The Hardest Part of Ad Monetisation in 2025 Wasn’t Code
Lessons I learned from integrating Adster’s SDK across gaming, content, and video apps
By Shivansh Pandey, Software Engineer, Adster
TL;DR
- Single-format placements quietly leave money on the table. Unified formats increase fill without changing UX dramatically.
- Hardcoded ad slots slow optimisation. Server-side configs turn sprint cycles into same-day decisions.
- Publishers don’t want another SDK. They want their current stack to work harder.
- Filling a slot isn’t optimisation. Knowing which slot to fill first is.
- The biggest bottleneck isn’t integration. It’s the willingness to experiment.
What Actually Stood Out in 2025
I work on SDK integrations and custom adapters at Adster.
That means I sit with developers. I debug mediation stacks. I see how ad slots are wired. I watch how monetisation decisions actually get implemented.
And if I had to summarise 2025 in one sentence, it would be this:
“The hardest part of ad monetisation is not technical complexity. It’s behavioural resistance to change.”
Across gaming apps, regional content apps, and short-form video platforms, five patterns kept repeating. Here’s what stood out.
1 - Unified Formats Exist Because Single Formats Leave Money on the Table
Most publishers still implement one ad format per slot.
Banner means banner. Native means native. App Open means App Open. And that’s it.
But unified formats were not built as roadmap experiments. They were built because we kept seeing single-format placements fail to fill.
Today, our SDK supports 11 ad types — including:
- UNIFIED (Banner or Native, dynamically chosen)
- UNIFIED_AOI (App Open or Interstitial, dynamically chosen)
Why? Because App Open might not fill, but Interstitial might.
If the server can choose per impression instead of the publisher guessing upfront, fill rates stop being a guessing game.
“The publisher who locks a placement to one format is optimising for certainty. The one who lets the system choose is optimising for revenue.”
The resistance isn’t technical. It’s comfort.
Users are used to seeing a 320×50 banner. Teams don’t want to disturb the layout. But if you never experiment, you never discover the revenue upside.
2 - Publishers Hardcode Ad Slots, Then Wait Weeks to Change Them
This one is surprisingly common.
Ad placements are baked into code:
- Format
- Position
- Priority
- Waterfall logic
Want to move a banner? New release.
Want to test Interstitial vs App Open in the same slot? New release.
Want to react to a traffic spike? New release.
By the time the update goes live, the spike is over.
With Adster, placement configs update server-side. Encrypted. Pushed silently. No app update required.
What used to be a sprint-planning discussion becomes a same-day decision.
“The slowest ad optimisation is the one stuck in a release cycle. The fastest is the one that never needed a release at all.”
Most monetisation inefficiency isn’t because teams lack ideas. It’s because they lack agility.
3 - Publishers Don’t Want a New SDK
Publishers Want Their Existing Ad Stack to Work Harder
Nobody willingly rips out Google Ad Manager, AdMob, AppLovin MAX, or IronSource. And they shouldn’t.
That’s why Custom Adapters exist.
They slide Adster inside the mediation stack a publisher already trusts. We built separate adapter modules for GAM/AdMob, AppLovin, and IronSource for exactly this reason.
Publishers don’t switch foundations. They add floors.
“The best integration is the one the publisher barely notices they made.”
Adster isn’t trying to replace the stack. It’s an optimisation layer that makes the existing stack perform better.
4 - Any SDK Can Fill a Slot. Few Know Which Slot to Fill First.
This is the real difference.
Most SDKs do one thing: You give them a slot, they fill it.
But filling a slot and filling it right are two different outcomes.
Behind the scenes, the system learns:
- Which placements users move toward first
- Which placements get higher view counts
- Which demand sources win most often for specific inventory
- How performance decays over time
Experiments run automatically.
Decay-based scoring adjusts priorities.
Requests reduce. Responses increase.
And publishers don’t lift a finger.
The 50%+ revenue uplift some publishers I have seen isn’t from adding more demand partners. It’s from the system learning what works for their specific app.
“Filling an ad slot is a function. Knowing which slot to fill first is an advantage.”
5 - Every Line of Code a Publisher Writes Is a Potential Support Ticket
Over the past year, integration has been aggressively stripped down.
Today it looks like:
- One Gradle dependency
- One init call
- One ad loader builder
For Custom Adapter publishers, even that becomes minimal.
The pattern is deliberate: Reduce publisher-side code to near zero.
“Every line is a support ticket waiting to happen.”
Fewer lines mean:
- Fewer SDK conflicts
- Fewer release delays
- Fewer ANR risks
- Faster experimentation
And more importantly, less engineering hesitation when someone says, “Let’s try this.”
The Real Bottleneck
After spending weeks solving integration constraints, dependency issues, and placement logic with dev teams, one pattern stood out.
Sometimes everything is ready.
- The SDK works.
- The adapter is tested.
- The configs are prepared.
And then it gets stuck at decision level.
Because monetisation change isn’t just technical. It’s organisational.
Unless someone is willing to experiment — even on 10% of traffic — revenue optimisation stalls.
The irony? The technology side is now the easiest part.
Revenue Follows Conviction
Across gaming apps, content platforms, and short-video feeds, one truth keeps repeating:
If you want more revenue, you have to be willing to experiment.
The good news is: Experimentation no longer requires engineering sprints. It requires conviction.