Unlike the iPhone and Android environments the advertising options for Windows Phone are still in their formative years. Some ad providers have jumped in to the WP market while some others are still holding back to see if the market matures enough to make the time and effort worthwhile. And some companies (such as Microsoft itself) are still in limited roll-out with their solutions; believe it or not the Microsoft Ad Network is US-only right now so you need to be in the US to create an account and your ads are limited to display to the US so if your app is available universally you’ll want to choose a different provider.
Using AdMob and AdDuplex in the same WP app
In this tutorial we will take a basic WP7 app and add in the AdMob and AdDuplex ad code. After confirming that each ad solution works we’ll then change the app around so that the AdMob code is used by default and then the AdDuplex engine is called if AdMob fails to deliver an ad. In this way we can optimize our ad impressions and best utilize the available inventory. I’ve chosen AdMob as the “master” ad supplier in this instance due to their better pay scale – if that were to change or if you were to find that you’d prefer to use a different provider as the “master” then you are free to do so. For instance, if Microsoft’s Ad Network becomes available to you in your country (assuming you’re not US-based right now) then you may wish to switch to them as your primary provider and AdMob as your fallback.
AdMob:
http://www.admob.com/
http://groups.google.com/group/google-admob-ads-sdk/topics
AdDuplex:
http://www.adduplex.com/
http://blog.adduplex.com/
About AdMob:
- Owned by Google so it has a big backer and should be there for the long-haul
- Advertising solutions for iPhone and Android as well so you can use one account and target three different platforms which is useful for consolidation and simplification
- Silverlight-only solution for now – not available for XNA apps
About AdDuplex:
- A new player in the ad space focused entirely on the Windows Phone ecosystem
- Functions mainly as an Ad Exchange rather than an advertiser so you are meant to both advertise your own app and run ads for other people’s apps though there is the ability for advertisers to directly pay for advertising
- Can be used in both Silverlight and XNA apps for maximum app coverage
Additional Links
Tutorial: Ads and Your Windows Phone App (Part 2) – AdMob
Tutorial: Ads and Your Windows Phone App (Part 3) – AdDuplex
Tutorial: Ads and Your Windows Phone App (Part 4) – Ad Failover Complete