refresh ads whitepaper

Copyright © Social Gear LLC. Inc. All rights reserved.

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TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

SUMMARY

Refresh Ads is the first responsive ad delivery platform that allows publishers to monetize any screen on a mobile app or mobile site with a pull-‐to-‐refresh function. Refresh Ads are delivered in the otherwise blank space inside/above the pull to refresh function used to refresh the content items on a page. The Refresh Ads network provides advertisers with superior targeting and accuracy of ad deliveries by geos/location, day-‐part, device carrier, device manufacturer, category and OS. With Refresh Ads, advertisers experience a significant reduction in cost and impressive returns on investment with our self-‐serve platform, which allows for complete control over all aspects of advertiser campaigns.


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CONTENTS SUMMARY ......................................................................................................................1

CONTENTS .....................................................................................................................2

ABOUT REFRESH ADS ..................................................................................................2

CONCEPT .......................................................................................................................4

DELIVERY ......................................................................................................................5

VALUE ............................................................................................................................6

IMPACT...........................................................................................................................7

CONTACT INFORMATION .............................................................................................9

ABOUT SOCIAL GEAR, LLC. Social Gear LLC. was founded by Riz Nwosu in 2009. The company’s current main product is the Refresh Ad Network that delivers ads within the pull-‐to-‐refresh function of mobile apps and mobile site that use pull-‐to-‐refresh to update their content feed. Refresh ads fit the blank space that is usually exposed when a user pulls down the screen to refresh it’s content items. This previously un-‐monetized and un-‐used space above the content of the page now presents a new source of revenue for publishers and an exciting opportunity for advertisers to reach potential customers with a fresh and unique ad format. The company is headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA. For more information about Social Gear, please visit www.social-‐gear.com.


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CONCEPT

Until now, mobile ads were limited to superimposed placement on top of the content of a screen forcing publishers to give up valuable pixels, obscuring parts of their content in exchange for ad revenues and annoyed users.

THE CURRENT MARKET

The existing infrastructure in the market is based on the concept of mobile publishers making available screen real estate for ad placement so that advertisers and agencies can create ads of those specific spaces to run on the publishers’ mobile apps and sites. Today there are 60 standard ad sizes for mobile devices currently in use in the marketplace, all taking up valuable sections of the screen (above and below the fold) and negatively affecting the overall user experience.

For publishers, striking the appropriate balance between how much screen real estate to sacrifice for ad placements and the inevitable user anger towards interruptive ads can be quite difficult. In regards to mobile design, giving up pixels for ad placement affects the overall design and user experience. Also mobile ads could be more effective if they didn’t cause annoyance to the user by forcing them to take an extra action to get rid of unwanted ads such as clicking on a ‘Cancel’, interrupting the users use of the app or mobile site.

As the number of mobile devices on the market has increased, so has the complexity of mobile content creation and ad delivery. Publishers are dealing with an audience that is more diversified with an ever-‐increasing number and variety of smartphones, each with their own screen formats, resolutions, and operating systems. While in-‐stream native ads carry the promise of providing a consistent content-‐optimized branding opportunity for advertisers, delivering them across multiple publishers with varying user interface designs across multiple devices has remained complicated and challenging. Current native in-‐stream ad offerings are yet to solve the scalability question. However Refresh Ads offer a scalable native above-‐stream ad solution.

THE NEW MARKET

Social Gear is the first company to introduce the technological infrastructure to deliver responsive advertising, which is based on an alternative concept of how ad placements are defined on publisher apps and mobile sites and how advertiser messages are delivered to those placements.


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Refresh Ads forces you to think outside the box of what we know as standard mobile ad formats. Refresh ads are not revealed until a user pulls to refresh the screen. They also do not have to be displayed or in-‐view for a specific amount of time. Refresh Ads are responsive; ads that respond to a users pull-‐to-‐refresh action, gradually revealing itself as the user pulls down the screen. Furthermore they don’t outstay their welcome. Refresh ads disappear upwards with the screen as the new/updated content is returned from the server. With Refresh ads, publishers don’t have to sacrifice valuable screen real estate or compromise their design integrity or the user experience for ad placement.

Instead of paying for ads that users are already blind and immune to, advertisers can instead deliver ads that still retain the flashy and attention grabbing aspect of standard superimposed mobile ads without being interruptive and annoying to potential customers. The technology is also very flexible; publishers can customize visual aspects of the pull-‐to-‐refresh function to better fit their design aesthetic.

Publishers can now monetize with responsive ads that are delivered via the pull to refresh mechanism of their app or mobile site.

Delivery Publishers are requited to make a minimal integration of the Refresh Ads SDK into their apps or mobile sites to enable them for Refresh Ad delivery. By enabling the Refresh Ad delivery, publishers can now provide users with a


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more native and organic ad experience that is built specifically with the mobile experience in mind. A Refresh ad impression is counted the moment the user pulls down to refresh the screen’s content items. Depending on the network coverage in the area where the device is located, the Refresh ad can be displayed longer or shorter. As Refresh ads are only displayed for the amount of time it takes for the screen to refresh, the current network connectivity will dictate how long the ad is displayed for. Alternatively a user can hold down the screen for as long as they want, keeping the ad in view for the duration. Ads delivered through the Refresh Ads server are guaranteed to be 100% in view and above the fold placement. Targeting options include the users geo or location, day-‐part using the device’ time, the device manufacturer, the operating system on which the device runs and the publisher’s content category. For example, an ad campaign that runs internationally but targeted by day part of noon to 6pm will deliver ads from noon to 6pm local time for users around the world.

VALUE

The Refresh Ad server platform simplifies the way publishers, ad agencies and brand advertisers deliver ad creative through it’s self-‐serve platform that allows for the maximum control and creative freedom for everyone in the value chain, which translates to a huge cost and effort savings for both advertiser and publisher.

Return on investment for advertisers are higher because Refresh ads are always placed above the fold and always in view when the user pulls to refresh the screen because their attention is usually focused at the top section of the screen while they wait for the screen’s content to refresh. Agencies can do more with less; gaining the ultimate ad design, creativity, placement and ad buy specificity. Publishers are free to customize the pull-‐to-‐refresh creative layout and design to best fit their app or mobile site design and layout, giving them the opportunity to create new advertising inventory without redesigning any page, interrupting any user, or interfering with any content.

In addition to a significant reduction in terms of cost and effort to generate, upload and manage creative materials, but Refresh ads also increases potential advertising revenues by enabling ads to be delivered in the otherwise blank spaces users are forced to stare at when they pull-‐to-‐refresh the screen’s contents. The Refresh Ads SDK dynamically delivers ads in these


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otherwise empty spaces available on the user’s screen, creating new premium inventory.

When a user pulls to refresh the screen, the blank space above the content is dynamic, always changing based on the users pull-‐down, push-‐up or release of the screen. Some apps deliver static “skins” or “wallpapers” to this dynamic space but never before has an ad been delivered in this space until now. Also Refresh ads are designed and optimized for mobile screens ensuing the optimum user experience.

IMPACT

The need for a better mobile ad format is aligned with the interests of publishers who need to monetize their mobile content, and agencies and advertisers who need to reach audiences with the most impactful and creative messaging possible. It is also key to the future of mobile apps and sites, mobile browsing, mobile design and development.

Mobile devices have a small screen to work with and cannot afford to give up much screen real estate for advertising. Further more, mobile devices are more intimate and thus require ads to feel organic to the design of the app or mobile site rather than an afterthought.

With Refresh Ads, publishers are generating new incremental previously untapped revenues. Agencies are delivering more value at a lesser cost. Advertisers are increasing their brand effective reach and return on investment. Furthermore as Refresh ads do not cannibalize or compete with any existing ads publishers might currently have running on their apps or mobile sites, publishers are able to implement, measure and compare the performance of refresh ads side by side with other running ad formats.

The fact that users don't see the Refresh ad until they pull-‐to-‐refresh the screen allows users to click on the ads at their own convenience as opposed to within only a few seconds of it showing in the app. This has allowed our test campaigns to perform significantly better than standard banner ads. By not cluttering the screen and adversely affecting the user experience, users have rewarded Refresh ads with through-‐the-‐roof engagement. Refresh ads gives publishers the opportunity to monetize those 'moments' of natural inaction when the users is expecting to wait for the updated content to load. We call these few seconds the 'Mobile Waiting Room'. Additionally Refresh ads are sized to be a natural fit for the blank space presented to users when they pull-‐to-‐refresh the screen’s content. This has allowed Refresh ads to be sized much larger than standard banner ads; 320x200 (or 300x200)


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which is 4x the size of standard banner ad units and thus can command premium rates over standard banner ad units. The Refresh Ads innovation offers an alternative technological infrastructure for mobile ad delivery by responding to a pull-‐to-‐refresh gesture with a responsive ad. This creates new markets of ad space beyond the standard mobile as inventory, creating a new opportunity for industry players including brand advertisers, advertising agencies, mobile publishers and developers.

REFRESH ADS PERFECTLY FILL THE EMPTY SPACE THAT IS EXPOSED WHEN A USER PULLS TO REFRESH THE SCREEN.

Refresh ads comply with the IAB’s 3MS Initiative meaning that an ad impression is not counted until at least 50% of the ad pixels is in-‐view for at least 1 second. Clicks or conversion cam be tracked through the Refresh Ads dashboard and used for campaign optimization.


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CONTACT INFORMATION Regarding questions about this document, please contact riz@social-‐gear.com or visit www.social-‐gear.com.

refresh ads whitepaper

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