Mobile advertising is such a nightmare these years, with terribly low revenue and click-through rates crippling both commercial companies and indie developers.

However, more and more remarkable advertising networks are rising, offering a great variety of monetization models to help developers maximize the revenue of their mobile apps, and yet most of us only know about AdMob.

But you deserve a better advertising network, and that is the purpose we have here: to feature 20 advertising networks with standard and creative app-vertising models, flexible monetization features and detailed analytics to pump up your revenue strategically.

To make it easier, we provided a comparison list for you to check out the features of each network in a glance. But first, let’s take a look at what each network has in store for you.

Recommended Reading: A Look Into: Designing For Mobile Devices

Our Favorite Picks

AdMob

Being the child of the behemoth Google, AdMob should be the first advertising network for app developers to consider for monetization. What makes it a worthy platform here is probably not its brand, but its integration system a.k.a SDK (Software Development Kit) that helps you connect across famous platforms such as iOS, Android and the rising Windows Phone.

Given the strong coding nature of Google, the SDK allows you to choose from a wide range of ad formats for both mobile devices and tablets, including standard banner ads, interstitial (full screen) ads, interactive ads and exclusive custom search ads. Integration is far less painful with AdMob, as the documentation is clean and complete with recommendations for best practices.

However, tons of personal reports indicate that the eCPM or revenue on the AdMob is very low, and as usual, support is hard to reach. Apparently best integration does not mean maximum revenue, so you might want to try your luck with other reliable networks with dynamic monetization models such as CPI (Click Per Install).

Millennial Media

As the first mobile advertising network that furthered itself to an Initial Public Offering (IPO), Millennial Media clearly knows how to do business, and offers lots of grand deals for developers ranging from top mobile gaming companies to indie teams.

The intelligence gathered from its many research probably makes Millennial Media a full-fledged self-service platform which not only offers publishing features, but advertising features that you could utilize to promote your apps.

You can create a client campaign that lets advertisers compete for your inventory within the respective categories – date range, targeting, pacing and pricing – and all transactions are reported inside its systematic dashboard. Millennial Media is also the loyal supporter of Ad Network Mediation that grants you the ability to display advertisement from other advertising networks, such as AdMob.

You can even allocate traffic across the networks by percentage, location, and ad revenue based on eCPM. The House Ads also helps you to cross-promote your lines of apps inside your own application. That said, it’s clear enough that Millennial Media is simply the best combination of advertisement and monetization for your app.

Adfonic

Adfonic cares not only about integration, it cares for the performance of your advertisement, with the promise of 95% average fill rates on both iOS and Android, and even up to 10x higher eCPMs with rich media advertisement. To achieve this, they are working directly with international agencies and brands such as Samsung, ESPN, BBS and Amazon Kindle to display their giant campaigns in your mobile app.

Adfonic also supports AdMob mediation to ensure your fill rate is exploding, and your maximum revenue is guaranteed. Built with the mind of supporting giant advertisers and publishers, Adfonic offers Ad Serving API that lets you customize the type of ads you request and specific ways they will be returned, for example XML, JSON, URL encoded or raw HTML.

You can even manage multiple accounts through a single platform, and access all publishers’ data through real-time reporting API and analytics dashboard. Though the flexibility is great, it could translate into lots of technical difficulties and confusion that may lead to possible revenue loss. Sometimes, less is more. Implement only what is necessary.

Chartboost

Standard mobile advertising networks are good, but when it comes to displaying ads on your game titles, they become hugely irrelevant due to the fact that the standard networks are targeting mass audiences with great variety of interests.

Chartboost is the solution for game developers, as it’s a platform that’s dedicated to advertise gaming ads, with up-to-par integration and analytics technology.

Chartboost offers lots of creative solutions that are bent on heavy promotion and they are all done in a professional sense. They also optimize your eCPM while advertisers increase their bids to pump out the revenue number you will really like to see. You only need 5 lines of codes to make Chartboost start working for you.

The ads are mostly about downloading another new game, so it meets the interest of the audiences who are already playing games, and always seeking for the next fun factor.

Tapjoy

In-App Purchasing has been a hot debate topic lately, with most mobile gamers arguing that they don’t want to pay repeatedly just to complete a game. But how about doing something to earn the in-game coins, such as downloading another free game?

That’s what Tapjoy is doing: offering the gamers the chance to earn virtual currency by performing real-world action. The model is called incentivized download.

You give gamers the incentive (usually in virtual currency) to choose or download apps. In place, they can reap virtual rewards and premium content on 20,000+ games supported by Tapjoy in 1 billion network devices. Over 77 million monthly active users are on Tapjoy, so common issues like fill rate does not exist here.

What is an issue is that Apple is certainly not happy with the model, since the network has raised massive concerns about the gaming of the App store’s download chart. Apple has been banning this practice for all iOS apps, but Tapjoy gets around the rules by re-launching the system as a web application, which Apple cannot rule over.

If Apple hates it, you know that this is really an effective, even a bit dirty way to monetize and promote your game.

More

Aditic

Aditic has a strong background in mobile advertising and marketing probably thanks to its parent company, Sofialys. The team has been working for over 6 years to develop idiot-proof platforms for mobile developers. As a result, the Aditic system supports iOS, Android, Blackberry, Samsung Bada and even Java with a nice range of ad formats including interstitial ads.

Admoda

Admoda is a mobile advertising network that’s paying CPC, CPM and Flat Rates to its publisher, and they are promising you unbeaten fill rates and eCPMs in the industry. The integration is straightforward, but don’t fear even if you are new to the system, as their support system is filled by non-robots (aka humans) dedicated to solving your issues efficiently.

Flurry

Thrive in the new app economy, as Flurry wants to help you generate more advertising revenue with its largest app data set on consumer usage in the world, collected from more than 700 million mobile smartphones and tablets! From this point you can observe that Flurry is really confident about the power of its analytics, as proven through its detailed analytics promotion page.

HUNT

Hunt your revenue with 2 billion mobile users in HUNT Mobile Ads network, and it also equips you with standard hunter kits ranging from SDK to reporting tools, and reporting API to make sure you track down or catch the best ads for your mobile app or website.

inMobi

inMobi originates from India, but this does not stop them from trying to conquer the international mobile advertising market. The stat proves their capabilities too, as they have so far reached 93.4 billion impressions in 165 countries with 578 million consumers, making it a considerable choice for any developer that desires successful monetization.

Jumptap

From the time you start sending the app requests from your app, the targeted Mobile advertising leader, Jumptap begins its operation to optimize your app’s performance and ensure your revenue could reach its possible maximum. It has also partnered with other data providers including datalogix to guarantee the best uses of your inventory.

Kiip

Kiip operates a business model similar to what we called “incentivisation”, but calls it “rewarding”. The difference is that, instead of doing chores for virtual rewards you may not like, you can actually redeem real products, such as carbonated drinks and snacks!

Besides, the company is doing great in integrating this fresh idea with its sleek API and SDK, just as professional as other advertising platforms!

Madvertise

Established in 2008, Madvertise specializes mobile advertisement in Europe, especially German-speaking countries with technically unique services for both advertisers and publishers, such as Real-Time Bidding and rich media ad formats. Oh, and don’t be afraid of its premium web design yet, since it features open source SDK for simple integration.

MobFox

Farewell to $0.01 CPCs. Over 10,000 publishers have been utilizing the MobFox advertising marketplace to help them earn up to 300% more revenue from their mobile apps.

On top of that, you achieve full control over the ads shown in your mobile, and with the eCPM control feature you are able to set minimum CPC/CPM floor limits at the price you desired.

MobPartner

As a Return Of Investment (ROI) driven company, MobPartner makes sure that you get the best revenue for your time spent on this mobile affiliate network.

The SDK helps you to display banner and text link from its CPA campaign, and you can also go for the advertiser route with CPI campaign, if you’re looking for some breakthrough in your download traffic!

MoPub

What’s truly strong about MoPub is its advertisement format that could be summarized in one word: rich. Static images, HTML5 Ads, Banner, Landing Ads, Expand Ads, Interstitial Ads, Video and ORMMArich Media ads are always available for you to play creatively with your advertisement.

It’s not just about ad format, MoPub wants to drive more revenue, therefore they debuted MoPub Marketplace that allows bidders to quote prices for your ad impressions the moment they’re available, and take advantage of data to optimize their bids in real time. This results in precise ad targeting that drives even better revenue for both parties.

Mojiva

Mojiva prides itself with its technology that crawls though the publisher mobile apps and catches relevant keywords using intelligent algorithms, then indexes them to empower the contextual mobile advertising system that eventually leads to the most important result: more earnings to you.

Be sure to register a website for your app though, since they do not accept free email accounts, such as Gmail.

PlayHaven

Aligned with the terms flexibility, information and control, PlayHaven really lives up to what it offers. Not only can you monetize your app with control over the placement and frequency, you could also cross-promote other games and even request valuable user information to re-engage players outside your game.

RevMob

RevMob is a rising Cost-Per-Install (CPI) network that offers the highest eCPM for game publishers. They offer various kinds of apps, and the technical integration is so easy that you just need to put 2 lines of code inside your app to earn your first pile of income from them.

The network also straightened up your integration mess by introducing SDK that supports game engine, including Unity and Corona.

Smaato

Versatile platform support is enough to describe the dedication of Smaato. iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry, Samsung Bada, Symbian, you name it, they got you supported. Their love for support has even expanded to their ad format that truly helps you to achieve virtually any type, and any behavior of advertisement you want.

Comparison Chart

Network	Platform	Known Model	Supported Ad Format	Mediation	House Ads
AdMob	iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7	CPC	Banner, Smart Banner, Interstitial, Search, Table	Yes	Yes
mMedia	iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Symbian, Java, WebOS	CPC, CPM, CPA	Banner, Interstitial, Interactive Video, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
Adfonic	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
Chartboost	iOS, Android	CPC, CPI	Interstitial	No	Yes
Tapjoy	iOS, Android, Windows Phone	CPI	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Offer Wall	Yes	No
Aditic	iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Java, Samsung Bada	CPC	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Splash Screen, Video	No	Yes
Admoda	Android	CPC, CPM, Flat Rate	Banner, Post-roll, Text, Click-to-Call	No	Yes
Flurry	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM, CPI	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Takeover	Yes	Yes
HUNT	iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry	CPC, CPM, CPA	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Video	Yes	No
InMobi	iOS, Android, Windows Phone	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Video, Text, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
Jumptap	iOS, Android, Blackberry	CPC	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Rich Media	Yes	Yes
Kiip	iOS, Android	CPI	Offer Wall	No	No
Madvertise	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Overlay, Video Overlay, Flip, Engagement	Yes	Yes
Mobfox	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Video	Yes	Yes
MobPartner	iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Java	CPC, CPI, CPS, CPL, Hybrid	Banner, Interstitial, Video, Offer Wall	No	No
MoPub	iOS, Android	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Video, ORMMArich Media Ads, Landing Page	Yes	Yes
Mojiva	iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7, Java, QT	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Interstitial, Video, Text, Table	Yes	No
PlayHaven	iOS, Android	CPI	Interstitial, Offer Wall	No	No
RevMob	iOS, Android	CPI	Banner, Interstitial	No	No
Smaato	iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Samsung Bada, Symbian	CPC, CPM	Banner, Expandable, Interactive Banner, Floating Banner, Video, Text	Yes	Yes

Editor’s Note: This is a contributed post by Pavlushka, the author of CrazyPixels web design blog. He writes inspirational articles about web design technologies and useful web design tutorials, about how to create amazing web design artworks. Feel free to follow him on Twitter.

Icon design is ignored sometimes when creating a website layout. The simplest method to catch the interest of your visitors is by creating a good user experience through attractive icons. An icon is a small, but critically important detail that defines the aesthetic look of the whole website design. For instance, to connect with your visitors, you can use social icons to help you with this task.

In today’s article, you will find 76 icon sets for a variety of purpose, all available for free. It’s quite a difficult task to find inspiration and fresh ideas while designing a new website, but perhaps these icon sets will be able to be a great source of ideas.

There is no room for doubt, just choose and download the icon set you like the most. This collection will spice up your design arsenal for sure.

Recommended Reading: Beautiful IOS App Icon Designs For Your Inspiration

The list of icon sets have been split up to four parts to make it easier for you:

• Social media icons
• Multi-purpose icons
• Toolbar icons
• Glyph icons

Social Media

Vintage Social Media Stamps

Sociality

Social Icons hand drawn

Stylish Social Icon Set

Buddycons

Social Media Icon Set

36 free vintage social icons

Social Icons Pack

41 Social Media Icons

Dark Social Media Circle Icons

GoSocial

Multi-Format Social Media Glyph Set

Metro Social Media Icon Set

Free Vector Social Media Icons Set

Free Social Bundle Vector Icons

Multi-Purpose Icon Sets

Professional E-Commerce Icons Set

Academic Icon Set

Ecology Icon Set

Free Set of Photography Icons

Summer beach and seaworld set

dunk & olympic

Goodies

Free Icon Set From Ramotion

Autumn Breeze Icons

Envelope Icon Set

Free Set of Hand-Drawn Icons

Mobile Icon Set

Payment Icon Set

Trainee

Touch Gesture Icons

One Div

165 Lovely Vector Icons

Toolbar Icons

Flavour

Build Icons

Basal Icons

Freshy Icons

Aroma

Metro UI Dock Icon Set

30 Toolbar Icons

Glyph Icon Sets

Premium Pixels Icon Set

Brocolli Dry Icons

Other Icons

Retro Icon Set

Pixic Icon Set

Shopping Icons

MimiGlyphs

Pixel UI Icon Set

Handy Icons

IconSweets

gCons

Petite Icons

Mini Icons Vol. 1

Pace Icon Set

Finely Crafted Icon Set

Brankic1979 Icon Set

50 Crisp Web UI Icons

WPZOOM Developer Icon Set

Token

350 Vector Web Icons

Batch

Android Icons

Crisp Icon Set

Listicons

Minimicons 2nd Edition

200 icons from Inventicons

204 Google Plus Interface Icons

Micro Icon Set

Jigsoar Icons

modernminimal

50 Mini Icons

Glyph Icons PatriGlyphs #1

Browsercons

Silkcons: 120 Glyphs Set

126 Icon Set

40 Icon Set

Application Icon Set

Conclusion

We hope this great freebie bundle will help you to create stunning designs. If you have any questions, suggestions or just want to say “hello”, feel free to use a comment field below.

There are times we find ourselves in situations that we need to keep our phone in Silent Mode, for example in a meeting, a seminar or an important event. But there are calls that cannot be missed: the call to get to the hospital because your wife is in labor, the call from your kids who are studying in a different time zone or any calls from Mom.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could keep your iPhone on silent but have it ring only for selected individuals or a special group?

You can set this up with iOS6, under the Do Not Disturb feature. You will first need to create a group of people who can get to you regardless of your phone being on Silent Mode. Here’s how.

Recommended Reading: 15 Apps To Download (Free) IPhone Alert Tones & Ringtones

1. Create a Group in Contacts

To allow calls from only selected groups, first you need to create a group in your contact book. The group will consist of only the contacts that you want to allow calls from. For now, the easiest way to create a group is to create it on iCloud.

To start, browse over to iCloud and click on ‘Contacts’.

On the top part of your contact book you’ll notice a red ribbon. Click on it.

You will see your contacts on the right hand side and your groups on the left side. Click on the ‘+’ symbol at the bottom of the left page to create a group.

Name the group. In this example, we will use ‘Family’. After naming it click back to the ‘All contacts’ page.

To add contacts into your group, just select the contacts (press Ctrl for multiple selections) and drag it into the group you just created.

You can click on ‘Family’ group just to double check if all of your contacts are already in the group.

2. Customize Notifications Settings

Now on your iPhone, go to your Contact book and refresh it, just to ensure that your newly created group is in your iPhone.

Then, tap on Settings > Notifications > Do Not Disturb.

On the ‘Do Not Disturb’ page, tap on ‘Allow Calls From’ and choose the group you want notifications to come in for, regardless of the Silent Mode being on.

Note that you can only set to allow calls from only one group. That means if you have two groups that you want to let ring even in silent mode, you will have to pick only one, or group both of them together.

There is actually another alternative. You can put individual contacts under the ‘Favorites’ category, simply tap on the contact and select ‘Add to Favorites’. Then set ‘Allow Calls From’ to ‘Favorites’.

3. Activate ‘Do Not Disturb’

To activate this mode, go to the ‘Settings’ page, and turn ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature ON. Your phone goes straight into Silent Mode and will only allow the group you’ve selected to get through to you.