Admob for Xamarin made easy
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to monetize your Xamarin apps with AdMob using my MTAdmob plugin.
Important: If you receive errors compiling the code for iOS, install the package Xamarin.Google.iOS.MobileAds in your iOS project.
UPDATE 16/10/2019: MTAdmob is now Open Source on Github: https://github.com/marcojak/MTAdmobUPDATE 11/10/2019: VERY IMPORTANT!!! The new version 1.4.4 is out. There is an issue in the latest Xamarin.Google.iOS.MobileAds 7.47. Because of this, in your iOS project you have to install the plugin Xamarin.Google.iOS.SignIn 4.4.0 too. This will let you compile and use MobileAds.
UPDATE 1/May/2019: I’ve released the new version 1.3 thas sovles some issues with iOS and improves performances.
UPDATE: From version 1.2, MTAdmob supports also Google ads rewarded videos for Android and iOS
UPDATE: I’ve added on github the source code of a project to test this Admob plugin. You can find it here: https://github.com/marcojak/TestMTAdmob
To help you to speed up your Xamarin development, I’ve created a set of plugins, one of them is MTAdmob. Thanks to this plugin you can add Admob banners and Insterstitials in just few lines of code. It couldn’t be easier than that and I’ll show you.
Install the plugin
First of all, right click on your Xamarin solution and select “Manage Nuget packages for Solution”
Visual Studio will open a new screen where you can search and install one or more nuget packages. In this case we can search for the MTAdmob plugin. Searching for MarcTron will show you all my packages (I’m sure you can find other useful plugins that I’ve written), and we can select the MTAdmob plugin as showed in the next image.
It’s very important that you install the plugin in your PCL/.Net standard project and in your platform projects (Android, iOS, UWP).
After the Admob plugin is installed we can add banners and insterstitials to our projects.
Add Ads to our project
With version 1.0 the MTAdmob plugin supports banner and interstitials for Android and iOS. If you would like to see the plugin supporting also the UWP platform, let me now and I’ll add the support in a new version.
As I’ve said we can add Banners and Interstitials Admob ads to our project. Let’s start with the Banners
How to add an Admob Banner
An Admob banner is just a view inside our page. It means that we can add it using XAML or C#. First of all let’s see how to add an Admob banner using XAML.
Add an Admob Banner with XAML
In MTAdmob to use an Admob banner I’ve created a custom control called AdView, so to use it we can use this code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:MarcTron.Plugin.Controls;assembly=Plugin.MtAdmob"
x:Class="Test.MTAdmob.MainPage">
<StackLayout>
<Label Text="Let's test an Admob Banner!"
HorizontalOptions="Center"
VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand" />
<!-- Place the Admob controls here -->
<controls:MTAdView/>
</StackLayout>
In this example we have created a StackLayout with 2 controls: a label and an AdView (our Admob banner). Easy! Isn’t it???
The AdView control is basically a View so you can use all the properties you can think of like: HorizontalOptions, VerticalOptions, IsVisible…
In addition to these properties, I’ve added in AdView two other properties: AdsId and PersonalizedAds.
AdsId: Allows you to add the Banner Id (you can find it in your Admob account)
PersonalizedAds: This allow you to use non personalized ads. For example in case of GPDR. Of course it’s better to use personalized Ads.
To use these properties you can update the previous code to:
<controls:AdView PersonalizedAds="true" AdsId="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"/>Add an Admob Banner with C#
In case you don’t write your pages with XAML or you write your UI in C# or you want to add your view only in some cases, you can add your Admob Banner using this code:
using MarcTron.Plugin;
...
MTAdView ads = new MTAdView();
Of course you need to attach this View to your layout, but you know how to do it (If not, feel free to ask).
To use the custom properties you can change the previous code to:
...
MTAdView ads = new MTAdView();
ads.AdsId = "xxx";
ads.PersonalizedAds = true;
Also in this case, to add an Admob banner is INCREDIBILY EASY!!!
Global Custom Properties
As you have seen, the properties AdsId and PersonalizedAds belong to a single AdView. It means that you have to set them for every Admob Banner.
To make things even easier I’ve added the option to set these properties only once. To do so, you can use this C# code:
CrossMTAdmob.Current.UserPersonalizedAds = true;
CrossMTAdmob.Current.AdsId = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";
In this case all your Admob banner will show personalized ads and will have the same Id.
If you set local and global properties, the local ones will have higher priority.
Use of Banner Events
I’ve added 4 events to the Admob banner that you could find nice to have. These events are:
- AdsClicked When a user clicks on the ads
- AdsClosed When the user closes the ads
- AdsImpression Called when an impression is recorded for an ad.
- AdsOpened When the ads is opened
To use these events you can write this code:
AdView myAds = new AdView();
myAds.AdsClicked += MyAdsAdsClicked;
myAds.AdsClosed += MyAds_AdVClosed;
myAds.AdsImpression += MyAds_AdVImpression;
myAds.AdsOpened += MyAds_AdVOpened;
Of course you can use these events also if you have declared your AdView in your XAML code.
Admob Interstitials
Now that we know how to add Admob banners using my plugin MTAdmob, let’s see how we can add Admob Interstitials. If possible, to add an Admob interstitial is even easier. You just need a single line of code. Don’t you believe me? Look here how to show an Admob interstitial:
CrossMTAdmob.Current.ShowInterstitial("ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxx");
I told you!!! That’s it!!! With that line of code you have just showed an Interstitial in you app. Of course you need to replace that string with the Insterstitial ID you can find in your Admob account.
Events for Interstitials
There 3 events that you can use with Interstitials:
OnInterstitialLoaded When it's loaded
OnInterstitialOpened When it's opened
OnInterstitialClosed When it's closedRewarded Video
From version 1.1 the plugin supports the amazing Rewarded Video too.
To show a rewarded video you just need a single line of code:
CrossMTAdmob.Current.ShowRewardedVideo("xx-xxx-xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/xxxxxxxxxx");Events for Rewarded videos
There are 7 events that you can use with the Rewarded video Ads:
OnRewarded When the user gets a reward
OnRewardedVideoAdClosed When the ads is closed
OnRewardedVideoAdFailedToLoad When the ads fails to load
OnRewardedVideoAdLeftApplication When the users leaves the application
OnRewardedVideoAdLoaded When the ads is loaded
OnRewardedVideoAdOpened When the ads is opened
OnRewardedVideoStarted When the ads startsInitialization
Before you can use the Admob banners and Interstitials, you need to initialize it. You need to do it only once so it makes sense to initialize it onside the OnCreate method in Android and FinishedLaunching in iOS.
In your Android project add this line in your OnCreate method:
MobileAds.Initialize(ApplicationContext, "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx~xxxxxxxxxx");
In your iOS project add this line in your FinishedLaunching method:
MobileAds.SharedInstance.Start(CompletionHandler);
private void CompletionHandler(InitializationStatus status){}
In iOS you should install the package Xamarin.Google.iOS.MobileAds and Xamarin.Google.iOS.SignIn!
You need to add to your Info.plist file this:
<key>GADApplicationIdentifier</key>
<string>YOUR APP ID</string>
<key>GADIsAdManagerApp</key>
<true/>Android Project (Important)
In your AndroidManifest you should add these lines:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE"/>
<application android:label="Test.MTAdmob.Android">
<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.version" android:value="@integer/google_play_services_version"/>
<meta-data android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID" android:value="ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx~yyyyyyyyyy"/>
<activity android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AdActivity" android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent" />
</application>iOS Project (Important)
From version 1.4.4 you need to manually install the packages: Xamarin.Google.iOS.MobileAds and Xamarin.Google.iOS.SignIn! If you don’t install them, your app will not compile.
Some useful links
- Admob official website: https://apps.admob.com/
- Available on Nuget: https://www.nuget.org/packages/MarcTron.Admob
- Source Code: https://github.com/marcojak/MTAdmob
- Tutorial: https://www.xamarinexpert.it/admob-made-easy/
- Test Project:https://github.com/marcojak/TestMTAdmob
- To report any issue: https://bitbucket.org/marcojak81/mtadmob
Conclusion
This Admob MTAdmob plugin is incredibly easy to use but in case you need help, or you want to suggest a new feature or for any other reason, write me.