Not too long ago, the ad monetization world felt very different. You plugged in a few demand sources, stacked your networks in a waterfall, and hoped the top ones delivered. And for a while, they did. But the way users behave, the way advertisers buy, and the way monetization systems work have all evolved. What worked in 2021 doesn’t quite cut it in 2025. Today, mobile publishers are navigating a monetization landscape filled with real-time auctions, bidding wars, SDK complexity, and shifting expectations. Somewhere between the hype of full in-app bidding and the stability of traditional waterfall, a new approach is quietly winning: Hybrid waterfall.
Before we go there, let’s rewind a bit.
The waterfall model was built on predictability. It ordered ad networks by their past performance, typically eCPM, and served ad requests in that order until one filled. It gave publishers control, and when things were stable, it worked. But it was also static. It relied on yesterday’s performance to make today’s decisions. And in a world where every user session is different and advertisers change their targeting and spend much frequently, that can lead to missed opportunities.
Then came in-app bidding.
It promised to flip the model on its head. Instead of waiting for networks to respond one by one, everyone bids at once. A real-time auction. More competition. More transparency. Less manual work. The vision was bold: better revenue with less effort.
And in many cases, it delivered. Publishers saw upticks in fill rates and revenue. Ad ops teams breathed easier. The industry began to believe that this was it, this was the future.
But the shift didn’t go as smoothly as everyone hoped. Some demand partners didn’t play well in a bidding-only environment. Others simply weren’t ready. There were gaps in performance. In some regions, latency issues popped up. On certain devices, SDK conflicts reappeared. What looked great on a test app didn’t always hold at scale.
Publishers started noticing something: when they brought back parts of their waterfall, just a few high-performing networks placed strategically, they actually made more money. More importantly, they had more control over how their inventory was valued. That’s when the conversation changed from bidding-only to something more practical.
Enter the Hybrid waterfall.
It’s not flashy. It’s not a radical reinvention. But it works. It takes the strengths of both worlds, bidding’s real-time competition and waterfall’s predictable performance, and blends them in a way that’s flexible and grounded. Bidders can compete for top priority placements while trusted networks with consistent results hold their positions in the fallback. It’s strategic. It’s adaptive. And it reflects how monetization really works in 2025, not in theory, but in practice.
Even leading platforms now acknowledge this shift. As discussed in the Global Games Forum podcast, monetization specialist Bruno Balistrieri shared insights from his A/B testing:
“Hybrid Waterfall models generally provide a more balanced approach, combining the efficiency of bidding with the stability of traditional waterfalls. While Bidding-Only can be more efficient in theory, some networks still perform better with traditional prioritization.“
At Crackle, we work with publishers across games, tools, and media apps, and we consistently see Hybrid waterfall setups outperforming both legacy waterfalls and bidding-only experiments. Why? Because they give publishers room to test, adapt, and scale intelligently. They don’t force a binary choice between control and automation. They give you both.
So if you’re still asking, “Should I switch to bidding?”, you might be asking the wrong question. The better question is: How can I build a Hybrid waterfall that’s smart, flexible, and designed for my app inventory?
That’s where the future of monetization is heading. Not toward one-size-fits-all solutions, but toward systems that are dynamic, data-driven, and tailored to your reality, not someone else’s playbook.
And the sooner we stop chasing silver bullets, the sooner we start building smarter ones.
If you feel you want to know more about how to set up a smart Hybrid waterfall for maximum revenue optimization, click here for a quick meeting.
