What do you do with an ad slot when AdMob has nothing to serve?
I'm a mobile developer, and I've been thinking about a weird mismatch with mobile advertising.
When AdMob doesn't have an ad available, I've already designed the placement and accepted the UX tradeoff of having an ad there — but that inventory can still end up unused.
At the same time, indie developers are constantly struggling to get their apps discovered.
So I built something to connect those two problems.
It's called FillAdsNow.
The idea isn't to replace AdMob.
The flow I had in mind is:
AdMob / monetized network → nothing available → FillAdsNow Community Ad
Instead of leaving the placement empty, it can display another indie developer's app.
I built the integration around a plain HTTPS API instead of another advertising SDK, and Community Ads don't use behavioral tracking.
Developers aren't required to contribute their own app just to display Community Ads. But if you contribute an eligible app, your app becomes eligible to receive exposure through the network too.
I'm launching it now, and I'm much more interested in hearing from people who actually use AdMob than getting generic startup feedback.
I'm curious about two things:
1. When AdMob has nothing available, would you actually use another indie app as fallback inventory, or would you rather leave the placement empty?
2. What would make you reject something like this immediately — latency, creative quality, moderation, reporting, integration complexity, something else?
Full disclosure: I built FillAdsNow.
If there's interest, I'm happy to share the implementation and explain how I'm using it alongside AdMob.