Just a few hours have passed since Windows 10 SDK became available to app developers and we are proud to present the first native Windows 10 cross-promotion network and (to the best of our knowledge) the first ad SDK for your Universal Windows Platform apps!

TL;DR version

1. AdDuplex SDK for Windows 10 is out – get it here;
2. It’s beta quality;
3. It supports banners and interstitials (same specs as for Windows Phone apps);
4. Go create a new Windows 10 app listing in the Client Area and add SDK into your app or game – it’s as simple as it was for Windows Phone;
5. Watch your user base grow!

New but familiar

Up to now we had 2 fairly separate sub-networks – one for Windows Phone apps and one for Windows 8.x. With Windows 10 UWP you will be able to build universal apps supporting all sorts of devices, so the boundary that we had doesn’t make a lot of sense going forward. We had 3 choices: start a brand new “sub-network” for Windows 10 apps or continue with one of the existing branches and keep the other one for the “legacy” apps.

While starting clean looked attractive, we felt that giving developers an established network to promote their apps on is way more important. So that left us with 2 choices: move forward based on the Windows Phone subnet or continue with Windows 8. While the timing for Windows 10 version releases suggests the later, everything else was in favor of going forward with the Windows Phone branch. We have about 8x more apps on the Windows Phone network than Windows 8, we have interstitial support on WP, more streamlined ad formats (we have 7 ad sizes on Windows 8 and most of them are sparsely used), etc. And, to be honest, even Microsoft admits that Store apps never really took off on Windows, even with a much broader user base than that of WP.

So we are building our Windows 10 cross-promotion network on top of our Windows Phone foundation. This will give your universal apps a much broader network of potential users once Windows 10 Mobile is released.

Getting started

If you are familiar with AdDuplex client area setting up a Windows 10 app won’t be a problem.

The main difference is that now, in addition to selecting your app’s platform, for Windows 10 apps you have to specify supported device families. You will also need to provide a new format Store URL that you can get from Dev Center (App Management –> App identity)

Then everything is the same as it is for Windows Phone apps – you can create one or more ad units which are either for banner ads or interstitials. Image formats and specifications are the same as well (768×128 <25kb for banners, 1600×900/900×1600 <256kb for interstitials).

Note: we are aware that you may want to have other banner options when running on a bigger screen (like vertical or square banners) and we will address this at a later stage.

As for the code, it’s pretty much the same as it was for Windows Phone – just download the SDK from the Visual Studio Gallery and follow the instructions in the Code tab of your app’s listing.

Known issues

There could be some issues if you add a “close ad” button in the corner of the ad control. We are working on fixing this and improving overall process for implementing such a button. We recommend that you refrain from implementing it with this version of the SDK.

It’s a first release, so be gentle

Windows 10 is brand new, Windows 10 developer tools are brand new, so is our SDK and overall support for it in the AdDuplex system. Inevitably there will be smaller or larger issues and we apologize if you hit one of them.

On the other hand, it is impossible for us to eradicate the bugs and fix all the quirks without your help. So, please, do integrate our SDK into your great UWP apps and games at your earliest convenience and test it out. Send your bug reports, comments and suggestions to support@adduplex.com.

Thank you, and let’s build the greatest cross-promotion network for your Windows 10 apps together!