Chartboost

Chartboost built its massive reputation entirely through mobile gaming. Unlike AdMob, which might show an ad for car insurance inside a puzzle game, Chartboost historically focused exclusively on cross-promoting other mobile games. If you are playing a racing game, Chartboost shows you an ad for a different racing game. This highly targeted approach resulted in massive conversion rates. Now owned by the gaming giant Take-Two Interactive, Chartboost has evolved into a fully programmatic exchange. It acts as a massive digital marketplace where game publishers sell their ad space in real-time to the highest bidder. One of their most beloved features among indie developers is the "Direct Deals" marketplace. Instead of relying on a black-box algorithm to serve ads, an indie developer with a popular puzzle game can negotiate directly with another indie developer making a word game. They can agree to swap traffic—"I'll show 10,000 of your ads in my game if you show 10,000 of my ads in yours"—completely bypassing network fees and helping both studios grow organically without an advertising budget.