CASE STUDY | MONETIZATION
Product Madness Grew ad ARPDAU By 11% Using Vungle In-App Bidding on ironSource LevelPlay
Product Madness is one of the world’s largest mobile game studios, and they focus on giving users the most engaging gameplay experiences and ultra-realistic visuals. Founded in 2007, today they’re a top-grossing leader in social casino mobile games – a genre that traditionally generates revenue from in-app purchases (IAPs).
Sarah Ketir, Head of Ad Monetization and Sinem Su, Ad Monetization Manager, share their experience optimizing ad monetization using ironSource LevelPlay to A/B test in-app bidding on Vungle across their portfolio.
The Challenge
In-app purchases generate a significant share of our total revenue but we also saw value in ad monetization. There are industry assumptions that introducing ads in games can create cannibalization and impact important KPIs like engagement and payer rates. Thus, it was crucial to invest time in our ad monetization strategy.
Good waterfall optimizations result in revenue uplift; but we also need to allocate time for, among others, segmentation or AB tests across the portfolio.
Time efficiency being important, we built custom reports to guide actions like changing eCPM floors and creating or pausing new pricing placements. It was sometimes challenging to make the right decisions since ad monetization managers do not always have visibility on the demand side or seasonal changes.
Currently, we publish our apps on iOS and Android platforms and have several geo-based waterfalls. The attention needed for this type of setup was time-consuming and prone to human errors. It was essential for us to find new ways of increasing our ad revenue while freeing time to improve our user experience across our games.
The Solution
Vungle has always played a key role in our ad monetization strategy. Vungle is one of our key ad source partners that has helped shape our ad monetization strategy.
They would provide optimization suggestions and point to seasonal changes for structuring our waterfall setup to maximize profitability. When it was time to start using the ironSource LevelPlay in-app bidding solution it made sense to expand our partnership with Vungle.
We were able to quickly and easily add Vungle as a bidder. ironSource’s A/B testing tool helped compare waterfall vs. in-app bidding placements, and we were able to see positive results from the combined solution immediately. The platform included all the features and reporting capabilities needed to monitor and improve our ad monetization. After shifting all apps to in-app bidding, the time our team spent on waterfall management significantly decreased.
Both ironSource and Vungle teams are great to work with and are immensely insightful regarding guidance, feedback, test ideas, and benchmarks. All this communication helps us make the most out of in-app bidding.
In-app bidding automatically increases competition for our inventory so we optimize for every placement and attract high-quality advertisers. It provides a fair environment for all ad networks and increases our fill rate. Leveraging Vungle’s network to bid on LevelPlay, we saw an 11% increase in ad ARPDAU across our whole portfolio, with a rise of 45% for our Heart of Vegas game on the iOS platform.
Focusing on how games bring people together, we try to offer a user-centric and engaging gameplay experience. In addition to reducing the time spent on waterfall optimization, communication with the networks, and possible human setup errors, our team now has more time to optimize our blended monetization strategy and improve our games experience.
“Vungle is one of our key ad source partners that has helped us shape our ad monetization strategy. Moving from waterfall to bidding increased the overall eCPM by 7%.”
Sinem Su
Ad Monetization Manager, Product Madness
