On the Relationship between the Number of Ad Libraries in an Android App and its Rating

One of the most popular ways to monetize a free app is by including advertisements in the app. There are several advertising (ad) companies that provide these ads to the app developers through ad libraries that need to be integrated in the app. However, the demand for ads far exceeds the supply for them. This obstacle may lead app developers to integrate several ad libraries from different ad companies in their app to assure receiving an ad when requested. However, there is no empirical evidence so far about how many ad libraries are integrated in an app. Additionally, there is no current research to examine if integrating many different ad libraries has an impact on the ratings of an app. In this paper, we examine these two issues, by empirically examining thousands of Android apps. We find that there are apps with as many as 28 ad libraries. We find no evidence that the number of ad libraries in an app is related to the ratings that an app can get. However, integrating certain specific ad libraries can negatively impact the rating of an app.