Mobile Advertising 

The Mobile Advertising Networks section presents a database of hundred plus mobile ad companies that collectively form the mobile advertising landscape. We do our best to make this database comprehensive and useful for company owners who look for an effective and reliable mobile advertising partner to advertise their product or service. We also want to provide media buyers with the best choice of advertising networks to buy ad inventory from.

To begin let’s start with the basics – what is a mobile advertising? According to Wikipedia Mobile Advertising is:

a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing.

To get yourself up-to-speed with what’s the latest and greatest in the roam of mobile advertising, you can read about the latest mobile advertising trends here.

TOP MOBILE ADVERTISING COMPANIES

RichAds

RichAds

#1 Mobile Ad Network for Scaling Ad Campaigns

View more123 myAppFree

myAppFree

High Quality Mobile Traffic & Exclusive Placements on SONY Xperia, Native SDK

View more

RevX

RevX

Made for Growth, Built for App Marketers

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Categories of Mobile Advertising Platforms

There are several categories of mobile advertising companies, let’s define the major ones:

A Mobile Ad Network – is an advertising company that serves as intermediary between app developers, that need to advertise their apps or online merchants in general and publishers, individuals or companies that want to place ads inside their apps or websites to make a profit.

A Mobile Ad Server – is a web server that stores mobile ads and provides technological solution to manage and display these ads on various mobile apps and websites. A Mobile DSP (stands for a mobile demand side platform) – is a company that provides a system for mobile advertisers to buy mobile inventory from a multiple ad exchanges, ad networks and mobile publishers. The mobile DSP key feature is a single interface for a real-time bidding to display online ads across multiple ad-exchanges. An Ad Fraud Detection tool – is a company that provides a technical solution to advertisers to detect and prevent fraud in digital advertising campaigns. Mobile Ad Analytics – is a company that provides mobile ad campaign attribution and analytical tools. Retargeting – is an advertising company that provides a service for re-engagement with online audiences that at some point seen / clicked on an ad but than lost their interest. Social Ads – is a digital advertising company that provides unified solutions to run ad campaigns across multiple paid social ad platforms, such as Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Pinterest Ads, TikTok Ads and more. SSP (stands for a supply side platform) – is a company that allows desktop or mobile app publisher to manage his ad inventory across multiple, both desktop and mobile, platforms. Mobile Advertising Formats There is a range of different types of mobile advertising defined by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (aka IAB), among those the major ones are:

Banner ad – a still or animated image, of the number of sizes defined by IAB, placed on a website or inside a mobile app Interstitial – a full-screen graphical ad that covers an entire website or mobile app interface. It requires a website visitor or a mobile app user active action to either click-through or closing to continue interaction with a mobile app or website. Offer-wall – a screen in an app that offers mobile users rewards or different incentives in exchange for specific actions, like downloading an app, registering in app and more. Video ad – a short, 15-30 second length video clip that advertises a specific mobile app or a website. Native ad – a form of paid media where the ad experience mimics the natural form and function of a mobile app or website interface. Social ad – is an ad displayed on social media sites or via audience networks associated with them (example – Facebook Audience Network). All mobile advertising formats are developed to advertise products, services and mobile apps in particular. There are a number of business models that different mobile advertising networks utilize to serve both advertisers and publishers. Here we present the most widely accepted ones.

Mobile Advertising Business Model

The modern mobile ad industry is built on several business models, the most established among those are:

CPC (cost per click) – it implies charging an advertiser for every click on a mobile ad inside an app or on a website. Our database contains the following ad networks that support this model.

CPM (cost per mile) – this model implies charging an advertiser for each 1,000 impressions of her / his mobile advertising Cost Per Install / Pay Per Install / CPI – with this model an advertiser is charged once an app he advertises was downloaded CPA (cost per action) – this business model is based on charging advertiser once a specific action was taken inside a mobile app or on a website. Any mobile advertising campaign requires targeting to reach out specific audience that will be relevant to the product or service that is advertised. Compared to desktop, mobile devices provide a wide range of targeting options and the following ones are the most commonly used.

Mobile Advertising Targeting

Device – this kind of targeting allows to narrow a mobile ad audience to people that have a specific smartphone or tablet model. OS – it allows to deliver to users with mobile devices that run specific Operating System, e.g. iOS, Android, Windows Phone. Geos – a kind of targeting that allows to deliver a mobile ad message within specific geolocation, in most cases, within a particular country, city or ZIP code. Day Part – to take into account mobile users tendency to spend time with their mobile devices during specific time of a day, this type of targeting allows to deliver ads within a specific time frame.

Behavioral – the most sophisticated type of targeting that mobile advertising platforms run by Facebook, Twitter and Google are capable to provide, based on an extensive user profile they accumulate over time.

Demographic – this type of targeting is based on a mobile ad audience age and gender.

Operator – with this kind of targeting mobile ad campaigns can be narrowed down to mobile users that are served by specific mobile operator, e.g. At&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Vodafone and so on.

There are 3 major ways of launching and managing advertising campaigns: self-service, managed service and programmatic. All 3 have its pros and cons and many ad networks supports all of them to address a broad range of customers needs


Top Mobile Advertising Companies:

  • InMobi - Driving Real Connections
  • AppsFlyer - Mobile marketing attribution and analytics
  • ADEX - Ad Fraud Detection Tools, Ad Servers, Mobile Ad Network, Mobile DSP, Social Ads, SSP
  • Adikteev - Data-driven app marketing platform
  • HUAWEI Ads - Mobile Marketing Platform tailored for HUAWEI devices
  • AdPushup - Ad Revenue Optimization
  • myAppFree - High Quality Mobile Traffic & Exclusive Placements on SONY Xperia, Native SDK
  • RevX - Made for Growth, Built for App Marketers
  • Hitapps - Complex digital advertising solutions that drive results.
  • ironSource - Connecting people with apps
  • Jampp - Unlock new growth
  • Kevel - Build a custom ad server in just weeks.
  • AdColony - The In-App Marketplace for Brands
  • Bidease - #1 DSP for mobile app marketers
  • Tenjin - iOS 14-proof advertising analytics
  • AdsCompass - Global Ad network for Publishers and Advertisers
  • RichAds - #1 Mobile Ad Network for Scaling Ad Campaigns
  • Smadex - Mobile-first DSP For Transparent Performance (Apps/Branding/VAS)
  • App Annie - Unlock advertising, monetization and acquisition ROI with Ascend
  • Performcb - #1 Performance Marketing Network Worldwide
  • AdAction - A full-service ad platform that connects mobile marketers to high-intent users worldwide.
  • Zoomd - Know More, Do More
  • mediasmart - #1 DSP for Incremental growth
  • Golden Goose - Mobile Ad Network

Mobile Advertising Trading Models

  1. Self-Service / Self-Managed – this model implies providing an online dashboard for digital advertisers to run ad campaigns on their own.
  2. Managed Service – this kind of model is based on providing qualified managers by advertising company to run mobile ad campaigns on behalf of an advertiser.
  3. Programmatic – an algorithmic sale and purchase of digital advertising on mobile and desktop.
One of the most important aspects of running an ad campaign is tracking. By definition an optimization, as a crucial part of a mobile advertising strategy, wouldn’t be possible without having a robust ad campaign tracking in place. There are several ad tracking companies that command this core-stone feature of the advertising market, such as:

  1. AppsFlyer
  1. Adjust
  1. Kochava

You can find more here.