Think about the user
Our ads are designed to visually complement the content of your apps. Good ad placement can provide publishers with reliable revenue without sacrificing user experience.
Take extreme care when using AdMob ads in cases where your users might be more prone to accidental clicks. For instance, if an app is meant for children, ads might not be an appropriate monetisation solution as young children may have difficulty differentiating ads from app content.
You should always consider the flow of user engagement within your app when deciding where to place your ads. Implement ads where users are expected to be less engaged with the content of the app, such as in transition points of a reading app, or in between levels of a gaming app.
Users should not be encouraged to click ads
Phrases such as “click the ads” or similar language are not allowed. Any compensation or other incentives to click ads are strictly prohibited. Additionally, incentivising users in any way to click links and/or non-AdMob ads is also prohibited, as it may train users to perform actions (such as clicking ads) that cause invalid activity.
Reserve ad space during loading of app pages
Make sure that you prepare fixed space for ads when loading a new screen in your app. Under certain conditions, such as very low signal strength or phone processing capabilities, ads may not load at the same time as your app content. In this case, ensure that ads do not cover or shift the other content to prevent accidental clicks.
Ads should not be placed on screens that don’t offer any content
Ads should not be placed on "dead end" or no content screens (e.g. thank you, log in, exit, error pages). These are screens that users may see upon launching the app, potentially leaving the app or after performing a specific action on the screen, such as a purchase or download. Ads that are the main focus on these types of screens can confuse users into thinking that the ads are actual content, so please do not place ads on such screens. There must be a way to exit any screen that contains an ad without having to click on the ad (e.g. you should add a "back" or "menu" button). Alternatively, users can be notified that clicking the home button will exit the app.
You should also avoid placing ads on an app screen when users do not have their attention on the screen. In utility apps, where the phone is used as a tool, the users focus will often be off-screen and accidental clicks are more likely to occur. For example, if you have a utility app such as a torch app, ads should not be on the screen whilst the torch is in use. However, you might consider placing an ad on the torch app's menu screen, especially if the menu screen is separate and the users focus is on the screen whilst navigating the menu.
Before implementing any ads, you should first consider user experience and the type of interaction that users might have with your app.
Refreshing ads
We recommend that your ads persist for 60 seconds or longer, depending on the functionality of your app. Our internal tests have shown that this ensures that users have enough time to engage with ads, providing the best performance for both advertisers and publishers. Furthermore, these tests have shown that refreshing ads more often can hurt fill rate for our publishers.
If your app is automatically refreshing ads, make sure that ad requests are not made when the screen is off. Also, if users navigate to and from pages with ads in an app over a short period of time, a new ad request should not be made sooner than the recommended 60 second rate.
Integrate the latest SDK
It's important to always stay updated with the latest SDK (for Android, iOS), which will give you access to the latest ad formats, features, and bug fixes.
Request appropriate ad formats
AdMob supports a variety of ad formats, so make sure that you request the correct sizes for different placements on different devices.
Use appropriate ad formats
Make sure that you use the right type of ad for the screen mode – landscape or portrait. For instance, placing a portrait ad when the app is in landscape mode may hurt the performance of your ads. Utilise smart banners (Android, iOS) to get the most appropriate ads for your apps.
Optimisation of ad placement
It is important to experiment and observe how different ad placements perform within parts of your app. AdMob will automatically adjust ad serving to show ads that perform better for your user base to optimise your revenue. However, paying attention to performance in the reports in your account, as well as carefully segmenting your traffic, can help to deliver the best performance for your app.