Unity Ads Reviews

@Salazar
OK.
My game isn't complete yet so, I'll wait and see

 

The "normal" video (in most cases the defaultVideoAndPictureZone) is preconfigured to allow users to skip a viedeo after a certain number of seconds. It also has the option of using picture ads when video ads are not available.

The rewardedVideoZone on the other hand has skipping disabled by default, and does not provide picture ad backfill when video ads are not available. This way, when the callback method is passed after an ad is closed, you can ensure the ShowResult was for a video ad, and make it more likely to return a value of Finished. Which is the case you would reward your users for.

 

Is there a reason why I'm not seeing any revenue on this chart, even though I've had a few views recently? Is it just taking a lot of time to update, or am I really not getting any revenue from those completed ads?

 

Hello, i have a question about the UnityAds ... if my game suffer of piracy in android (people install via .apk) the Ads will show up? if yes, it will generate revenue? Thanks!

 

I Don't know about revenue but the ads will show up via APK unless they know how to hack the game and delete them

 

It's more likely they'll use an ad blocker of some sort, rather than hack the app. If the app is distributed outside of your control, and ads are not blocked, you can still generate revenue for your game. Unity Ads operates independently of any distribution network, but it does target ads for Google Play and iTunes App Store. These still need to be reachable and usable, regardless of where they got the app from.

 

I want to use it but, i had a problem related to JDK and Unity, finally I just fix it (it was related to Unity and JDK 32 bits version not working, you need the 64 bits version).

I downloaded the "Unity ads demo master" and finally build it to the phone. The demo works right, but as I said in other post http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/un...will-spend-the-mb-of-the-user-quickly.290438/ , It will be perfect for me If you implement a way to show "interstitial image ads" instead of videos, when the user are conected to a "Carrier Networking". I think that most users will uninstall the app when they notice that their MB/month are gone.

Meanwhile we can use your suggested code in the other thread.

Regards.

 

If one uses Unity Ads I have some questions I didn't see answered in the FAQs:

1) Are or can the ads, pictures & videos, be cached in the background like the Windows background loading of Windows Updates, so that their is smooth ad viewing even when the player is offline? And then when the player comes online again, the ads viewed are updated.

2) I think that this is possible but I only want one picture ad or one video ad played at the beginning or the game or when the use decides to continue the game, I haven't decided yet, so my question is are picture ads available in such a way, or are they only available as banner adds?

3) I don't want to collect information about users but if a user plays a game I made I only want to know they played. So using Unity Ads what will Unity Ads know about the players other than they played my game in country Y using device X with os Z. Will I or will I not see information other than what's in the previous sentence if I open an account?

4) Question 3 brings up ESRB rating and such. I have no interest in displaying ads for games of war or horror games in any of my games. I should be able to able to pick a rating for ads shown equivalent to the 'TV Y' or 'Everyone'

5) Well darn, there is no Plugin for Windows Store or Windows Phone. Are there plan to add this in the future or does Microsoft forbid outs outside their own network in games in their store? A reasonable business decision given their business investments but still I don't know if that's truth or not. :-(

 

Unity Ads attempts to cache the next video in the queue before the call to Show() is made. If the video hasn't been cached, Unity Ads attempts to stream it. An update will be coming soon that aims to improve caching, and also test network bandwidth before attempting to stream. If the bandwidth is inadequate, isReady() returns false.

Unity Ads doesn't support banner ads. Picture ads are interstitials. Keep in mind, picture ads are still in beta. Which means there is limited fill for English speaking countries, and in most cases no fill for non-English speaking countries.

That's basically all that's collected, but we use the device's advertising ID to differentiate between these reporting instances. Otherwise each report would look like it came from a unique device, which nullifies the value of the data. The SDK also lets us know which version of itself is running.

Our Ad Ops team can target and also block specific genres for ads in your game. If you see an ad campaign running in your game that you disagree with, we can block specific campaigns as well.

We'd like to support Windows Store and Windows Phone, as well as other mobile platforms and storefronts. Our priority at the moment though is to make Unity Ads the best it can be on the current supported platforms: iOS and Android. We've scaled considerably since being acquired by Unity, and we want to make sure that we can continue to scale and support our existing platforms with top of the line service. We will eventually get the chance to expand our horizons further. When we do, the Unity Blog will be the stage for the official announcement

 

Seems very easy to implement and seems to be functioning fine on all my test devices.
I do have a few questions though:

1) Is there any way to speed up the initial video ad load time? I have the video ad play at the start of my game and I display a splash screen until the ad is ready but this takes around 8 - 10 seconds and doesn't look very professional (tried over 3G, 4G and WiFi).

2) Can I use Unity ads alongside AdMob ads? (i.e, Unity Ads for the initial video and then admob for small banners in the game).

Overall though, good job. I was surprised by how easy it was to get up and running.

 

One thing that wasn't clear I thing in the question I had earlier is if I have only one ad that plays at game startup, will Unity Ads download others ads after that ad is played and while the game is being played (not in a TSR style after game is exited please!) in a cache to be used at later game playing startup times? Then when those are viewed, online or offline, they are credited as being viewed next time the player plays while online. Thanks.

 

We've been using the Unity Ads for 2 months now with over 1,5 million completed videos.

++ Really easy to implement (in Unity3d)
+ Works on both iOS and Android
+ High and competitive eCPM on iOS
+ Dashboard is simple and easy to use

- Doesn't support Windows Phone
- You have to make an invoice in order to get paid
(unlike in the other Ad Companies where the payment is usually a straightforward process)

What does the "direct electronic invoicing" mean?

 

How much money means 1,5 million completed videos?

 

That's about 5 ads plays each for each of the about 300K downloads stated on their game thread in their signature. I don't use analytics but in truth more reasonably you'd expect, e.g. a small fan base, e.g. about 50K players had played 30 ads each to completion.

http://unityads.unity3d.com/help/Frequently Asked Questions/faq

They should receive, at $6 min - $12 max USD for each 1000 "video starts", so between

$9 million - $18 million USD. After taxes and such they should take home between $4.5 - $9 million US dollars. The exchange rate today is about 1 USD to 1.25 AUD.

I'd say for 30K players and being ads only that is good earnings. Mind you, I haven't comparison shopped myself of the different ads agencies so you should compare the ads agencies competitors yourself. Many, if not most, pay you higher rates to begin with in and then lower rates later in the hopes you won't bother with changing to another ad agency that pays higher rates with the rates they pay you go down.

The maker of that game might be interested in adjusting my estimate. I don't know how accurate the numbers posted in their game thread and the Unity Ads FAQ earnings rate still are, I don't know Australian tax laws, and you'll get a substantial pinch, even if small percentage wise, off the top of your earnings from every bank that manages to get their hands on those earning during the transfer to Australia, e.g. Forex and so on. Already in the US that type of money is a problem because US banking accounts are insured for only about $250K USD.

Uh, don't forget to fill out your invoice.

 

I've looked it over but can't seem to find what the revenue share is... so is it 50/50 or 70/30? does any one know this? I've used admob a few times before and google gives roughly 60% share from my experience

 

I don't think you'll get anyone from Unity Ads to say what percentage of every dollar they are paid to place an ad they pay for an ad view or a billing event. You could figure an estimate for ad views out for yourself by buying ads and accepting ads. For billing events I think that must be a revenue share and the ad buyer pays a fee to both Unity and Unity pays a portion to the app to generated the billing event. Now that situation may well be 70/30. You could get an estimate yourself by buying ads and someone generating a billing event with an ad you bought.

 

My math must be way off here. For sake of numbers let's say $10 per 1000 video starts.
1.5 million / 1000 = 1500.
1500 * $10 = $15,000.

Where are you getting this $9 million +?

 

Support for more platforms is always welcome, no matter how small the platform is.
Having choice is a nice option for the user, I have just started on the Ads with new game being released soon, will post updates after a month or two..

 

there is a little bug in the code, the second line is a bool variable (you will get an error with the string declaration).

Regards.

 

Ahhhhh... you're right. Thanks for spotting that. Fixed it.

 

Hi, we are a team from China, very much like you this product.

Because our country network stuck problems often when playing the video, have been prompted in loading...

There is no way to judge the whole video is fully cache and then play?

Also because our country network cost problem, hope to be able to specify whether only in the WiFi environment before caching download advertising in the background.

嗨，我们是来自中国的团队，非常喜欢你们的这个产品。
由于我们国家网络的问题导致经常播放视频时卡住，一直提示在加载中。。。
有没有办法判断整个视频是否已经完全缓存并再播放呢？
另外也是因为我们国家网络费用问题，希望可以在后台能指定是否只在wifi环境下才进行缓存下载广告。

 

Even though there are several factors that can change this, what would be the average of the amount paid for a complete view on a Rewarded Video Ad? As I understand it, there is a difference in values between the video that was just started, and the amount paid for the full view.
I currently use the Admob in one of my apps, I have about 25,000 daily impressions, but I'm not happy with the values that i'm recieving by click, the cpc is around 0.03 in the US and even lower in other countries, this with an interstitial banner.

 

I'm in the same boat - my impression of the Unity Ads service is that the API is well documented and works great for integration, service is responsive and nice to deal with - but in terms of revenue i'm not convinced. I mean, "5000 views to determine quality"? I'm skeptical, that sounds to me like "we'll snag the $ for the first 5k views and if you have a hit on your hands you may see some $ after".

Has a bad smell, but maybe the middleman tax is true for most services like this - not sure as it was my first time around the block for in game ads.

 

The reason we say 5000 is because there are a number of factors that go into generating revenue. We need a high enough number to serve as a basis for analysis, but it's also low enough that it shouldn't adversely affect revenue too much even if there is an issue. If you consider that eCPM is between $6 and $12 USD, after 5000 impressions you should see revenue in the range of $30 to $60 USD. The minimum amount required before you can issue an invoice is $100 USD. So it's reasonable to start digging deeper into stats at 5000 if revenue isn't what you would expect. If you get to 5000 starts or views and still haven't generated any revenue, then there may be cause for concern.

If you have 5000 ad requests but only a couple hundred starts and a handful of views, I'd recommend improving on how you show ads in your game. When compared with available responses, ad requests can be used to calculate performance value, but have nothing to do with calculating revenue. An ad request is sent to our servers every time Unity Ads is initialized. If ads are available, a list of available ads are returned to the client. Having so many more ad requests than starts means that you're only showing ads during a fraction of your game sessions.

 

Don't know if I'm getting it wrong but $2.5 in three days for 5.2k started and 2.4k completed videos seems to be very low revenue.

 

This feels like a straw man argument to me - you're making a claim from authority without providing evidence and then supporting that claim without any details.

Explain to us how any particular application may require 5000 hits in order to provide enough "analysis" when ad based revenue has been around for well over a decade? What are the metrics that distinguish one application from the next - it seems to be determined more by user interaction with ads than the app itself (i.e if I have a "watch paint dry" game that results in 10,000 completed video views vs "the next minecraft" with 10,000 completed video views - how does the 5k analysis make any difference at all?).

Is this objective based analysis or subjective? If the former, describe your evaluation plan and criteria - how do they influence the results from this 5,000 sample space and drive the success/failure of our apps in the context of Unity Ads?

Sorry if i'm coming across as a bit bellicose here, but even after reading through your website FAQ there is very little explanation for any of these results ... they feel a bit nebulous at best. This is important to me because it appears to fall under UT's umbrella of services which represents UT whom so far is quite transparent and upfront imho - if i'm to take this offering seriously it'll be held to the same standards.

 

The biggest defining factor in revenue between two apps would the advertisements.

Just because ads have been around forever doesn't mean they work the same way they always have. If my explanation sounds nebulous, it's be because there are a lot of variables involved. Among them include price points that vary by campaign, by user location, and by billable action. Additionally, ads that are shown in one game may may not always be shown in another. For instance, people that like to watch paint dry won't necessarily be interested in the next Minecraft. So naturally they are shown different ads based on user interests. These ads most likely have different price points, which is why you would see different eCPMs over the same number of views.

Our mediation algorithm is designed to serve ads with the highest likelihood to generate revenue specific to each game. Beyond that, I'm not at liberty to go into further detail without revealing trade secrets.

 

That does seem low. Send me your game ID in a private conversation and I'll look into it further.

Edit: Actually, it can take up to 7 days for billable events to register. Keep an eye on it and let me know in a week if you don't see an increase in revenue.

 

Hello,

This is how I understand Unity Ads or other ad networks as an indie;
This is not a secret, you can see in your adminpanel, Cost Per View , Cost Per Install , these Campaign options are offered by this ad network.
If advertiser choose the option CPI for his ad campaign, there is no way to get paid per view basis i think.
1.000.000 views = 0$, But you really get paid for installs.

If advertiser Choose the option CPV for his campaign , you get paid for 1000 views. (FAQ Documentation 6-12$)
So you should drive 10.000.000 ad views to it.

You should understand that ad payments differs from country to country.
1$ in US ---> 0.1$ in Asia (Numbers are symbolic)

Regards,

 

I been using Unity ads for a game now, but I'm finding it all very BETA, stability does not seem to be there for the back-end when logging into the platform. Really needs some polishment, also been waiting long time for actual asset package updates, there been a lot of issues reported and small fixes, so release is needed asap.

 

Hello MrEsquire,

I am using Unity Ads Network in Android Platform. I integrated it 7 months ago, I didnt make any update since.(Even new asset store package,I am using previous package) I am using this forum daily, and mostly %95 of the problems are integration issues or device specific problems or developer mistakes.

Maybe some features of other networks could be implanted;

- More specific Analitics in DashBoard ( including CSV report information.)
- Builtin Test Device declaration,


PS : I dont know how Unity Ads in IOS platform.

Regards,

 

I have no integration issues or any coding issues - but confirmed Unity bugs

I'm saying I think the back-end website of stat's seems quickly made and not stable in my browser (FireFox latest) I know some users have had issues also logging in and things being deleted. Also right now its very minimal features, which is ok but I wish for some official news on future development.

Second I been reading all threads in the forum here and there are a number of issues confirmed by Unity developers with workaround given, but I want these fixes in a new asset store package, examples include, full Unity 5 support, iOS fix for when user closes app while advert is playing + other issues which I know are explained in separate threads.

So I base my comments about it feeling like BETA on the above, I expect more stability (which I know they working on) but need to keep us happy also.

 

Currently testing the next Unity Ads asset package update. Should be out next week.

Lot of changes. I'll provide a change list once we submit to the Asset Store.

 

My report after a week of implementing UnityAds in one of my apps. Can't say I am very happy with result.

 

I would have hoped that this performance would have generated 5 x the revenue you show there as a minimum. For which market are these ads being displayed?

 

Mostly Eastern Europe/Russia

 

I implemented Unity Ads into my game Bean Boy about a month ago, after the game's popularity had already waned and user engagement was really slowing down.

I'm quite happy with how it's performing. I've been getting satisfactory fill rates (around 70%), good eCPM ($~6), and users seem to be happy to click the ads (the ads are implemented as rewarded video ads that give you in-game currency). Total revenue is almost identical to what I've been getting with AdMob (although with AdMob I have much lower eCPM, but higher fill rate). I will definitely be implementing Unity Ads into future games.

Only disappointment is that Android users starting reporting launch crashes on many devices that were previously operating fine after implementing the ads. That said, I haven't updated my Android build's UA sdk since first implementing the ads a month ago....it's possible the crashing bugs have since been fixed by the UA team.

Here's a graph of my iOS revenue. Btw, the downward slope of the graph simply represents user engagement slowing down over time. My actual UA eCPM/fillrate has gone up since first implementation.

 

@zombox I played now your game. But I can not see unityads .Why did you delete it?

 

Unity ads are still in there. They launch when you click the 'Earn stars' button that will appear in the top right of the screen. If you don't see the button appear, it's because Unity Ads aren't available to you -- probably because you're in a region experiencing a low fillrate.

 

UnityAds works good in my game Better Toss 3D, but I found a big problem. Without internet connection, it doesnt show, thats ok. But if you have veery slow internet (like almost nothing), the video starts, but it takes forever to load. And you can't cancel it, you need to close the game.

 

Do you have SKIP disabled for Video adverts I'm curious from looking at your number?

 

Yes, skip is disabled.

 

Hi,

Do you plan to add an automatic paiement ?

(the system to send you an invoice ... is ... painful).

Thanks.

Best regards,

AB

 

you should include in the docs to, if using VS 2015 and unityVS, build the plugin projects first to resolve the missing reference issue :

 

Is the statistics API for monetization working? I just get a 401 Authentication Error, which doesn't make sense (the docs say in the event of an authentication error I should be getting a 200 OK with the error in the body.)

 

Hi,

UnityAds have an influence on the "content ratings" of our apps & games ?

On of my game is a sort of bubble shooter, with just circle and ... that's it. But Google send me a warning because my app have some violent representations...

So my rating is now : moderate.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks

 

Hi,

About the paiement : automatic wire (as all you concurrent) should be great!!

Thanks

 

I tried to register, but i do not own a company, so i couldn't complete the registration. Compare to admob, i can pick personal, and no company is required. So i voted "not recommended".

 

Hello @narf03

I am an indie developer. I have unity ads on my games.

Just register to it

Regards,

 

what do you put in into the Company field ? null ?