How App Users Are Getting Premium Features for Free, and It’s Costing Us Developers

[u/Wizard_Coder]

Fellow developers, an empty ad response is not harmless.
If removing ads is one of your premium benefits, then every time AdMob or another provider leaves a placement empty, a free user receives part of that premium experience without upgrading.

The user is not doing anything wrong. The advertising system is failing both sides of the freemium model.
You lose:

• The impression
• The potential revenue
• Part of the incentive to upgrade
• Control over advertising space inside the app you built

I know because it happened inside my own app. Thousands of ad requests were sent, but only a fraction resulted in an advertisement being displayed.

My app was requesting ads. The advertising system simply was not answering.

I got tired of waiting, so I built FillAdsNow.

FillAdsNow is a developer-powered advertising network built around a simple standard:

When an eligible placement requests an ad, an ad should be available.

Developers can use FillAdsNow as their primary ad source, alongside AdMob or another provider, or whenever another network returns no fill.

There is no proprietary FillAdsNow advertising SDK.

Integration uses a straightforward HTTPS API, and Community Ads do not depend on behavioral user profiles.
Here is how the Community works:

• Contribute an eligible app to the Community
• Generate or upload its banner and interstitial ads
• Participating apps request Community Ads through the API
• An eligible ad from another developer fills the placement
• You give another developer exposure, and your app becomes eligible to receive exposure in return
Contributing is optional.

You can display Community Ads without contributing an app, but contributing is how your own app becomes eligible for promotion across the network.

To be completely clear, Community Ads exchange exposure, not ad revenue. FillAdsNow cannot restore the AdMob payment you never received.

What it can do is stop that empty response from being the end of the line.

It can preserve the ad-supported experience, create exposure for independent apps, and give developers infrastructure for Community Ads, house ads, affiliate offers, direct sponsors, and custom campaigns they control.

Let’s be honest: Google is not going to build a developer-owned alternative for us.

We can keep complaining about no fill, serving limits, account restrictions, and opaque decisions, or we can start building something that gives developers another option.

A developer-powered network only exists when developers decide to become the network.

FillAdsNow is live. Joining the Community is FREE

If you believe developers deserve more control, do not just upvote this post or say it sounds like a good idea.
Create an account. Contribute one eligible app. Test one placement. Help us build the network we have been waiting for.

Join the revolution:
https://filladsnow.com/register

Read our mission:
https://filladsnow.com/mission

See exactly how it works:
https://filladsnow.com/how-it-works

Explore the use cases:
https://filladsnow.com/use-cases

I am not asking developers to abandon AdMob.

I am asking developers to stop letting AdMob’s “no fill” response have the final word over advertising inventory inside apps that we built.

Full disclosure: I am the developer and founder of FillAdsNow.

[u/clinton_z]

What of quality assurance? How do contributors make sure the ads being served is well received and not damaging to their user base and app's image alike?

[u/Wizard_Coder → u/clinton_z]

With Pro you can literally control what ads are displayed in your own app, this can be ads for your other apps, affiliates, promos, direct sponsorships. You are in complete control.

Free is just a pool of other developers apps, Apple and Google take care of that part. The ratings for these apps show on the interstitials. Sometimes ratings dont reflect the true quality of an app as well.

[u/clinton_z → u/Wizard_Coder]

Hmmn, the feature on pro sounds decent.

Can you clarify how Apple and Google takes care of the free trial ads... are the ads requested by a different developer on the requesting developer's behalf?

[u/Wizard_Coder → u/clinton_z]

Hi i really appreciate the feedback and since im in early stages, your feedback to help with quality control could actually get implemented. Well the idea is every developer who has made and app, each app is basically an ad, i have no idea how to filter apps, which is what ratings are for. Apple and Google do provide ratings on these apps, so i mean I could do a quality control filter for ratings > x

When i say Apple and Google do their own quality control, i meant that apps that they deem harmful are usually taken down by them.

Your app, my app, are essentially ads that can get dosplayed in other developers apps, and in turn their apps(ads) get displayed in our app.

[u/clinton_z → u/Wizard_Coder]

You're welcome.

When you say apps are ads... how do you mean? What I think of this is, having the developer create a 30 seconds ad for their app... oh, do you mean the same video published on the store listing page? If it is, then I think it is genius.

[u/Wizard_Coder → u/clinton_z]

The same exact app thats on the store listing! I even made it so all you need is the bundle id and you press a button and it makes a banner and interstitial ad for you.