I also got an inbound request from Siddarth Pradhan who asked “can you also give some insightful talk on how to increase Fill rate as in India, many mobile publishers face the problem of a low fill rate especially on Android.”
Absolutely happy to help here as this is an issue I've had to face many times. So the issue with India from an ad monetization perspective is that India has a very large population and the player LTVs are not always that high. So a large population and low LTVs means that ad networks are less likely to bid on your inventory. This is particularly true on banners on Android. Getting fill on Android Banners in India is always going to be hard. If you’re building a game or app that you’re targeting toward the Indian market try to design the app or game in a way that priorizes the use of Interstitial ads and Rewarded video over Banner ads.
However if you have an Android app or game here are my top 3 tips for improving fill:
Admob - Admob is your best friend in India. Admob always gets fill in India although it’s at lower price levels compared to other countries. Admob has their "only 3 placements per waterfall" rule, which is infuriating as it gets a good fill in India. With Admob here I’d say that you should experiment with going above the three placement limit. Don’t go too crazy but adding one or two extra Admob placements has worked for me in the past to drive more ad revenue. The risk you're running here is that Google will throttle your supply until you reduce your placements back to three.
GAM - Google Ad Manager is also a good asset to use in India. Work with one or two GAM partners to also help with the fill. The two biggest GAM network partners on mobile are A4G and Reklamup. Keep the GAM placements below the Admob placements as that’s where they’ll fill better.
Inmobi - Inmobi is a must in India. Inmobi is an ad network from India that is strong in the USA and India. If you have a large portion of impressions that come from India make sure you’ve added Inmobi. But here’s also a top tip, don’t use their bidder. For some reason I get much higher fill if I work with them on placements rather than the bidder. They don’t advertise that they allow placements anymore on the website or in their dashboard so you'll need to email your AM with your placement price points and they'll make them for you.
If you have any questions please reach out.
Thanks for the information.