Introduction to ad units and placements

Learn how to monetize your app with Unity Ads using ad units and placements.

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Last updated a day ago

After you've developed your app, you can monetize and earn revenue from it by implementing different kinds of engaging mobile ads directly and strategically into it. Unity Ads provides the tools to serve a variety of engaging ad content to your app users through ad units and placements. Ad units in Unity Ads designate specific spots in your app for ads, such as during level transitions or on app launch. Use placements to manage when and what types of ads are shown in these units. You'll need to create an ad unit or placement in Unity Ads when you want to implement ads in any of the following ways:

Monetize different parts of your app.
Optimize ad delivery for specific user interactions.
Optimize ad performance by running A/B tests.
Control how and where ads are shown in your app.

Refer to Create an ad unit and placement for more information.

Introduction to ad units

Ad units are a collection of settings for displaying ads at specific points in your app for monetization. These settings determine how ads are shown to users, as well as what type of ads are displayed. At a minimum, all ad units must be configured with the following information:

Topic	Description
Ad unit name	Set a meaningful name to easily identify your ad unit.
Platform	Select the platform of your app: iOS or Android.
Ad format	Select the ad content format you want displayed in your app.
Setup	Choose the ad unit type that best fits your monetization strategy: bidding or waterfall. Your selection will determine the type of placement you need to configure.
Placement	Configure your placement. Bidding placements require no manual setup, while waterfall placements need additional steps, including setting geo-targets and target prices.

For waterfall placements, Unity consolidates ad units into a single object for easier waterfall management and reporting. For bidding placements, Unity also consolidates ad unit bidding data for streamlined reporting. This allows you to easily filter, track, and assess the progress and effectiveness of each ad unit.

Introduction to placements

Placements connect an ad unit from the Unity Monetization Dashboard to its specific settings and configurations, determining where and when your ads are displayed in your app to optimize revenue. Bidding placements and waterfall placements differ in how the mediation tool makes ad requests, then selects and serves ads in your app. Both types of placements aim to achieve the highest eCPM (effective cost per mille) targets in your mediation stack, representing the average revenue your project earns from advertisers per thousand impressions.

Waterfall placements

These placements follow a hierarchical sequence to serve ads from different networks in the mediation tool based on location-specific eCPM. When you set eCPM targets, Unity finds the best ads to meet these targets and maximize your earnings at the specified rate. Setting up waterfall placements typically involves creating several placements with different eCPM targets and a backfill placement to ensure a guaranteed minimum acceptable target.

Bidding placements

These placements allow multiple ad networks and demand sources within a mediation tool to bid in real-time for the opportunity to show their ads in your app. This real-time competition among advertisers boosts your eCPM. Setting up bidding placements is straightforward and requires no manual target specifications.

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