One of the latest marketing trends is to advertise in mobile games. The huge popularity of mobile devices has made this a virtual necessity. In order to meet the demand for mobile game advertising a number of ad networks have been developed. These networks exist to help the small advertiser to buy advertising space in mobile games.
Ad networks are quite familiar to anybody who has been involved in internet advertising. They work by allowing marketers to buy advertising space on other people's websites. Basically they act as a broker but they also handle all of the practical details of the transaction. If you want to advertise on an ad network you simply supply them with the ad you want to display and they will find websites to display it on based on the product you are selling and the keywords you are targeting. As advertisers are starting to move into mobile game marketing it is inevitable that there will be ad networks there as well. In reality without an ad network it would be nearly impossible to advertise in games.
Realistically the only way that most advertisers would be able to put their ads onto mobile games would be through an ad network. While large companies that buy lots of ads could make deals to put their games in ads this really isn't an option for smaller companies let alone internet marketers. It is hard to imagine too many game developers spending the time that would be required to work out a deal with a marketer looking to buy twenty dollars of advertising each month. The mobile game ad networks allow the small marketers to access the game advertising market by pooling the resources of a large number of small advertisers. This allows them to buy the advertising space that otherwise would only be available to the large companies.
One of the problems facing the mobile game ad networks is the expectations of the advertisers who are used to using internet ad networks. For the most part the mobile game ad networks are not yet sophisticated enough to offer the same level of service. Advertisers expect the features that they get from the internet ad networks like geotargeting, a self service web interface and reliable statistics. Almost all marketers are obsessed with tracking the result of every campaign they run, in order to do this they need to have reliable information on things like impressions and clicks. In reality they are going to want a lot more information than that, they are going to want to know where the clicks are coming from. The mobile game ad networks need to be able to provide this information if they are going to attract advertisers. Currently the networks aren't really up to the level that the advertisers expect and this is slowing the growth of the industry but that will likely change in the future.