(Edit: the enforcement date was originally May 29th, but we discussed with Google to extend this to June 28th)

On April 16th, Google updated its Google Play policies and among many changes it added more restrictions on apps violating user’s privacy, or being able to do so. The policy describes how “An app (…) can be Potentially Harmful, and therefore can generate malicious behavior, even if [it] wasn’t intended to be harmful” (source).

We highly value user privacy and welcome this change by Google, and we worked together with Google to make sure the AppBrain SDK is fully compliant. Unfortunately, some functionality in older versions of the AppBrain SDK (before version 16.00) could theoretically be used to harm users’ privacy, even though it was not intended for that purpose or used in that way. Google has reviewed and approved our SDK from version 16.00 onward. You can read the specific technical details in a section further down.

Further steps

We ask all our publishers to upgrade to version 16 or later as soon as possible and do so before June 28th 2020. From that point on, Google Play may start removing apps temporarily until they are upgraded to the latest AppBrain SDK version. Note that this temporary app ‘removal’ does not count as a strike against your developer account, it will only remove the app until you upload an upgraded version.

Benefit to you for upgrading

We understand that upgrading and releasing an app update requires additional effort. We’ve decided to double the payout of the SDK earnings for all of May for any requests coming from the upgraded SDK version. So if you upgrade your app early, you’ll maximally profit from having many double-paying ad impressions. This deal applies to all apps, also new apps that didn’t have the SDK before!

We also increase the conversion bonus of your earnings that you use for app promotion from 10% to 25%. This means that if you convert e.g. $100 from your earnings to your promotion budget on AppBrain, we’ll give you another $25 bonus instead of $10.

Please contact us at contact@appbrain.com if you have any questions.

Technical details

The AppBrain appwall ad unit is implemented as a WebView which loads HTML and javascript from AppBrain servers to show the ad. To interface with the Android device, the AppBrain SDK installs some methods in the WebView that are available to JavaScript, a so-called JavaScriptInterface.

Our javascript can use a method called “isPackageInstalled” that checks whether an app is installed. This method is called for ads on the appwall and then used to hide any ads for apps that are already installed.

However, this javascript method could be misused to gather the install status of very many apps and send that off to a server, violating the users’ privacy. This could happen by our servers sending different javascript on the appwall page. (It can’t easily be misused by others, as the appwall WebView only loads code from AppBrain servers). We removed this method from our javascript interface so that this theoretical privacy issue is gone.

FAQ

What do I need to do to upgrade my AppBrain SDK version?

This depends a bit on your setup.

• If you use our default recommended setup from https://www.appbrain.com/info/help/sdk/gettingstarted.html where you have implementation com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:+ in your gradle file, you will always have the latest SDK version.
• If you use gradle with a fixed version, then make sure that you have implementation com.appbrain:appbrain-sdk:16.03 or later.
• If you have manually downloaded our jar file from github and imported it into e.g. the ‘libs/’ folder of your project, then download a new version from https://github.com/swisscodemonkeys/appbrain-sdk
• If you use Andromo for building your app you’ll have to wait for the Andromo team to launch an update with the newest SDK version. We’ve been in contact with them.

In all cases, build the new version of your app and upload it in the Google Play console and publish it to your users.

Will Google close down my developer account because of this?

No. If you upgrade the SDK there will be no change. If for some reason you do not upgrade before the deadline, then Google will unpublish your app temporarily and you can publish it again with the updated AppBrain SDK. On https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/2477981?hl=en a removal is described as “[Removals] don’t immediately impact the standing of your Google Play Developer account, although multiple removals may result in a suspension.”

How do I know that I’ve upgraded successfully?

In the AppBrain dashboard “Publisher apps” overview, you can see an icon next to your app’s name that indicates whether we’re seeing requests come in from the latest SDK version:

The green checkmark means that your app is sending requests using the latest SDK. The red warning sign (or an orange exclamation mark) means that most of the requests are still from an older SDK version. Note that it may take up to 24 hours after you upload your app to Google Play for enough upgrades to happen so that our indicator status changes.

With the green checkmark you know you’re in compliance.

Please contact us at contact@appbrain.com if you have any questions.

The AppBrain SDK and Google Play policy changes was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Short summary: what should I do?

• Upgrade your app to a recent version of the AppBrain SDK to keep the referral analytics working. Any version released since July 2019 correctly uses the new API if available. Make sure your Gradle dependency does not include ‘@aar’ as discussed in our integration guide.
• If you take no action, and your apps are using a SDK version from before July, the referral analytics on the AppBrain dashboard will stop working in March 2020.
  The warning from Google is *not* a policy warning and your app is not at risk to be taken down because of this. Your earnings from the AppBrain SDK are also not affected by this.

For a more detailed explanation, read on.

Explanation: what exactly is changing?

The change has to do with the “install referrer”. When a user installs your app, Google Play stores a message about how that user found your app, the “install referrer”. Often this will be “organic” (i.e., the user browsed Google Play and saw your app). If the user clicked an AppBrain promotion ad it will be “appbrain_cpi”, and it can be other values for other install channels.

The AppBrain SDK retrieves this install referrer and records it so you can see in the AppBrain analytics. This shows which channels led to the most installs, what their retention is, and other information that may help you optimize your user acquisition strategy. Other analytics SDKs may also use the install referrer for similar purposes.

The interaction between your app and Google Play to retrieve the referrer is changing. The old way worked by Google Play broadcasting the install referrer to your app (usually 10–20 seconds after an app runs for the first time).

The new way works by the app requesting the referrer from Google Play. This is called the “referrer API”.

How does the AppBrain SDK handle the install referrer?

Since last July, the AppBrain SDK uses the referrer API (the ‘new’ way) when available. However, it also still listens for the broadcasts that are sent the old way, just in case the new API is not working. The presence of the code for handling the old-style broadcasts triggered the warning email from Google. (In other words, they seem to not have checked whether apps use both ways of handling referrers, only whether the old way is still present).

If your app is still using an AppBrain SDK version from before July, and you won’t upgrade it, then the referrer information will stop showing in March 2020.

Relevant links

• Information about monetization and analytics with the AppBrain SDK
• AppBrain SDK integration guide

The Google Play Referrer API and the AppBrain SDK was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Let’s say your app’s installs skyrocket and you want to quickly change which ads are being shown when. Mediation platforms can optimize which ads are shown, but not when they are shown.

Today we’re adding automatic interstitials to AppBrain Monetize. Two types of events can trigger an automatic interstitial: returning to the app and starting an activity. On our dashboard, you can control whether these automatic interstitials are enabled.

User-returns-to-app interstitial increases revenue

An automatic interstitial can be triggered when a user returns to your app after flipping to another app. Because most users use the app switcher to flip between apps instead of exiting apps with the back button, the potential revenue of an exit interstitial has become limited.

To supplement the exit interstitial, you can enable the user-returns-to-app automatic interstitial on the “Ad Settings” tab of the dashboard. When you enable this setting for your publisher app, the AppBrain SDK will detect when a user leaves your app for more than a minute and trigger an interstitial when she comes back to your app.

It might feel counter-intuitive to show an ad when a user returns to your app, but it actually works great and big publishers use this principle. For instance, Ketchapp (500 million+ installs!) shows an app-install ad on startup of their apps.

Activity-started interstitial offers more customization options

An automatic interstitial can also be triggered when a user starts an activity. On the “Ad Settings” tab of your publisher app, you can add an unlimited number of class names of the activities that you want to trigger an interstitial.

Try it out

Both of the new automatic interstitials can be used together. They will show in addition to any calls that you make to the showInterstitial/InterstitialBuilder methods in the SDK. The automatic interstitials are disabled by default and you can enable them on the Ad Settings tab for your publisher app on the AppBrain dashboard.

If you have any suggestions about how you’d like to control your ad frequency, let us know in the comments!

Mathijs for the AppBrain team

AppBrain Automatic Interstitials: easily control ad placement in your Android app was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You can increase or decrease the CPI (cost per install) bid in your campaign settings for specific types of users. This increase or decrease applies to your original bid for each country in the selected campaign.

For instance: If you bid $1 for an install of your app, a CPI boost of 25% will result in a bid of $1.25 for the defined types of users. A CPI decrease of -50% would result in a CPI bid of $0.50.

There are four different types of users for which you can increase or decrease your CPI bid:

1. Users of an app type
   A rule of this type applies to users using either an app or game when they see your promotion campaign.
2. Users of apps within an app category
   A rule of this type applies to users who are using an app in a particular Google Play category when they see your promotion campaign.
3. Device age
   This rule applies to users whose device has a certain age (<1, <3, <6 and >6 months), based on the earliest installed app on the device.
4. Device type
   This rule applies to users of a particular category of device (small screen phone, phone, tablet).

We may add more types of rules in the future. Do you have suggestions for which types of users you want to target? Let us know!

More details about how the CPI boosts work and how to set them up can be found on the CPI boost documentation page.

Target specific users with AppBrain’s CPI boosts was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is why we’ve started partnering with a number of display ad networks and video ad networks to show display and video ads when those make more sense than CPI ads. The system operates fully server-side, which means that there’s no setup required from you.

The system works like this:
A user uses your app and your app calls showInterstitial or InterstitialBuilder.show(). Our server receives the request for showing an interstitial. The new server-side mediation system calculates what you would earn from an impression of the AppBrain app wall, and what you would earn from ads by our various display ad and video ad partners. The AppBrain server then picks the highest earning ad for you and returns that to the user.

We’re starting to roll out this feature for all traffic in the coming weeks. If your app has a recent version of the AppBrain SDK and you’re using interstitials, you will profit from the new ad types.

Ad type settings in the AppBrain dashboardIf you don’t want display ads or video ads to show in your app, you can disable them in the “Ad Settings” tab for your app in the “Publisher Apps” part of our dashboard. You can also see how much of your earnings are coming in through the alternative ads there.

Visit the info page if you want to learn more about AppBrain Monetize. If you’ve already integrated the SDK and want to show more interstitials now, check out the interstitial documentation.

Automatic server-side mediation for AppBrain Monetize interstitials was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Source: https://play.google.com/about/storelisting-promotional/ratings-reviews-installs/, emphasis ours

If you’re still promoting your app with incentivized installs, now is the time to stop and look at non-incentivized installs. AppBrain Promote is one of the many platforms that you can use.

This change, and others, don’t impact the AppBrain SDK. The AppBrain monetize service is still 100% Google Play compliant.

Google Play policy update — incentivized installs forbidden was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Promoting your app at AppBrain has become cheaper for many countries in the world. It is time to set up your new campaign!

Today, we have adjusted the minimum CPI bid prices for over 150 countries around the world.

For 144 countries the minimum CPI bid has gone down. For many of these countries we found that $0.20 per install was not competitive and therefore we lowered the price to $0.15 or $0.10. This means that for the same budget you can now get up to twice the amount of installs in countries like India, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, Ecuador, Algeria, Venezuela and Iraq. This is a great way to boost your organic Google Play ranking worldwide.

For 10 popular markets in Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia, we had to raise the minimum CPI bid. The existing lower minimum bids gave the impression that you could get many installs cheaply. It often resulted in a disappointingly low amount of impressions and installs because competing bids were a lot higher.

Please be aware that for campaigns that are already running, we will raise the bids for these 10 countries automatically. All other bids remain as before in your campaign. Our bidding system will always charge you the best possible price for these countries, even if you bid higher. You will notice that for many countries the installs will be more towards the minimum price instead of your existing higher bid. You can still change these bids in your AppBrain Dashboard if you like.

Be aware that the minimum price is often not the average CPI bid price. For some countries you have to bid higher to get a good volume of impressions and installs. Check the full overview of all the current average CPI bids per country.

In the coming months we will continue to evaluate the minimum CPI bids to make sure you get the best value for money when you promote your app.
Get more installs by promoting your app now

Cheaper app promotion in many countries was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Getting the right value out of app promotion campaigns is hard! External attribution platforms can help, as they provide you with deep insights about the value of the users you’re acquiring. As an AppBrain Promote user you can now also use this powerful technique, as we integrated the most used platforms into AppBrain Promote. Specifically, you can now use Adjust, AppsFlyer, Apsalar and Kochava to track installs of your campaign.

Are you not using any of these platforms, but want to use something different? No problem!
You can use the “AppBrain (with clickthrough URL)” option. Any clickthrough URL that ends up at the Google Play detail page of your app can be used.

This new feature is available on the campaign dashboard under the “Advanced” link. Here you can choose your install attribution option. Please be aware that you first have to integrate the SDK of the external partners, otherwise it is not possible to track the installs and your campaign will stop.

You can read more on the install attribution resource page. Or just dive straight into your campaign in your AppBrain Dashboard to add your preferred tracking option.

New install tracking and attribution options was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” [Albert Einstein]

It is now possible to start more than one campaign for the same app. This greatly enhances the flexibility of your campaign setup. Depending on your goals, there are many possible ways to take advantage of this. To name a few examples: you can build individual campaigns for various regions you’re interested in to get easier reporting on the campaign overview screen. This will also allow more fine-grained budgeting options than was possible with a single campaign. Or you can use different campaigns to test the impact of different CPI bids, different titles.

The results of these different campaigns can be easily compared in your campaign reports. This gives you more insight on how to improve your conversion by changing your campaign settings.

You can create new campaigns in your Campaigns dashboard. To make your life easier we have added the feature to “import settings” from previous campaigns to each campaign. In that way you can set up multiple campaigns in a matter of minutes.

Go to your AppBrain Dashboard to start creating multiple campaigns.

Run multiple campaigns to promote the same app was originally published in AppBrain on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.