INTERVIEW: inneractive on making advertising work for developers

We asked Hillel Fuld, head of marketing at inneractive, to elaborate.

What's are the latest statistics on inneractive's reach and performance?

We're very close to 100 networks and agencies, which gives us reach in over 200 countries.  Using the inneractive platform, you have more global coverage and targeted campaigns to ensure higher fill rates, which improves CTRs and ultimately, revenue for the developer.

What are these stats?

The fill rates are 95 per cent or higher. Compare that with other mobile advertising companies such as Apple's iAD which average around 17 per cent compared to inneractive's 99 per cent fill rate in the US.

But it's important to remember that there's more to fill rates than just the percentages. It is possible to deliver high rates but with ads that are not targeted properly. So, for example, you could deliver localised US ads to a European app, and the click-throughs would be non-existent.

We don't do this. And that's why we currently deliver eCPMs that are three times the industry average across all mobile platforms. In addition, all of our ads generate revenue for our developers and are not self promotional ads like many other companies include in their fill rate percentages.

How deep does your targeting go?

In terms of location, we can target and drill down as far as technologically possible. But we also categorise apps by genre, which really helps with the click throughs too. Targeting users by content is very effective and has proven results. We also partner with many advertisers who offer location-based campaigns, which increases the eCPM for our developers.

How have you helped developers specifically?

Well, for a start, our cross-platform SDK includes just one line of code. It takes ten seconds to integrate and then opens up access to 100 ad networks and agencies all over the globe.

But we try to give practical advice too. One of our projects was an APS (ad placement strategy) document. We looked at data gathered over years and analysed it to give guidance on the location of the ads within a game session for the best results.

We've also been working with third parties to improve the options for developers, which explains our partnership with Marmalade, for example. The cost of cross platform development is a problem for developers, so the Marmalade platform is something we think they should look at. And obviously Marmalade are interested in any service that can help their developers to monetise their apps, so it works both ways. We're working on more deals like this.

Generally, we have a fantastic relationship with developers. In the past when we experienced technical difficulties and notifed our community, the support and understanding we received proved that they view this as a partnership, the same way we view them at inneractive.

We offer our developers much more than just an advanced SDK and that includes discovery services, an auto pilot solution that maximizes their in-app revenue, monthly newsletters, white papers, and infographics (like the one published on ME recently), as well as hands on and professional support with the integration via a personal account manager for every developer. 

Last year, inneractive was quoted as saying that developers can make $20,000 a month from your platform. Is that still the case?

Actually, that's a low number compared with what they can do now. Our developers are now making as much as $50k a month and we work with some of the biggest names across all mobile platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Nokia, and more. Over the past month, we more than doubled our ad impressions on Android in the US alone.

And you've tried to address discovery through the inneractive 360 service...

Yes, we're confident we can help our developers monetise like no one else, but we realised there's still an issue around discovery of their apps. So we created an advertising channel just for them that promises to promote their apps in front of targeted audiences on the right apps across the globe.  

Can you give an example of a successful campaign?

Mall of America Navigator targeting users living only in Bloomington Minnesota and the vicinity. It was a very small geographical target audience, but the campaign generated an increase of 514 per cent in downloads.

What's next for inneractive?

We'll keep building the service, bringing in new agency and network partners. We're also expanding globally: we've just opened in Palo Alto, with more offices opening soon in the US, Europe and Asia. The goal here is to reach as many premium mobile publishers as possible and attend to their monetisation needs across all mobile platforms.

If you'd like to find out more about inneractive click here.