That ad again...
Hey! What's up, Joe?
Hey, Aurora.
I wanted us to have a chat on Mars,
but this disruptive ad ruined my plans.
I hear you, but I guess
this nowhere land can also be a great place to discuss
something we've been meaning to talk about for a while.
Hi, I'm Joe from the Google Play Academy.
And I'm Aurora from the Policy Transparency team.
Welcome to the AdMob and Play Policy conversations,
a series for Google Play developers
who also monetize their apps with AdMob specifically
or are considering it.
Aurora, do you bake?
Not very well.
Then this story might relate.
Imagine you own a bakery shop–
That doesn't sound like a good idea.
And I buy a cake from your shop and find a teaspoon inside of it.
Sometimes I follow recipes quite literally.
You see, this is actually a safety issue.
I could have chipped my tooth!
And this error impacts the trust your customers have
in the baker, supplier, or developer of your specific product,
in this instance the cake,
but also the bakery store that sold it to you.
Building up on your story, despite knowing how terrible my baking skills are,
also known as low-quality content,
I decide to let local businesses to advertise themselves inside my store.
Once customers like you find out about my poor-quality products,
you will most likely, one, have a frustrating customer experience
and two, associate those brands that are advertising in my store with it.
Similarly, for apps and to prevent this bad experience,
at Google we create publisher policies and restrictions.
to help ensure that our users, advertisers, and publishers or developers
are protected, feel valued, and can trust in the digital advertising ecosystem,
or the bakery shop and its products.
Definitely! But I bet striking a balance when creating those policies is not easy.
Helping publishers and developers earn revenue,
while helping advertisers distribute their messaging in a safe way
must be a constant challenge.
It really is!
Same way as you were not happy when you found the teaspoon inside your cake
and complained about it, the local businesses also complained
about the association of their brands to the bad-quality bakery.
And this affects me too, as the business owner,
as anybody can make mistakes.
That's why balance is the ultimate goal of our Google policies.
And that's why Google teams are constantly
reviewing policies and enforcement, striving to be fair and thorough
while being mindful of societal and technological changes
as well as global events.
Yeah, because what if selling cakes with teaspoons inside them
becomes trendy at some point?
That way, it would be easier to get your cake and eat it
with a spoon.
The foundation of everything we do is trust.
And to build trust, we have to have a store
free of invalid traffic and bad actors.
Although I can't say much about this video being free of bad acting.
Fortunately, our policy and enforcement teams are there to ensure this.
We use a combination of human and automated reviews
to provide scalable, automated defenses
to continuously identify, clean, and defend our ad systems.
And new app submissions are reviewed and, once accepted,
occasionally re-reviewed for policy compliance.
So Joe, as an Android developer,
what are some things I should consider when integrating ads into my app?
Developers choose the ad network they want to monetize their app with.
There are many ad networks, and AdMob is just one of them.
Google Play has a set of policies around monetization and ads
to ensure the best user experience, no matter which one they decide to use.
You'll want to become familiar with Play's monetization and ads policies
in the Play Policy Center.
And when you list your app or game that contains any ads,
you would declare this in Google Play Console.
As you prepare your app for publishing,
a "Contains ads" label is shown on the store listing
and is visible to all Play Store users.
To do this, you'll go to your app in Google Play Console,
select Policy and App content.
Then under Ads, you can start this process.
And remember, if you've previously published your app without ads
but are updating it with ads,
you should modify this declaration to reflect this.
Finally, if you serve ads in your app,
and the target audience for your app includes children
as described in the Families policy, then you must use an Ads SDK
that has self-certified compliance with Google Play policies
when serving ads to children.
These Ads SDKs are part of the Families Ads Program,
and you can find them in the Play Policy Center.
Aurora, what do developers need to know when monetizing their app with AdMob?
There are a few things developers can consider
to help protect their earnings and apps
beyond what Google already does to help protect the ecosystem.
Some ideas are:
First of all, limit the types of ads that can appear in your app
by making use of the available blocking options.
In many cases, not all ads or categories are suitable
for the content of your app
Also, only use ad formats that make sense for your app.
Secondly, set up your AdMob accounts correctly
and adhere to the program policies and restrictions.
Third, understand your analytics,
proactively monitor your traffic,
and be aware of what normal traffic patterns for your app look like.
By doing this, you'll be able to identify small issues
before they become serious trouble.
Fourth, keep an eye on the Policy center in your account
and use it to prioritize the most critical issues to solve.
And finally, you can implement app-ads.txt.
Bad actors disguise their inventory to trick ad networks
into thinking they are high value.
You can create your own app-ads.txt files to identify
who is authorized to sell your inventory.
The files are publicly available and crawlable by exchanges,
supply site platforms (SSPs), and other buyers and third-party vendors.
Aurora, what is app-ads.txt?
It's an IAB Tech Lab industry specification
to publicly declare authorized inventory and help us put an end
to bad actors trying to spoof your app and capitalize on your brand.
It's very simple to implement, requiring as little as one line of code.
We recommend checking out the full spec of instructions
on file creation and hosting on the IAB Tech Lab website.
Hey, Joe! Can we return to earth?
Sure.
In this conversation, we introduced Google's work
in nurturing a healthy and trustworthy ecosystem.
We also discussed some tips to consider as you monetize your app
with ads on Google Play.
Until the next time, Joe.
See ya!