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iOS Is it possible to set a "refresh rate" for ads in my iOS app?

F

felixen

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 13, 2009
884
113
Hey guys.

I have been wondering if it is possible to make an ad reload/refresh every once in a while to get more impressions? Like if a user doesn't quit my app - if he just turns off the screen, then my app would still be running in the foreground, I assume.

Can I code the app, still running in the foreground despite the screen being off, to refresh the ads every 15 minutes, thus getting me more impressions?
 
I know in my app I used AdWhirl which let me set a refresh time (and mix iAds, AdMob, and my own custom ads all in the same app.)

I discourage you from using ads at all though. If you're interested in making money, make your app worth at least $0.99 instead and sell it at that. iAds translate to about $0.01 per download, while making your app $0.99 will result in getting about 1/20th of the downloads that $0.99 would get. Thus $0.99 is much more profitable.
 
Thanks for the reply, and the advice too. I will give it a shot with ads though - I will have both a lite and a paid version.

So I really can have the ad refresh in intervals, that's interesting. This leads me to two new questions:

1) What stops developers from programming the ad to refresh once a minute for instance? If I use AdWhirl for instance I can use multiple networks, thus increasing the fill rate. With a high fill rate percentage, why not make the ad refresh every minute?

2) Will the ad still refresh if the screen is shut off, but the app is still running in the foreground? If so, will it still count as an impression? Obviously the user won't see the ad if the screen is off, but if the ad has loaded anyway, won't that count as an impression?


Really hope I can get some help with this
 
felixen said:
Thanks for the reply, and the advice too. I will give it a shot with ads though - I will have both a lite and a paid version.

So I really can have the ad refresh in intervals, that's interesting. This leads me to two new questions:

1) What stops developers from programming the ad to refresh once a minute for instance? If I use AdWhirl for instance I can use multiple networks, thus increasing the fill rate. With a high fill rate percentage, why not make the ad refresh every minute?

2) Will the ad still refresh if the screen is shut off, but the app is still running in the foreground? If so, will it still count as an impression? Obviously the user won't see the ad if the screen is off, but if the ad has loaded anyway, won't that count as an impression?


Really hope I can get some help with this
Click to expand...

AdWhirl limits you to one request per 15 seconds (which is how often I have it set to refresh.) The APIs seem to be intelligent enough to know if they're visible on screen or not... They print out error messages in the logs if they detect that any of your views are on top of their ad views. I imagine the APIs automatically handle the screen being turned off and stuff.

Something else limiting you on refreshes is it does take up some CPU and Internet bandwidth... Your users may not appreciate your app wasting a lot of the cellular data allotment loading ad refreshes. If you're making a game or something else graphically intensive, your frame rate could suffer from frequently drawing animations of moving old ads out / new ads in.
 
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