Google AdSense for Mobile Applications Goes Into Public Beta

Google had been testing AdSense on mobile apps for the iPhone and Android in a kind of private beta with roughly 10 partners, including Pandora, Shazam and Urbanspoon. Now the program is opening up to apps developers and publishers who meet some criteria (among them, a 3 month commitment, 100K+ page views). Google said that trial publishers/developers had been very pleased with the program and the revenues they’ve seen, and Google felt that it was time to open up the program to more participants.

Publisher-developers can apply here. On the advertiser side, if you’re already in the content network you’re going to show up on these apps (there’s no opt-out at this point). So you might want to consider a mobile-optimized landing page. Although Google said that the Safari and Android browsers were good enough to send people to conventional landing pages or sites for those that did not have mobile-optimized pages.

Here’s the Urbanspoon testimonial:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaMDikYsO_g&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Postscript: Google has just informed me that advertisers not wanting this mobile exposure can in fact opt out of having their ads shown on apps. But many advertisers should want this distribution because of higher CTRs and conversions in many cases.