Reward Videos Ads network for HTML5 games

[alexzhivil]

I have an html5 online game/community with around 500,000+ monthly impressions.

Since placing adsense ads is not allowed on pages without actual content, to avoid being banned, I've decided to put those ads only in the tutorial pages.

It's still a nice income, but it's quite ridiculous that I'm making money from the tutorial but no money from the actual game.

I've submitted an application for google's "adsense for games" but never received a response.

I've spent so much time looking for a network with relevant ads, but failed. 

Some of the popular networks out there are offering annoying popunders, or inappropriate ads which doesn't suit a website with many kids playing.

It's quite frustrating really.

 

I am mostly interested in video ads for a rewarded ads system, but I can place standard banners as well as long as they are appropriate and accept being used in online games.

Does anyone have any suggestions of networks I could try?

Thanks in advance.

[b10b]

20 hours ago, alexzhivil said:

I'm making money from the tutorial but no money from the actual game

I wanted to commend you on this - you have put your audience first.  It may be worth resisting the impulse to advertise within the games directly and fully embrace this audience-first supporting-content strategy?   By comparison, stuffing adverts throughout the user experience interrupts enjoyment, retention and repeat play - it actively drives traffic away.

Plus, if your audience is kid-oriented, those in-game advert revenues will be low because it's hard to convert that traffic to traction down the sales funnel (and everything is tracked these days).  Whereas by advertising within the tutorials you are more likely advertising to the eyes of completionists - retained, engaged, self educators - the higher-value advertising audience.

Quality vs quantity.  Perhaps carry on building out the supporting content around the games (as the Adsense strategy encourages)?

[alexzhivil]

16 minutes ago, b10b said:

 By comparison, stuffing adverts throughout the user experience interrupts enjoyment, retention and repeat play - it actively drives traffic away.

User experience is always my first priority, but giving simple rewards for watching "rewarded ads" by choice won't really hurt anyone in this case. I only wish there were more solutions when it comes to html5 games compared to all the focus that we see on mobile games. Honestly, I don't really understand why, there's a big market for people who play html5 games, especially all those Chromebook users.

[b10b]

 

Reward-ads need someone to click on them and complete a purchase to generate value in the chain.  Grinders who endure them without clicking dilute that value (while tolerating the interruption).  Although I can't see either as positive user experience, I do understand many players might prefer to be irrational so the allure of reward-ads is real.

Yes, the Chromebook audience is intriguing.  I haven't found the latest user stats but I suspect we're often talking about school kids (who aren't always directly valuable to conventional advertising or networks that need to follow rules applying to kids)?  Maybe a safe curated game platform with minimal freemium subscriptions could work?

 

[alexzhivil]

12 hours ago, b10b said:

 

Reward-ads need someone to click on them and complete a purchase to generate value in the chain.  Grinders who endure them without clicking dilute that value (while tolerating the interruption).  Although I can't see either as positive user experience, I do understand many players might prefer to be irrational so the allure of reward-ads is real.

Yes, the Chromebook audience is intriguing.  I haven't found the latest user stats but I suspect we're often talking about school kids (who aren't always directly valuable to conventional advertising or networks that need to follow rules applying to kids)?  Maybe a safe curated game platform with minimal freemium subscriptions could work?

 

You're right, but in terms of value, I don't see much of a difference between the audience of mobile games and html5 games. In both cases a big amount (if not most) of the users are teens.
That's why the CPC for those ads is low and the rewarded videos on all of those mobile games are usually just advertisements of other games.
As an advertiser it's a cheap way to get users, and as a publisher, if your game is popular enough, you can make some money.
The fact that it's such a huge market on mobile but in comparison there are no solutions for html5 games, is what surprises me.

[b10b]

6 hours ago, alexzhivil said:

in comparison there are no solutions for html5 games

Small market classification perhaps?  From my understanding pretty much any SSP should work for web content.  If so there's hundreds of options, including open-source self managed, all basically tapping in to the same ad exchange inventory looking for the lowest bidder.  Whether these platforms specifically offer "reward ads" or game specific formats (while mentioning HTML5) is not always obvious or marketed, but I've listed a couple that specifically mentioned it:

https://adplayer.pro/solutions#rewarded_video

https://www.applixir.com/

Please note I've not worked with either, I can't vouch for them ... and I don't have a positive opinion of in-game advertising.  Also worth mentioning that Google's Adsense For Games has a requirement minimum of 1m game impressions a month -  this is because anything less is probably going to have revenues of less than $1,000 a month.  Other non-Google inventory may be worth less, so a site with 500,000 impressions might struggle to make a few hundred bucks a month - whereas selling just a few dozen premium subscriptions could make more.  Good luck!