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Android™ Developer FAQ

  • How is Airpush different from Admob and other traditional mobile ad networks?
    • Earn 10x - 30x More !
      Android developers use our next-generation ad formats to increase revenue 10 - 30x versus traditional mobile ad networks. Our developers earn $10 - $50 CPM's with our innovative ad formats: Push Notification Ads, Icon Ads, and SmartWall.

    • Get Paid Weekly !
      Airpush is the only mobile ad network which pays developers on a weekly basis. Stop waiting weeks or months for your ad network payments, and start experiencing the cash flow improvement from weekly payments.

    • 100% Android-focused !
      Airpush is the only mobile ad network focused exclusively on Android™ . Our team is dedicated to improving Android developer earnings via next-generation ad technologies.
  • What is Airpush?
    Airpush is the 2nd largest ad network for Android and the first in terms of monetization performance for advertisers and developers. Over 40,000 apps from 150 countries use Airpush's next-generation ad formats in order to generate 10-30x higher returns than traditional in-app ads. Many of the world's top advertisers use Airpush to generate much higher ROI than previously possible with engaging campaigns that get noticed and drive results.
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  • What are Push Notification Ads?
    Push notification ads are text ads shown in the notification tray of Android™ devices. Unlike traditional mobile ads, these ads are not placed inside apps. Each ad is also tagged with a permanent opt-out link, as well as the name of the app which delivered the ad.
  • What are Icon Ads?
    Icon Ads are sponsored shortcuts that appear on the phone's desktop and link to valuable user content such as mobile search and daily deals. Developers generate revenue for each Icon Ad which is distributed to a device.
  • What are SmartWall Ads?
    SmartWall is a new interstitial mobile ad format which dynamically optimizes between multiple sub-formats such as Rich Media, AppWall, Video and Interstitials. With SmartWall, app developers no longer need to choose between the overwhelming numbers of full-page mobile ad formats available on the market. Via a single SDK, SmartWall determines the optimal full-page ad format to display in real-time based on yield, network connection type, and other parameters. SmartWall generates significantly higher CPMs than other leading full-page ad formats and represents a major leap forward for both developers.
  • How much money can I make? What CPM's?
    Airpush developers earn CPM's in the $6 - $40 range depending on country mix and the number of ad formats they choose to you. Most importantly however, those CPM's are earned both on active and inactive users.
    As a result, most developers are shocked at the actual earnings increase when transitioning from Admob / Inmobi /etc to Airpush. Developers can easily go from making $30/day on an app, to making $500 - $2,000 /day from the same app. If you think that sounds crazy, try us out on one of your smaller apps!
  • How often do I get paid?
    Airpush is the only ad network which pays developers on a WEEKLY basis! We have two payment programs:

    1) Weekly: you are paid the following Friday for each Sunday-Saturday weekly period. This program has certain requirements including a $200/week minimum. You can apply within the developer portal and get instant approval.

    2) Standard: you are paid 30 days after the end of each calendar month.
  • How does the Airpush client SDK work?
    Developers add the Airpush client SDK in their Android™ app, which consists of an ultra-lightweight JAR file like most mobile ad networks. When executed once from the main activity of an Android™ application, the Airpush client utilizes Android™ OS's AlarmManager framework to schedule ongoing server polling events a few times per day. If an ad is polled from the server it is cached until optimal display time, which is algorithmically determined by the server.

    Each polling event runs as a background service very briefly, a few times per day or less, ensuring that the client has a total daily run time of only a few seconds. This ensures virtually zero effect on battery life, especially compared to other services based on push notifications which require a persistent TCP/IP connection, persistent background service, or frequent short polling intervals.

    On the server side, a cluster of linux-based ad servers determines the optimal ads to deliver to polling clients based on a combination of CPC bid and relevance. Relevance is determined using proprietary algorithms which factors information about the target app, CTR history, and data clustering techniques.
  • Can I try Airpush ad formats on my phone?
    Yes, you can try our ad formats by downloading the Airpush Demo app from the Android™ Market. Follow the below link or search for 'Airpush Demo' in the Android™ Market app on your phone:

    https://market.android.com/details?id=com.demo.airpushdemo
  • Does Airpush store the IMEI / UUID / other personally identifiable information?
    No, at Airpush we take privacy seriously. All unique identifiers (IMEI) are encrypted by the SDK using MD5 hashing, which is a standard method of "one way" encryption.
  • Is Airpush compatible with my other mobile ad networks?
    Yes, it works with other mobile ad networks. Airpush opens additional ad inventory and does not compete with your existing inventory.
  • For Push Notification Ads, Can I control which users get ads and how often?
    Yes, you can control which users receive ads through both the developer portal and the Permissions API. The portal allows for a more general targeting approach, while the API can be used for granular, user-level control.
  • Does Airpush supply best practices for each of their ad types?
    Of course! Here are the best practices for each of our developer ad types:

    Push Ads Best Practices:
    To maximize revenue set the frequency to 2 ads/day with a 0 day ad delay.

    Icon Ads Best Practices:
    To maximize revenue set the frequency to the maximum setting of 5 icons per user per month.

    SmartWall Best Practices:
    To maximize revenue, start SmartWall at app launch, app exit, as well as natural breaks in the app. If you are able, add a small icon inside of the app that says ?Top Apps? which will launch SmartWall upon engagement.

    Maximum revenue is also generated by using Airpush's SmartWall without any other network's technology as SmartWall performs many times higher than other services because the ads are dynamically optimized. This is because stacking ads will severely decrease the overall performance of any in-app ad units you're running. Run SmartWall as the only full page ad unit in the app.

    Also, it's important that you use only one opt-in screen. However, if there are required terms that are in addition to ours you must include our language and include a link to our privacy policy.
  • Can users easily opt-out of Airpush ads?
    Yes, all of our ads offer opt-out:

    a) For Push Notification Ads, we offer a permanent opt-out to end-users which blocks Airpush ads from all developers. Each ad is tagged with a link to http://www.airpush.com/optout , where the user can opt-out by installing our opt-out application or manually entering their IMEI on the web page.

    b) For Icon Ads, users can delete them with 1 click.

    c) For SmartWall Ads, users can easily close the window.
  • What type of advertisements will my users receive?
    Most ads drive installs to other Android™ apps. Other types of ads are for brands, local businesses, and product offers. All ads are screened by our staff to ensure compliance with our Content Guidelines.
  • How do I install Airpush on my app?
    We offer a lightweight Airpush SDK as a small JAR file which is called from main(). The SDK can be downloaded from your developer account and installed in minutes. We offer extensive support to any developers having trouble.
  • Is there any sign-up cost or hidden fees?
    No. Airpush is extremely profitable for developers and they never have to pay for any of our services.
  • What Fill Rates can I expect?
    Airpush developers experience fill rates of over 90% assuming normal traffic distribution by geography.
  • Do I get paid on a CPM or CPC basis?
    Developers are paid on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions) rather than CPC. An "impression" in the case of Push Notification Ads includes any time an ad is pushed to a device, whether or not the user actually views the ad or not. The actual CPM rate which you are paid for a given app is driven by the CTR, CPC, and Quality for the given app.

    For Icon Ads, impressions are based on Icon installations.

    Airpush developers typically make over $10 CPM's. From your developer account you can track CPM's in real-time for each registered app.
  • How can I significantly increase my Airpush CPM's / Earnings?
    Once live with Airpush, there are many ways to get additional boosts to your earnings:

    1) Try enabling the optional Location permissions as specified in our SDK instructions. This will enable geo-targeted Airpush ads for your apps, which can give a 20% - 80% increase depending on the country.

    2) Try using both Push Notification Ads AND Icon Ads.   If you're only using 1 of our ad formats, you are tremendously lowering your earnings.

    3) Try optimizing your app settings. For the most revenue, deliver 2 ads per day and select 'All users'.
  • Why are my CPM's fluctuating?
    CPM's on Airpush will always be dramatically higher than traditional mobile ads, however they can fluctuate between ranges.  The reasons for CPM fluctuation are as follows:

    1) The traffic quality (CTR or post-click) on your app has changed. Our CPM formula factors the CTR and post-click traffic quality in order to reward developers with better performing apps. 

    2) The country mix of your traffic has changed. Many "emerging markets" including China have lower advertiser bids , and therefore if your % of these countries rises your CPM's will go lower.

    3) The advertiser bids on Airpush have changed. As with all ad networks, advertiser bids fluctuate as do campaign start/end dates.
  • Can I send ads to inactive users only?
    Yes, you can configure your settings to deliver ads to users who haven't used an app for X days.
  • What is the Permissions API used for?
    For Push Notification Ads, developers can tightly control which users receive ads beyond the targeting settings available in the portal by using our Permissions API to add IMEI's to a blacklist or whitelist. The settings can be changed in the 'API' menu item of the developer portal:

    Blacklist Mode: The default mode, in blacklist mode you can specify IMEI's who will NOT receive ads. This works well for building opt-out interaction within your app.

    Whitelist Mode: If you switch your app to whitelist mode, all IMEI's will be blacklisted unless you expressly add them to the Whitelist to receive ads.  This is useful for building opt-in interaction within your app.
  • What application permissions are required for the SDK?
    Required permissions:
    INTERNET
    READ_PHONE_STATE
    ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
    RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED

    Optional permissions (increases CPM):
    VIBRATE
    ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION
    ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION
  • I installed the SDK days ago but my earnings still show $0?
    There are two possible causes for this:

    1) Inactive User Targeting: Check your app's targeting settings from within the developer portal. If you have configured your app to target users who have been inactive for X days, then you won't earn revenue until X days from when you first installed the SDK. To fix this, either change settings to "All Users" rather than "Inactive Users," or just wait until X days have past so our system will start counting some users as inactive and show the ads to them.

    2) Whitelist Mode: If you configured your app to be in "Whitelist Mode," then no ads will be shown to users until you have whitelisted users with the API. Check your API settings in the "API" section of the portal -- you can easily switch between Whitelist and Blacklist mode. The default mode is Blacklist mode.
  • Why aren't my old users receiving ads?
    Like any mobile ad network, Airpush ads can only be delivered to users who have installed a version of your app which is integrated with the Airpush SDK. Any users who installed your app prior to when you installed the Airpush SDK will not receive ads until they update the application to the latest version. When installing the Airpush SDK and updating your app, only a % of your older users will update the app to the latest version. This holds true anytime an app is being updated, regardless of the Airpush SDK.
  • If I'm unhappy with Airpush, can I easily disable it?
    Yes. In addition to removing our SDK from your app, you can disable the SDK at any time from further execution. This works by our server instructing the client not to create any further AlarmManager events for polling.
  • Is there an Adobe AIR version of the Airpush SDK ?
    Unfortunately no. Adobe AIR doesn't yet give developers access to lower level Android™ OS functions needed by the Airpush SDK.
  • What versions of Android™ OS does Airpush work for?
    Airpush works on Android™ OS versions 1.6 and higher.
  • How can I get support?
    We offer a very high level of support to our developers.

    • Dedicated Account Manager: Your dedicated account manager can assist you with training, SDK installation and configuration, and most other issues.
    • 24/7 Email Support: For customer support issues, emailing support@airpush.com will generate an immediate response from our team.