We are going to learn how to create an account in Google AdMob and how to generate API keys for Android/iOS, which helps us to display ads in our applications.
Requirements
We need nothing but a Google account, with this you can use Google AdMob.
Steps in brief:
- Create an account in “AdMob by Google”.
- Discussion of different types of Ad sizes available to display in the application.
- Create application instances for Android and iOS applications for any one or two types of banners.
Steps in Detail,
Creating an account in “AdMob by Google”
- Go to this URL in your browser https://www.google.com/admob/
- Now click on the signup button on the left corner.
- It asks you to login to your Google account as this is a product of Google. So just sign in.
- Now, you will be redirected into a page where this asks for your country name, time zone, and currency. And then asks to accept the terms and conditions just fill and check in the check-box and click on “Create AdMob Account” button.
- This sends a confirmation email to your account, just open your email and click on the link.
- This also asks you to select which type of info to send you to your email, just read and select based on your choice, I set everything to “Yes” and clicked on “Continue to AdMob” button.
- Bingo! You have successfully created an AdMob account. Now, you are in your “Home Page.”
Different Types of ads and ad sizes
There are two types of ads available; images and video formats. In this tutorial we are working with the Image type of Ads, video type also has the same procedures but I am not going to cover that part in this tutorial.
Image Ad Sizes
There are three sizes for Image type ads. Here are the types,
- Banner
This is like a ribbon. This is selected if our requirement is to provide an ad at the footer or at the header part, this does not cover the entire region of the Page. It only uses a portion of the app Page.
- Interstitial
This covers the entire page with the ad, so mostly this is displayed as a popup or if you have the requirement you can make it a separate ad page in the app.
- Rewarded
This also covers the entire page with the ad like “Interstitial Ad”. This is different from “Interstitial Ad” as it has special functionality that if you have a requirement such as providing rewards to the user on “page click” or when he watched a full-length video, this type is useful.
Creating App instances and API keys for Android and iOS Apps:
- Once you have created an account, scroll down the page and click on the “Get Started” button.
- This asks you whether your app is published to App Store or Play Store, as this is for practice you can just select “no” if you are using it for a published application just select “Yes”. If you press yes, then in later steps it will ask for your App URL in the store and if you provide those details then it will get all the required details from the store or else you will provide them manually. So, this tutorial will be continued by selecting “No” as an option.
- On selecting “No”, it asks App info starting with “App Name” and “Platform (Android or iOS).” We have to create separate API keys for different platforms. Now let us go with Android as the process for iOS is the same, so you can handle it on your own. Here, is an example: Name: “TestBannerAndroid” and Platform: “Android”.
- Now click on “Add” Button.
- This opens a page with an App API key, the next step is processing and it asks for two options, “Create Ad Unit” or “I’ll do it later”.
- Just for now select “I’ll do it later” option. This will take you to the “TestBannerAndroid” instance dashboard.
- Scroll down until you find the “Add Unit” Button. Now, click this button.
- If you have navigated to some other place just click on the home button. This opens your main home or dashboard page.
- Here you will find a small side menu, by clicking on “Hamburger icon/ menu icon. Here you'll find the “Apps” option. This shows a popup, now at the bottom of the popup you will find the “Add App” and “View All Apps” buttons. “Add App” is to add the new app as we already did these steps. Now, select “View All Apps” button, and this will show all the apps you have created so far. Select the app you want. Now, we are going to create “Add Units”.
- “Add Unit button” takes you to a page where you have three options. They are Banner, Interstitial, and Rewarded.
To show an ad in your app you have to get “Unit Id”. You can create as many types, sizes, and any amount.
So, once these steps have ended you will get an “App Id” and many “Unit Ids”
In your app, you can use one app id and many units based on your different ads.
The process of creating “Unit Ids” for the above three types are the same so let us create one of them for an example.
- Select “Banner”. Now in the next window, this asks for “ad Unit Name”, this can be any of your choice, here it is “AndroidTestBanner”. You can also go for advanced options here; they're available just above the “Create Ad Unit” button. If you are doing this for “Paid Marketing”, then you can select what to show, time of refresh (custom in second row of advanced options) and eCPM (to select money bidding so the ad client who will pay that amount per Ad click will be sent by Google to you to show the ad).
- After selecting the requirements, just click on “Create Ad Unit” button
- This will show you two Id’s; the top one is your “App Id” and the second one is your “Unit Id”. Copy them both. Now click on “done” to complete the process or click on “Create Another Add Unit” to create another Add. The process is the same for other ad unit types too.
Conclusion
This is the part of AdMob to display Ads in our application, the rest is to be done while developing an App. How to use these “App Ids” and “Unit Ids” in app development to show Ads in our application will be discussed in another post.