A Mobile Platform's In‐App Advertising Contract Under Agency Pricing for App Sales
研究了移动平台应用内广告市场的两个独特特征（平台所有者与应用开发者联合提供广告、应用销售采用代理定价）如何影响平台所有者的最优广告收入分成合同，发现平台所有者可通过广告渠道补贴开发者实现双赢，且代理定价下的应用价格高于传统整合平台。
Unlike advertising in traditional media, a mobile platform's in‐app advertising market exhibits two unique features—split structure of the mobile platform with a platform owner and an app developer jointly provisioning in‐app advertising, and agency pricing for app sales. We develop a two‐sided market model to analyze the role of these two unique features in determining the platform owner's optimal advertising revenue‐sharing contract. Our results reveal an interesting N‐shaped dynamic regarding the platform owner's optimal choice of her ad revenue share with respect to the overall advertisers’ valuation of in‐app ads. We identify a between‐agent subsidization strategy for the platform owner, where she finds it optimal to subsidize the developer via the advertising channel, leading to greater profits for both of them. We find that the advertising revenue‐sharing contract under agency pricing for app sales leads to a higher app price than would be offered by the integrated platform found in traditional advertising. However, the ad price is coordinated under the platform owner's optimal choice of ad revenue share when she obtains revenue from both the advertising and app sales channels, leading to an alignment of her interest with the app developer's on ad level.