I have created a windows store app. I included ads from Microsoft pubCenter. It has been published today and I downloaded it on my laptop and a friend's. In both occasions the ads only show Microsoft advertising ads. Nothing more, nothing less. I added a simple adcontrol line in my xaml as advised and in application id I inserted what was given in pubcenter and same in ad-unit. Is there something wrong with Microsoft Ads?
Microsoft Ads use an algorithm designed for targeted advertising based off of information they receive from the users of a given application. Sometimes the advertising targets a specific user, sometimes it targets a specific app's demographic.
There are quite a few possible reasons that your app is displaying primarily Microsoft ads. It could be that you and your friend are both prime targets for Microsoft products. It could be that your app's demographic or genre is targeted for Microsoft ads.
It could also be that Microsoft's own ads are the default (likely, I'd think). It may take a bit for the demographics information to be received by Microsoft ads, or any other numerous reasons that the default ads are currently being displayed.
Basically, as of right now, there is nothing pointing at this being your fault. With more datapoints over more time, we could possibly begin to eliminate unlikely causes (such as sync time on a specific device).
I don't think you have anything to worry about now. If your ad revenue is particularly low or otherwise anomalous, then maybe there is some need for concern, but until there is some more information, we can only speculate.
Related
I have a UWP app, published in store, here. The app hosts AdControl in some pages and the current version of the app has AdControl but I have no way of confirming if the app is working on other systems but it's not working on my laptop (Windows 10 Creators Update - clean install).
This issue has just recently popped up when my Store submission failed twice and the reason was that my app wasn't launching at all. The app was working fine in Debug mode but when I compiled the app in Release mode, it was actually not working. I have no other windows systems to check if it is a system specific issue just related to my laptop or maybe it is related to AdControls everywhere.
If the pages in my app doesn't have a AdControl the app works fine. I debugged the code and it would not pass through the Page Initializing function, and there I found out that while initializing the pages, the last thing to pass through was the AdControl and when I removed the AdControl the app was working fine and it would still navigate to those pages without AdControl.
Did someone else experience this issue? Maybe download my app and let me know if it works on your system.
this is how I am using the AdControl:
xmlns:ads="using:Microsoft.Advertising.WinRT.UI"
<ads:AdControl Grid.Row="4"
x:Name="Movies_AdControl"
Margin="0,10,0,0"
AutoRefreshIntervalInSeconds="15">
</ads:AdControl>
and also in the VisualStateGroup
<Setter Target="Movies_AdControl.Height"
Value="50"/>
<Setter Target="Movies_AdControl.Width"
Value="320"/>
#Ahmar, there is a known issue with the Windows 10 UWP AdControl that started about a week ago. Unfortunately the AdControl is part of the framework ad sdk which means Microsoft can push out updates to it any time and break all the apps that use it (which is exactly what they did last week).
The reason your new project might work is because you are doing very little other work in the Page contructor. It seems to be a timing glitch that prevents the Loaded event from ever firing (not all of the controls on the page initialize). Try putting a bunch of other controls on the page and you might be right back to having the problem.
The good news is that the problem was finally fixed with the Ad SDK 10.0.5 which has internal version numbers of 10.1705.11001. The bad news is that even if you build your app with that version of the sdk and submit it to the Windows Store, it is still possible that your users have the older broken sdk and until that update is pushed to everybody, there will be problems.
The idea of store framework packages is a bad idea to me. Good in theory due to smaller downloads and potentially rapid and automatic deployments by Microsoft, but bad when Microsoft is sloppy like they were here.
Discussion:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/1d5e1f23-bd61-4384-b55c-2d0cae8d4a03/new-adcontrol-freezes-apps?forum=aiasdk
Can you please share with me what ad network monetization platform are you using for windows phone 8.1? I am interesting in banners mostly (probably I will add soon video too), and as coverage I want to target europe, usa, global (in this order).
I researched a lot on this topic, and I found quite a lot of recommendations, but some of them no longer apply, since many ad networks are dropping support for windows phone :(.
I have tried several, but I am not happy with the results:
AdDuplex - the single one that is reliable
Smaato - the fill rate is extremely low (at its best is 10%. For example currently I have 20k requests a day, and the fill rate is 2.56% over the last 7 days)
Vmax - integrated through Smaato - 0% fillrate (even if I have requests on India)
MobFox - integrated through Smaato - they are serving ~20-30% ads, but none of them reaches Smaato (I am considering using the API from MobFox to see how it goes).
Microsoft Ad - I am not able to make it work. I know they dropped support for AdMediator this year, and I followed their documentation but no luck: the sdk doesn't install, or is missing the control.
AdRotator - I am using this for mediation purposes, but since from the supported networks only few are still supporting windows phone, I will replace this soon with my own mediation algorithm. (Currently I am using AdRotator with Smaato and AdDuplex)
Is there anyone who can help me on this one?
PS: please do not point me to UWP in order to use Microsoft Ad Control, since in my case, most of my users are wp 8.1 (70-80%).
Thanks!
Can you please share with me what ad network monetization platform are
you using for windows phone 8.1?
Based on my personal experience, Microsoft and Ad Duplex network could perform better to my app.
You could refer to Selecting and managing your network.
Since your question intends to be a discussion one which cannot be answered objectively, I'd like to suggest you to open up a discussion thread here and listen to other community's advice.
My question is really: Is there an easy way to create graphs in windows phone? (Either in-built or for free)
Could you tell me of any using statements I need to add
Links would be helpful (I couldn't find many myself)
And a basic how-to would be excellent!
The Telerik RadControls produce great graphs - http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone.aspx
They also have a WP App that showcases their controls - http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/telerik-examples/fd55f526-d6f7-df11-9264-00237de2db9e
The Telerik RadControls are not free but they are by far, 100%, the best tools on the market. You can get them for free though if you have a couple apps published.
Go to http://www.Dvlup.com and sign up for a free Nokia Developer Account. Link in your developer account and it will import the apps you have made. Then you can submit apps you have made to the challenges they have on there.
As you can see here you can get a Nokia Premium Account Token for 1000pts which is VERY easy to get. With that token you get a free Windows PHone Developer account ($100 value) and a slew of other things like support tokens, Buddy API calls ect. I heard on the Windows Developer Show That you also get a free set of RadControls with this token right now also.
There are lot's of libraries that provide charts for Phone 7 and 8
http://www.infragistics.com/products/windows-phone/features/sparkline/ (Paid)
https://github.com/ailon/amCharts-Quick-Charts (free)
http://www.telerik.com/products/windows-phone/overview/all-controls/chart.aspx (Paid)
Also, other than those listed above, there is a Sparrow Toolkit.
Sparrow Toolkit a set of Data Visualization controls(Chart, Gauge,BulletGraph and Sparkline) with lot of flexibility, performance, faster and more efficient.
http://sparrowtoolkit.codeplex.com/
Is there any way to access the time the app was downloaded (or first launched, etc) as this would be of great help in implementing my trial run feature on my app.
I don't remember how does it stand on the Win8 platform, but for WinPhone7.0/7.5 there's a clear warning/guideline in the official documents from Microsoft, saying:
Do not rely on usage time limited trials to protect your app’s value.
Typically, it is best to protect the value of your full mode app by limiting trial access to key code paths. A user may uninstall and retry an app without restriction so a trial design that offers full mode behavior for a limited time provides only inconvenience as a barrier to reuse.
Source: Creating trial apps for Windows Phone
The problem in time-based trials is very simple: when you uninstall the application, the Phone's operating system will erase it completely. This means, that nothing will be left, not a byte. If you write any data to isostorage, it will be purged upon deletion.
So, if you make a time-base trial and store a "installed date", then the user will simply uninstall the application and install it again, and will be happy to get next free-trial period. If it is OK for you, well, then just be aware of that.
To make a true time-trial you'd need to create some internet service that your application will register to with the phone's/user's UUID, and then the app would need to check at the service to determine whether the trial has passed or have been used up by a previous installation..
What's more, Microsoft Phone Appp guidelines state that generally you should not create an application that "turns off some of its features" at some point of time. This irritates end-users and the makes the whole phone/platform "bad" from the user's point of view, because people don't like to lose what they once had.
IIRC, at some early point of time Microsoft even advised to create two separate applications: one free and without the extra features at all, and one paid with all extra features. Later, TrialModes were included in the Market's workflow and Microsoft's App Licensing API introduced a very easy way to determine if an app works in "free trial" or "fully paid" mode, depending on whether it was downloaded from the market for free or not.
I truly don't know which one is most-recent, so let me paste three:
XNA: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd282459(v=xnagamestudio.30).aspx
SL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/microsoft.phone.marketplace.licenseinformation.istrial
W8: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/windows.applicationmodel.store.licenseinformation.istrial
If you are trying to implement a trial function within your phone application, why not latch onto the libraries that MS provides?
MSDN Creating a trial application
MSDN Sample code for integrating a trial applicaiton
This is only available for WP7.1, WP7.1+ and WP8 (when written for WP7.1)
Microsoft recommends using the WP8 LicenseInformation class, to do
MSDN LicenseInformation class, WP8
Hope this helps!
I am adding Code 39 bar code scanning functionality to a C# asp.net web app. This function must work with iphone, ipad, android phone, and android tablet. I need the scanned bar code value to be passed back to my web app.
So far I have been able to make this work on android phone and android tablet using ZXing barcode scanner with this method. Unfortunately the current version of ZXing in the App Store (Version 1.1) is currently not capable of scanning 1D bar code types. Through much of my research I have seen that 1D barcode scanning has been ported to later IOS ZXing versions but I'm not an IOS developer and am unsure how to install or enable it.
I have also explored the possibility of using pic2shop's web solution but this only works with UPC and other commercial codes and the bar code must be Code 39 based on my clients requirements.
I have clients all over the country so I can not physically be on site for each one so I need all of the complexity to be on me in my code not on the end user. I realize that the IOS solution will probably not be the same as the droid but I need it to feel as close as possible for the end user because a few of my clients will be using multiple devices and I need to minimize the confusion.
I realize that I have a tall order with a lot of restrictions but any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
I ended up using CNS Barcode for IOS devices. CNS is a good solution, it does everything that I need but it is not an ideal solution for two reasons:
It is not free. I have no problem with paying for apps, I think that a developer deserves every penny. In my case though this caused an inconveinence to my clients. The small cost is irrelevant when factoring in the benefit of the new functionality but it's hard to sell a product to a client then tell them to make it work you will need to buy this other product.
CNS does not return the result to the calling window/tab, it opens a new tab. In my case this is a problem because the barcode scanner is being used to scan id badges to clock in or clock out employees and may be done 50 times meaning 50 tabs opened.
I was able to create a solution for number two by creating a local key-value storage instance on the new tab along with a key-value change listener on the old tab:
window.addEventListener("storage", onStorageChanged, false);
function onStorageChanged(e)
{
if(/*check for appropriate key-value*/)
{
window.Close();
}
}
Note: This solution may have to be modified to pass the actual barcode result in the local key-value storage instance back to the original tab and use window.Close() to close the new tab if the original tab was not opened via javascript, which is probably more often the case, because window.Close() does not work for windows that were browsed to naturally (not opened with javascript).
Since the number 1 concern is only an inconvenience and the number 2 concern is fixable I will mark this as solved.
Here is another place I found that does it.
http://codecanyon.net/item/mobile-upc-scanner-with-web-proxy-api/10193177