As Indie devs, our apps/games need to be making some money. For those of us who have full time jobs, the revenue should at least cover the development costs. The Ad network market on Windows Phone 8 is limited and unreliable. Here are some numbers from my apps and my rant at the end 🙂
Banner Ads
- Microsoft Pubcenter
- Fill Rate: 25% to 35%
- eCPM: $0.40 to $1.50
- Google Admob
- Fill Rate: 60% to 80%
- eCPM: $0.02 t0 $0.10
- Smaato
- Fill Rate: 48%
- eCPM: $0.04
- Vserv
- Fill Rate: 60% to 70%
- eCPM: $0.30 to $0.50
Interstitial Ads
- Google Admob
- Fill Rate: 25%
- eCPM: $0.36
- Smaato
- Fill Rate: 65%
- eCPM: $0.38
- Vserv
- Fill Rate: 60% to 70%
- eCPM: $0.35
Observations
In the Banner Ad area, Pubcenter is the BEST option so far. Yes fill rates are low but revenue is not bad. Admob and Smaato have a horrible eCPM but they are a good backfill option. Vserv is OK but it has no inventory in US – some europe and south america inventory. They do limit the revenue for no reason. (more on that later). And when everything else fails, you can go to AdDuplex for cross-promotion.
Whats strange is that I have “Air Soccer Fever” on Google Play as well using Admob. It  has a far better fillrate and eCPM than Admob on Windows Phone.
The good thing is Microsoft finally made the AdMediation system available so we can utilize several ad networks and change % usage without having to re-submit an app update. It would be great IF they would allow for extension of the control so we can add new ad providers in there (Vserv)
In the Interstitial area, the three options I use are similar in eCPM.. but severely lacking in inventory in different regions. So you have to analyze and then utilize the network per region. making money is hard 🙂 Still the interstitial eCPM is lower than the Pubcenter’s banner ads which is a shame. Now if Microsoft will just pull its act together and release a direly missing update to pubcenter, it will make all of us happy who are getting jerked around by all these other ad networks.
- Pubcenter Inetrstitial Image Ads
- Pubcenter Video Ads
I am not sure whats the issue there.. Windows Phone 8 is more than capable to show Inetrstitials and Video ads. Yes they announced it for Windows 10 Mobile but come on already!!
AND Yes… I have crossed 4 million downloads on Windows Phone.
Dangling Neuron 
Thank you, your info is a treasure to me.
hi, can you please share your experience with Microsoft Video ads? and are interstitial image ads available on pubcenter?
thanks
I have just come across your blog post, from a Twitter conversation you had with DVLUP last year.
I have apps on Windows Phone.. they do best for me on Google AdMob, for both banners and Interstitial Ads.
Pub Center revenue for me is always just a trickle.
I do back fill to AdDuplex, but I am wondering what to do come November when Google may start to turn off the tap to Windows Phone 8.1. SDK apps.
Interesting to see Smaato mentioned here.. I am just experimenting with them on iOS and Android, using Mediation in AdMob.
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What is your state-of-play now.. one year on from your blog post?
Mike.