Mobile marketing platform AdTiming has worked with some of the biggest names in the mobile market, and now it's releasing its OpenMediation platform for everyone and making it completely open source.

To find out more about the firm and why it's decided to share its tools so widely, we spoke to chief product officer Yobo Zhang about the company's growth and what OpenMediation can do for you.

PocketGamer.biz: Tell us a little bit about AdTiming.

Yobo Zhang: AdTiming is a company who never stops innovating. We have quickly developed due to our strength in big data technology and our ability to harness trends in mobile Internet globalization.

We are very lucky to have a core founding team of many experts from the advertising industry who have rich experience in big data processing.

In the globalization wave of mobile Internet advertising, we always adhere to the strategy of openness and service. With the advanced technology and product strategy, we have successfully helped a large number of high-quality developers such as Camera 360 and JOYIENT open up and grow rapidly in an overseas market

What has been the key to AdTiming's growth since it started?

Adtiming succeeds by fostering a close relationship with developers and strives to understand their needs. Throughout the process of product design and operation, AdTiming devotes time to listening to the developers and pays close attention to every detail in order to meet developer’s requirements. We also have regular meetings to provide developers with technical feedback.

For example, the optimization function of Waterfall seems simple. But we surveyed nine developers in total and made five versions of optimization before the final launch. We have accumulated a lot of practical experience, and have gained many developers' recognition in the technology we utilise and service we provide.

Openness is at the core of AdTiming's growth. From our products to our services, AdTiming is committed to keeping the whole chain transparent. We believe in making our own contribution to the ecosystem.

Why did you decide to make OpenMediation completely open source?

With a growing desire for privatization and customization, a lot of top developers expect further integration with their own internal BI system. Some developers have specific niches, which sparks a greater need for data mining.

In light of the continuous accumulation of data assets, the security of such assets have also become a focus of attention. This has sparked a trend in developer self-built mediation.

Therefore, the market must provide a complete set of mediation open source solutions.

Aside from being open source, what are the main benefits of OpenMediation over other mediation platforms?

Smart Load technology can guarantee over 99% fill rate and Waterfall is automatically optimized. Developers can carry out manual control and automatic system optimization based on audience dimension, which can effectively increase the revenue by more than 20%.

Why is it important to give developers the option to build an open source system rather than your own in-house system?

First, it is very difficult to build an in-house system. The development of a complete system requires the cooperation of big data, front-end back-end, and SDK experts, which often takes at least six months to complete. However, developers in the game industry may lack procedural advertising technology.

As a result, these developers may encounter many unexpected issues. Therefore, a mature mediation open source tool can allow developers to avoid this disconnect.

Outside of the OpenMediation technology, what else can AdTiming offer its clients that other ad mediation firms can't?

AdTiming has also launched our XTiming project. It is designed for the small and medium-sized developer team withs outstanding originality. We provide comprehensive services including product analysis, testing, optimization proposals, liquidation strategy advice, copyright law consulting and precise localization support.

XTiming assists developers throughout the entire course of development, from account opening, testing, project optimization, distribution, user acquisition and monetization, helping our clients build a sustainable business loop for overseas market.

What has been the biggest change in mobile advertising that you have seen in the last 12 months?

First, the overall mobile marketing market will become more transparent and the need for open source will increase. As for technology, the optimization of the traditional Waterfall approach will develop from a traditional Waterfall optimization to a hybrid optimization method.

Product adaptation will become more important. We will further optimize the in-app bidding to guarantee better adaptation to various platforms.

How do you predict mobile ad mediation will change over the next year?

We expect that there will be more ad networks supporting in-app Bidding in the coming year, and the programmatic header Bidding method will enter the general application stage from the experimental stage.

This will greatly improve the monetization efficiency and ensure that marketers can be devoted to their game and advertisement scene design.

This change may spark big ideas aimed at improving the user experience or perfecting presentation form, both will allow for an increase in advertising revenue without disrupting user experience. Let's look forward to the new change.