Amazon introduces Mobile Ads API, offering in-app advertising to U.S. viewers of any Android app

Amazon has today announced its Amazon Mobile Ads API for developers, allowing them to offer display ads inside their apps. The new program serves in the U.S. only, though, meaning that apps serving primarily international customers won’t benefit right away.

The new Ads API can be used on apps distributed on any Android platform as long as the app is also available on Amazon’s Appstore. What this means is that apps that are shipped on Google Play don’t have to be stripped of their Amazon ads and filled with Google ones, as long as the app is shipped on its Appstore as well.

Amazon says that the program offers a ‘competitive eCPM’ and that it will ship[ ads from Amazon itself as well as brand advertisers. Amazon is showing off a couple of different types of ads in sample apps. There’s the ‘floating ad’ which has a banner that slips in from the bottom of the screen:

And there is what Amazon calls a ‘simple ad’, which is more like a standard web banner:

Amazon has trotted out a couple of developers that have begun using the new Ads API and are seeing some success:

 “We switched to Amazon from another major ad network and have seen revenue lift of 200%. Now, I call Amazon first, then another network, so my overall revenue increased 250%. The results from Amazon have greatly exceeded our expectations.”

The program is in beta now, and developers can download the new API and its documentation here.

Top image credit: Lionel Bonaventure for AFP / Getty Images