Join Charles Yim, a veteran of AdMob and now Manager of Google’s Mobile Partnerships on Monday, November 8th at the 360 iDev Conference in Austin, TX.

Charles will be sharing best practices the AdMob team has seen in building a sustainable business on mobile.  The presentation will cover app discovery, selecting an appropriate business model for your app and tracking key performance metrics. This conference aims to bring together the best and brightest developers on the iOS platform for 3 days of training, brainstorming, idea-sharing and networking.  The conference kicks off on Sunday!

Google is excited to sponsor this event and share insights from the AdMob team on building a successful mobile app business.

Keri Buchanan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Publishers

Since AdMob was acquired by Google in May, both teams have been collaborating on new products and features.  Today we are excited to announce a major new benefit to both AdMob publishers and Google advertisers that comes from the integration of these two teams.

In the coming weeks, eligible iPhone and Android application developers in the AdMob network will be able to show Google AdSense ads when an AdMob ad is not available. This will also enable Google advertisers to extend the reach of their mobile campaigns to the thousands mobile apps in AdMob's network, such as Rovio's 'Angry Birds'.

We’ve worked hard to make it as easy as possible for AdMob publishers to access this new inventory.  Publishers using a recent version of the SDK will not have to update their code.  

Reporting will integrate directly into your AdMob account, and you will continue to receive a single check from AdMob each month.  

Publishers should note that they will not be able to filter the types of AdSense ads (e.g. category, URL) that run in their app.  As a result, publishers who have ad filters selected for their AdMob inventory need to opt in to receive Google ads.  Publishers can check their “App Settings” tab in the Sites & Apps section of their publisher account to see if they are eligible for Google ads and opt in.  

Eligible iPhone and Android application publishers not utilizing ad filters will be opted into receiving Google ads as the feature is rolled out in phases over the next several weeks.  

Please visit the Help Center for more details.  All publishers who show AdSense ads must comply with the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions.

This is the first of many exciting things to come with the integration of AdMob and Google.  

Posted by Jason Morse, Google Mobile Ads Product Manager

Cross posted from the Inside AdWords Blog:

What if you found out that your AdWords campaigns were bringing you more customers than you realized?

Zac Stafford, Senior Search Strategist at Nina Hale Search Marketing in Minneapolis, MN, recently discovered that this was true for his client, modern furniture retailer Room & Board. Stafford saw some encouraging results as an early beta tester of AdWords call metrics, a new feature that automatically includes a unique phone number in your ads to measure the calls that you receive from AdWords.

“By cross-checking our call metrics reports with our sales records, we saw that half the people who called the toll free number in our ad purchased online but the other half purchased in a store. Before using call metrics, we determined our ROI just by looking at the online sales numbers. Now we have proof that online search ad campaigns drive in-store purchases.”

Today we're announcing that AdWords call metrics is available for more advertisers, making it easier than ever to measure the phone calls that AdWords generates for your business. Using the technology behind Google Voice, call metrics assigns your campaign a unique phone number which is automatically inserted into your ad on both desktop and high-end mobile devices, where the number is clickable.

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When a user calls the number in your ad, the call is automatically routed to your business, and AdWords notes that this call took place. Then, when you look at your AdWords reports, you’ll see the number of calls generated by each campaign, call duration, and in the near future, caller area code. You'll still only pay for clicks on your ads, but we intend to charge for call metrics in the future. 

Once you know where your calls are coming from, you can refine your marketing strategy to make sure you’re getting the most out of your ads. For example, you could test different ad text variations to see which results in the most calls or reallocate budget to campaigns that truly bring you the highest ROI. 

Currently, call metrics is only available to a limited number of US advertisers. We plan to make the feature available to more advertisers in the coming months. To find out if call metrics is available in your account and to learn more about the feature, visit Google Ad Innovations.
 

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee, Senior Product Manager, AdWords

We constantly work with developers who are running cross-platform app promotion campaigns on the AdMob network. Recently OpenTable ran a campaign to increase the install base for the Android version of their app.

Taking advantage of the scale of the AdMob display network and measuring install rates with download tracking, OpenTable was able to easily evaluate the return from their advertising campaign. In this Android targeted campaign, the AdMob network drove a 125% increase in daily downloads at 42% lower cost-per-install than past iPhone campaigns.

“We’ve been able to increase the pace of Android mobile user acquisition with mobile advertising. App promotion has proven to be as effective on this platform as it is on iPhone for OpenTable,” comments Scott Jampol, Sr. Director of Consumer Marketing at OpenTable.com.

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We look forward to continuing to work with developers on app promotion campaigns across many different mobile platforms.

Vicky Homan, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

AdMob launched the first interactive video ad unit for the iPhone in November 2009. Since then, AdMob has run over 120 video and interactive interstitial campaigns worldwide for clients such as Universal Pictures, Best Buy and Seattle’s Best Coffee.  

More than 200,000 new Android devices are activated daily and our publisher network and traffic are growing rapidly on Android.  Based on demand from both advertisers looking to reach a cross-platform audience and Android publishers looking to maximize their revenue potential, we are launching interactive video and interactive interstitial ad units on the Android platform. By identifying the screen resolution, size, and network connection speed we are able to serve users the optimal viewing experience.

Extending rich media interstitial ad units to Android creates an exciting opportunity for mobile advertisers to reach a much wider audience across platforms and devices. These interactive ad units have proven to be extremely effective in engaging users on iOS and we look forward to helping our advertisers reach more users than ever across platforms.

Auto-play Interactive Video Ad Unit for Wolfman movie opening on app load in Angry Birds

AdMob interstitial ads are reserved for developers of the most popular and engaging iOS and Android apps.  These high value ad units can be placed at app-open or in-app and provide an additional option for premium publishers to effectively monetize their user base.

Our friends at CBS Mobile, who are at the forefront of mobile development, were early movers onto the Android platform and are excited about the availability of the new ad units. Philippe Browning, Director of Advertising and Operations at CBS Mobile, commented, "AdMob's interstitial video ad has been an effective unit within several of our key iOS apps, so it's great to see the same unique functionality is now available for Android."

Posted by Johanna Werther, Google Mobile Ads Marketing Team

Today we are excited to announce that alphanumeric vanity numbers are now enabled for click-to-call phone extension ad formats.

Vanity numbers allow businesses to include letters in their phone numbers. For example, instead of using 1-800-836-3464 in their mobile ad, 1-800-VENDING can use their actual business name.

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Including a vanity number with your mobile ad can help users remember how to contact you when they need your products or services. This is especially useful if most of your transactions take place over the phone and you want to make sure customers can easily recall your phone number. In addition, featuring your business name in your phone number can be an effective method of driving brand recognition and ad performance.  Advertisers running click-to-call phone extensions in their campaigns have experienced a 6% increase in average clickthrough rates to their mobile ads.

To enable this feature, just enter the desired vanity number in the phone extensions field in your AdWords campaign setting. You must be based in the United States and have your campaigns opted into showing on high end mobile devices with full Internet browsers.

Posted by Surojit Chatterjee Google Mobile Ads Product Manager 

The smash hit from Rovio, Angry Birds, added Android to their cross-platform strategy on Friday.  Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle of Rovio, confirmed today that the full version of the game has surpassed 3 million downloads on Android in less than a week.  The casual game, now available on Android, iOS, Nokia and Palm phones, challenges users to slingshot birds across the screen to attack the hungry pigs that stole their eggs.  Angry Birds has maintained a top position across all app marketplaces reaching 7 million paid downloads and 11 million downloads of the “Lite” free version in 60 countries. 

“Rovio is excited about the partnership with Google's AdMob as we explore new business models that will allow us to maximize reach across mobile platforms,” said Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle of Rovio. “The launch of a free, ad-supported version of Angry Birds was a great success with over 2 million downloads on Android in its first weekend.” 

In addition to monetization through the AdMob network, Rovio is also planning to leverage AdMob’s House Ad functionality that allows developers to serve ads within their app for free.  This feature will help Rovio promote new game features and even advertise their new plush toys for the holiday season.

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We are excited to work with Rovio and help them reach their 100 million download target with this free ad-supported version. AdMob continues to be committed to working with mobile developers and publishers to help them build sustainable businesses on mobile.

Posted by Charles Yim, Google Mobile Partnerships