners. On top of that, premium ad units like skinned pre-roll video and rewarded video offer compelling metrics like 100% viewability that will convince buyers to pay top dollar.

There is no maximum when it comes to ad revenue, so there’s always room to do better. Consider the strategies described above, or find a high-quality ad revenue amplification partner like Playwire.

How much an app makes per ad is a fluid number that is influenced by a large number of variables. For example, the same exact ad run in the U.S. and run in China will make different amounts. Similarly, different kinds of ad units and app platforms (Android and iOS) will command different rates.

For reference, global in-app banner eCPM rates in 2021 fell somewhere between $0.16 and $0.38, while the global average eCPM for in-app rewarded video was between $12 and $14.

As is the case with apps and other channels, websites make wildly different amounts of money per ad based on a huge number of factors. You actually control many of those factors by setting and changing the rules for your programmatic auctions.

However, if you want to get a basic idea of how much you could earn if you implemented ads, Google AdSense has a handy calculator that can give you a rough estimate. That comes with a caveat: The calculator gives an estimate for what you might make using Google AdSense, not other platforms, and it’s a very rough estimate.

There is no hard and fast rule for when to start running ads. Most beginner publishers are understandably eager to see some money coming in for all their hard work, but the amount you make from the tools that will accept you when you have a small audience will likely be negligible.

That’s why the recommendation for the early days is always to focus on building your audience rather than filling the site or app up with ads that almost no one will see. For websites, the general rule of thumb is that you won’t see much ROI until you start getting over 300,000 page views per month. For apps, you want at least 1,000 daily active users as a general rule.