How Much Can You Really Make with Rewarded Video Ads

A very logical question for any Website owner after launching a site, game or webapp is how to acquire users and, most importantly how to make decent money from it – “How much can I make with Rewarded Video Ads – 2024 Edition’ will try to cover all this and give our readers a good idea on how much you could make with rewarded video ads in 2024.

This post “How Much Can You Make with Rewarded Video Ads – 2024 Edition,” is designed to explore the specifics of this monetization method. We will cover valuable insights into how rewarded video ads work, their benefits, and most importantly, the potential earnings one can expect from implementing them in 2024. Previous year posts include 2023 and 2022

While this specific post is about revenue and numbers; you can also read Link 1, 2 and 3 to understand the dynamics of user engagement, the importance of balancing ad frequency with user experience, and strategies for maximizing revenue without deterring your audience.

Understanding Rewarded Video Ads:

Let’s break down these key terms into simpler, more elegant explanations:

• Rewarded Video Ad  

  Imagine a rewarded video ad as a friendly exchange – you watch a brief video within an app or game, and in return, you’re granted a bonus. This could be anything from extra points in the game to access to special features. It’s a win-win situation: the app earns some revenue, and you get a little reward for your time, akin to receiving a small treat for watching a commercial.

• Rewarded Video Ad Fill-Rate

  It measures the success rate of our requests for video ads. This success rate can vary depending on the region; for example, North America and Western Europe often see higher fill rates. However, factors such as adherence to privacy laws, the use of unique identifiers, and the relevance of the ad to the viewer can decrease these rates by roughly 20%.

• Rewarded Video Ad CPM

  The term CPM stands for Cost Per Mille, with “mille” being the Latin word for thousand. In the context of rewarded video ads, CPM refers to the cost to advertisers or the earnings for publishers per 1,000 ad views or impressions. This metric is a standard way of quantifying the value of an ad, both for those looking to promote their products and for those hosting the ads on their platforms.

• Monetization

  At its core, monetization is the process of converting something into money. In the digital world, this typically refers to finding ways to generate revenue from a website, app, or other digital assets. Whether through advertising, subscriptions, selling products or services, or other creative revenue streams, monetization strategies are essential for sustaining and growing any digital platform. It’s about identifying and implementing methods to earn income from the audience or traffic your digital property attracts, turning views, clicks, and interactions into financial gain.

Rewarded Video Ad 2023 Performance

Following past year traditions, I will share what I have seen in the past few months and what the trend looked like in 2023. A quick look at Reward Video Ad adoption reveals – (source ad push)-

• 95% of gaming apps employ rewarded video ads and call it as the “hottest revenue generator” on the market.
• 71% of video game players prefer in-game video ads over in-app purchases.
• 62%of developers saw user retention increase after introducing rewarded video ads
• 52%of mobile game developers call rewarded ads to be their most lucrative type of in-game advertising
• Rewarded video ads can be 2X more effective than interstitial videos.

In addition, here is what we have seen in general for CPM & Fill-Rate in 2023

Factors that affected Performance in 2023

Here are some of the factors that affected Performance in 2023.

• Budget Adjustments: Economic uncertainties and fluctuations influenced advertisers’ budgets, affecting the volume and quality of ads being served
• Improved Targeting Techniques: Advances in AI and machine learning is enabling more sophisticated and personalized targeting. This allows ads to be more personalized and effectively reach the intended audience.
• Data Privacy Regulations: Increased data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California) necessitated changes in how user data was collected and used for ad targeting, affecting ad performance.
• User Consent and Transparency: Apps and platforms that handled user consent and transparency effectively saw less impact on their ad performance, as users felt more in control of their data.
• Platform Changes: Updates and changes in policies or features of platforms hosting these ads (like iOS and Android OS updates) also impacted how ads were displayed and engaged with.

How much can you make in 2024?

Overall, Game Developers heavily rely on Rewarded Video Ads as a main source of revenue… Given the current Ad industry / climate, how much do game developers, website owners expect to get in 2024? What CPMs and fill-rates are considered decent in 2024?

Based on January 2024 results and past year seasonal performances, we have tried to forecast what web applications should expect to earn in 2024.

Just as a reminder for our readers, Revenue from Video Ads depends on various variables (ex. popularity of your web property, traffic, geography, quality of cookie matching etc).

• Ad payout price is measured by CPM while availability is measured by Fill-rate.
• eCPM is the amount one gets paid per 1000 video impressions. CPM calculation considers several factors such as engagement rate, click rate, view complete rate. It also includes Player size, Video quality, Content quality, Audience quality, Month of the year, Day of the month etc
• As I have mentioned above, the main factor determining CPM / payout is geography of your user base. Demand for first-tier markets (Western Nations) is 10 times higher than demand for third and 4th-tier markets. Here is what one should expect when serving video ads in different geographies.

Ad Fill-rate and CPM for 2024 (prediction)

We feel 2024 will be a good year for Rewarded Video Ad monetization mostly because we will get better clarity on “Cookie-less Web-browsing”, GDPR and CCPA privacy implementation. AI enabled Ad-tech advances will also play a huge role in increasing Pub Yields. While there are many factors, here is what we feel you should earn from this year.

AppLixir Illustration

Assuming you have 80,000 daily active users in the US, you will receive a video ad 90% of the time. This is due to the high level of demand from advertisers to first teir markets. By contrast, in South America, you will only get a video ad for 45% of your requests.

By combining the two factors (CPM and fill-rate), you can get a pretty good idea of your revenue with AppLixir. Note that results may vary depending on various factors so make sure to read our other articles regarding ad revenue.

To illustrate, let’s assume you have a web game that has 80,000 daily active users (see user geo composition).

If you are thinking of monetizing your Web-App with Rewarded Video Ads, feel free to contact us at info@applixir.com.

AppLixir is a Reward Video Ad Platform for Web and Mobile Games… Learn more about our platform at www.applixir.com