Decoding the open internet: Benefits of an in-app bidding SDK for marketers

In part one of our blog series on decoding the open internet, we explored the opportunities and complexities that lie on the open internet for in-app advertising beyond the confines of walled gardens like Google and Facebook.

However, while complex, the open internet offers immense opportunities for incremental growth by accessing billions of mobile app users worldwide. Here are the key takeaways on supply path optimization from part one:

• Open internet as an incremental channel: The open internet offers immense opportunities for marketers by providing a broad and dynamic environment that allows for significant reach and engagement beyond the confines of walled gardens.

• No exclusive inventory on the open internet: Inventory on the open internet is not unique — demand-side platforms (DSPs) can access nearly all available inventory across exchanges. In contrast, ad networks typically access only the supply from publishers that are integrated with their software development kits (SDK).
  

• Machine learning for finding the optimal path to success: Supply path optimization is necessary for navigating the open internet, and machine learning (ML) is the key to making sense of it all. ML simplifies the open internet's complexity by choosing the right supply path for a given impression, bidding the optimal amount based on a user's predicted value, and serving the ideal creative to maximize user engagement.

As part two of our three-part series, we will review the advantages of the Moloco SDK, an in-app bidding SDK to help marketers achieve better return on investment (ROI) on the open internet. 

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‍Please note: As the Moloco SDK is a new product, the full range of benefits will become more apparent as more publishers adopt the Moloco SDK. It’s important for marketers to keep in mind that performance improvements will not happen immediately and will come in the coming months as more publishers adopt the Moloco SDK.

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Successfully navigating the open internet’s supply paths

To understand the benefits of Moloco's SDK, let's quickly review the current challenges marketers face advertising across the open internet. 

Firstly, there's a common misconception that the open internet operates linearly, with bid requests moving from publishers on the supply side to ad platforms on the demand side. Demand side platforms, like DSPs and Ad Networks, connect to exchanges and place bids to win the impression to serve an ad to the end user.

While this view outlines the main parties involved in this ecosystem, their interactions are much more complex. 

Often, these complex supply paths artificially inflate the bid price, which leads to marketers competing against themselves with duplicative bids for the same impression, diluting their ROI.

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What makes the Moloco SDK unique

To facilitate a fair and more efficient ad transaction between publishers and marketers, Moloco developed its own in-app bidding SDK, which creates a direct path between the two.  By bypassing intermediaries, the Moloco SDK is a new supply path with material benefits for marketers.  

It's important to underscore that Moloco SDK is not a revenue-generating business line for the company. Moloco will not have additional fees that are passed to marketers or publishers for using the Moloco SDK. Built on Moloco's ML platform, we will continue to purchase inventory for marketers that provides the highest probability of favorable ROI — showing no preferential treatment to our SDK as a supply path. By not charging any fees, Moloco aims to help marketers save on costs that can instead be used to acquire more users.

With the Moloco SDK, marketers should gain:

1. Better ROI
2. Enhanced targeting with better data
3. Greater transparency and control of their ad rendering methods
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‍1. Improving ROI for marketers

As noted earlier, intermediaries can intensify ad competition by generating multiple bid requests for the same ad impression. This can lead marketers to inadvertently compete against themselves, driving up the prices and reducing their ROI.

By removing these intermediaries, Moloco SDK aims to improve returns for marketers, offering a straightforward yet potentially significant improvement in ROI.

‍2. Driving value with machine learning

Sophisticated ML models perform best when they have a myriad of high-quality signals to learn from, such as user interactions, bidding patterns, and ad creatives, to drive better performance for marketers.

With its direct integration with publishers, Moloco SDK has access to more reliable publisher-level data. This includes high-intent signals correlating with marketing KPIs, such as the time in app stores, click location on the ad, and watch time on video ads. With this additional, granular data, Moloco's ML models will be able to make better predictions to maximize marketers' KPIs.

3. Giving creative choice and control back to marketers

As users' ad experiences continue to evolve and become more complex, marketers must utilize the most engaging ad formats, such as playable, video, and native ads, to capture users' attention. 

However, as marketers know too well, not all impressions are created equal. Every exchange and mediation platform has different creative rendering capabilities and restrictions, even for the same impression.

Since the Moloco SDK fosters closer partnerships with publishers, marketers can gain enhanced transparency and control over the creative rendering options for their ads, ensuring accurate brand representation to drive better user engagement and ROI for each impression.

‍Unlocking continuous growth for marketers 

As we've explored in today's blog on how Moloco SDK will drive better returns for marketers, here are the key takeaways: 

• Better ROI by saving on fees with enhanced data access: By cutting out intermediary fees, marketers can expect better ROI.
  
  
• Better ML predictions: Accessing more reliable data through Moloco SDK's direct integration will enhance Moloco's ML model training, further improving performance.
  

• Greater creative transparency and control: Every intermediary has different creative rendering capabilities, often limiting marketers' ability to engage users effectively. Moloco SDK provides marketers with a closer connection to how ads are served to the end user.

As Moloco continues to partner with more publishers around the globe, we expect to see increased benefits for all app developers—both marketers and publishers.

Read our announcement for more details on how the Moloco SDK can help your app’s monetization efforts. 

For publishers, the Moloco SDK enables apps seeking to monetize to directly tap into diverse global demand, achieve optimal cost per mille (CPM) rates through precise ML predictions for high-value users, and deliver the best ad to the right user while ensuring the ideal app experience. If you have questions or want to learn more about Moloco SDK directly, join our priority list and drive your success on the open internet.

In the third and final post in our series on decoding the open internet, we'll look at the nuances of measurement on the open internet and how marketers can develop a framework that works best for their business.

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