Answers for developers, publishers and site owners on monetizing and distributing web games.
336 posts
Both format and placement matter: full-screen formats earn several times more per impression, but only when placed at natural breaks. Interstitials fit level ends and menus, rewarded ads fit moments when the player wants an extra life or hint, banners and video players sit around the game. Map your game's breaks first, then compare formats in your own reporting.
A rewarded ad is one the player chooses to watch in exchange for a reward. The impression is counted when the ad is shown; the reward is granted only if the player watches to the end. If they close it early, the game gets a 'dismissed' signal and gives no reward. Show the 'watch for reward' button only when an ad is ready.
Interstitials belong at natural break points - level completion, death/retry and scene or menu transitions - not on a timer. Google's Ad Placement API makes you declare a break type (start, next, pause, browse) that names the moment and applies its own frequency cap, and player retention punishes interruptions during active gameplay. If no ad is available, the game should continue immediately.
Per impression, rewarded ads usually earn the most, since the player chose to watch. Interstitials usually bring more total revenue because they are shown at every natural break, while rewarded depends on how many players opt in. The best-earning setups use both.
Low fill usually has a technical cause or a segment cause. Check the technical side first: ads.txt, consent in regions that require it, ad blockers or a failed script load, requesting ads too early or too often, high price floors, a domain still under review and frequency caps. Then compare fill by geo, device and format separately, since each segment fills differently.
eCPM is revenue per 1,000 ad impressions. RPM is revenue per 1,000 units of something other than impressions, and the unit differs by platform: AdSense reports Page RPM (per 1,000 page views), Playgama Ad reports RPM per 1,000 ad requests. RPM per ad request = eCPM x fill rate, so it sits below eCPM whenever fill is under 100%.
There is no single good fill rate: it depends on format, geo and device. Full-screen formats (interstitial, rewarded) typically fill much higher than banners, so a banner fill well below the full-screen level is normal, especially outside Tier-1. Compare each format and geo against its own history rather than one threshold. Fill rate here means impressions divided by ad requests.
There is no single benchmark: eCPM depends on geo, device and format. Full-screen formats usually earn several times more per impression than banners, and Tier-1 traffic several times more than the rest. The one sourced multiplier: in the RocketGoal case interstitial eCPM was about 8x banner eCPM (Mobidictum, 06.08.2026), on mostly Tier-1 traffic with about 70% of revenue from the US.
An HTML5 game uploaded to itch.io runs in an iframe on itch.io's domain, so programmatic ads such as Playgama Ad can't be set up on that build: they need ads.txt on a domain you control. Keep itch.io as your storefront, then either host a playable version on your own domain with Playgama Ad, or publish the game through Playgama using the Bridge SDK.
Neither wins by default. Ads usually bring revenue sooner because they need no purchase funnel, while IAP can out-earn an ad-only build per user in games with strong retention and a real in-game economy. The two interact: a rewarded ad for an extra life competes with selling that life, so balance them rather than treat them as separate revenue streams.