AdQuantum’s Sergey Sukhov On Strengthening Ad Network Bonds for Better Performance

[Music] hello world welcome back to the Pocket Gamer podcast with your host me Brian Bago and our unicorn of user acquisition Miss Peggy an salts hello Peggy it's always a pleasure how are you today I am fine I think that's the best one so far Brian I think people will just tune in to hear how you start it every single time I love it I'm getting T-shirt with that actually um just love it and uh we're going to stay with the idea of UA because we have a very different kind of growth agency and we're gonna be chatting about that because this growth agency app Quantum yes it is a growth agency as we know them but there's a little bit of a difference because they've got your back in a sense so I'm excited we have Ser sukov he is Chief Business Development officer at as I said app Quantum um did digging I was

very interested to find out that his career started in call centers where he had to master the art of listening to customer complaints and it sounds to me judging from where you are now Sergey that uh that prepared you very well for listening to the needs and challenges of smaller Studios so it's a fit it's a fit and it's absolutely uh great to have you here on the show today uh thank you so much P you thank you uh for having me today it's a pleasure of me to be here with you uh and that's right um I got into the sales a long time ago um when I worked that time when um all types of sales just has been used just with a simple handset and that's it but anyway it was a great experience because it it was my beginning it was my start uh and it really helped me a lot with the understanding many things at once uh for example

uh customer support for or uh a lot of things that taught me about how to work with the complaints with the claims with some different objections and of course just it was my beginning how I started to sell sery it it sounds amazing and and that that's quite a background so can you share with us how how those experiences have shaped not just your current role but your whole approach to mobile growth and what is it that ad Quantum actually does um you know to support developers I think that in this case we should start uh we should make a step back uh and start from the beginning so yeah I am CBD at at Quantum we based on Cyprus and basically we are it holding which means that we include a lot of different uh companies inside uh one of them it's a performance-based agency so this is the like the main thing that uh can help um small uh stud Studio or middle siiz Studio to scale

their businesses of course we provide some solutions for big players but it depends on depends on the size again but we also have a gaming publishing uh which called up Quantum so this is give us understanding how game developing industry Works uh get the freshest Insight that we can get from the from the market of course we also have a non-gaming publishing so sometimes we see um outside of the Gaming Community sometimes we get some insights from the different verticals like Health and Fitness for example uh or maybe from utility so it also giv us a lot of uh sense a lot of insights a lot of uh support because sometimes this fresh vision of of the businesses or maybe on the creatives will help us to find the better way how how to solve it and of course we have our own creative Production Studio because this the base

I think right now because uh everyone wants to to find a winner I mean creative winner that can help them to increase their performance boost their performance and scale business for all so yeah I think um this is all in one solution that we usually provide everyone's who who wants to maybe scale their business or to stable them or to maybe um help them with the support during this turbulent times and maybe sometimes challenging times it's really about negotiating a solid deal that serves the studio as as well as the ad Network it has to be fair but there are tactics that smaller game studios can use that they probably don't even know they have so what is the position they need to be taking when they are dealing with large ad networks to start would

like to elaborate this question maybe or divide for two part the the first one was will be about that um if guys if you do really great product um if a lot of great people who created stand behind you and have a positive uh economis for example or a growth potential everyone would like to start working with you depends on the size because uh the first maybe right now uh believe is is one of the most important thing uh depends on uh will you will get will you get a contract for example with the specific at network will you will get um some rebates for example from another one or not um and another part another maybe um part of my answer on this question will be about strategy so I would say that if you choose to stay close to the big companies it might help you a lot

because um this give you the opportunity to share their again conditions or rebates resources maybe some uh expertise maybe something more so uh this all cost to be honest um this is a lot of money and sometimes even you exchange it on for for your for Equity of the project you can get the best on the market right now so incubators maybe startup comps maybe uh anything else that you can meet um invest relation manager it's I think that it's essential for small Studios that can help you to to reach out them to reach out big big big players so yeah don't forget the elevator pitch don't forget the question that you would like to ask and to be ready when you uh meeting with them to ask the right questions any rules on that I'm just curious because I remember it was a while back um still getting organic traffic by the way over at uh

pocketgamer.biz is there was um an article that I I wrote with psycha salanova at the time I had interviewed her and it was basically how do you you know how do you assess um in that case it was uh a measurement provider mobile measurement provider but you know in this case it's assessing large ad networks I mean you're saying you have to meet them maybe at incubators ask the right questions what about a deciding and even narrowing down the ad networks that you want to be asking the questions of or partnering with do you have any thoughts on that um if you ask me about the question that usually any Studio have to prepare before the this type of meeting um I would say that this is the pretty same question that I asked for uh I ask any client that come to us uh with a different requests so the first one the first question is um how we can be useful to each other because of course

we have as I said before we have a lot of infrastructure and a lot of business different businesses so we can help with different sides we can be your partner or work behalf of you from the different perspective but so but the main question is what you are looking for or how we can be useful to to each other or maybe to you exactly uh another question is will be about how much time will you willing to spend uh for each other because uh if you're a small one uh if you're a small Studio we need to understand how much money we should put uh into your business and when we can see the first result uh when for example our every dollar will U will be turning back into maybe 1.5 for example um so yeah and it it always sometimes um people for forget about that the time is uh money and even that

if we don't involve in terms in terms of uh payments or in terms of uh physical cash let's say uh we spend our own time so it's also very important thing and the last one of course how much will it cost uh to to to get or how much it will cost for us because yeah of course if we talking about game develop Game Dev industry uh production signers U any commission everything uh around about the money so of course we have to know about how much money we're ready to spend how much money ready to invest how much money our partner might need it or uh how much employers we should um hire and to pay them so I think that this is the three major topics to discuss with the with the partner on the first stage so Sergey in really practical terms for the developers the studios out there who are struggling you know where is it you

see them facing their biggest challenges and what is it they should be asking when they get a chance to stand in front of of a company um you know any insight any sort of advice you can offer would be brilliant yeah sure sure of course um yeah um a lot of Studio midsize or a small one ask us for help because they know that we work with the different ad platforms directly which means that we have a great connection with them and of course A lot of them they asked for some help sometimes even with the in terms of money something uh that uh will be around the money so usually we can help them because we have a direct contracts which means that we can uh provide um managing service for them we can provide some uh some Financial solution that can help them to grow maybe then can help them to let's say improve their Roy uh metrics and so on and we also uh

sometimes we can invest in uh their project our own money because uh as I mentioned in the beginning we are publishing um team and holding so everyone who who who um who wants to make the this project and step on the next level can ask us for this type of help can ask for resources can ask for money sometimes can ask for direct communication with the at platforms that that they want to that's really helpful because of course you're talking to them already so um it's a little bit of like hey can you connect me with so and so I want to talk about about X just wanted to bring in something because I just came back from a gaming event the UA Society in Istanbul where companies were sharing really interesting stories like um not discounts and Deals it's not

always about money sometimes it's just about getting someone's attention and getting them to think with you and for you and they were saying things like you know sometimes if you're trying new new formats new approaches um you can say look I'm testing this I'm being uh you know I'm being the sandbox for you maybe we can have some sort of deal here um so with that in mind what do you think is like the best kept secret the best most interesting way for a small Studio to negotiate when they have a limited budget but they might have massive creativity imagination and and willingness to try something new yeah that's uh that's really good question because again we have a lot of request um in terms of this type of communication with us and it's again about um how we can help this type of student Studio because they they they

have a lot of energy they have a lot of creativity but unfortunately they don't have any resources to step on the next level so we we can help them because we we know the main place on the market we know the expertise um have a lot a lot of connection with another uh game developers which help us to understand what because a lot of games they're different they're totally different okay so sometimes um one request it's totally opposite for another because we cannot compare um hypergel games with the hardcore games it's totally different area so that's why we're trying to evaluate trying to understand uh what exactly is needed first step for for this client how we can help on this client will will be about the money will will be about the some partnership or um managing service will be about our user acquisition team or maybe um because they know how to do this they just need

to proper creative they need to to be involved in this creative strategy that we can fully prepared for them it depends on on their request depends on the project but again uh we know and we see that game developer industry right now is um still in Focus so we know we meet with the Google uh with the different offices with the different represent um people who represent the them in different region we spend a lot of meeting time on the meetings with the Tik Tok discussing about the gaming and and everything about that uh how to start working how to help midsize companies to step on the next level so we can fully U fully transparent in this uh case of scenario we we can do anything that they wanted to to help them because it's our job as well you rais a great Point Sergey and it it's not just about the um asking the right

questions you need to build the right relationships so what can Studios what can developers do and what would you recommend for those smaller um businesses out there who want to build those long-term effective relationships with the ad networks and make sure they're finding the right people um I would say that again maybe we can uh make a step back um and I would answer on this question that they have to stay in touch or stay close with the big companies I'm I'm pretty sure that for example in any Market uh we have a game developer leader which means that they always can share some advices or share some um maybe insights about how currently Market feels um and how how it's operating right now from our own perspective I would say that because we are operating globally we have offices in different countries trying to be

involved in the local community with and trying to discuss with the local Partners their current situation so if someone ask about hey how to how to I should operate right now on my current stage because my focus for for example in the United States with the I would like to attract user from United States I will answer that okay we have an experience we have um some specific cases that fit exactly for you we have a propose strategy that worked before and maybe we can uh accelerate somehow on your own project so yeah we have a proper solution and we and we're ready to present it for you because yeah we know that it might work it might help you so I think that you as a a small Studio you should use all resources that usually have a big big companies that may be located in the same city that you or maybe in the same area and also uh

don't hesitate to ask agency because we're also trying to provide the best class Service as we can as as much as we can uh to help to help business grow as well just a quick followup to that is it's not always just getting a great deal um it's also just getting the right data sometimes I'm hearing a lot of smaller companies Studios saying that what they really want is they want to get the data the way they need it from the ad partner because that helps them build their models do their planning you know understand is the game of Commercial Success what do I need to do or even do I need to kill it I was talking with one studio and it was on the basis of the data and they had to ask several times to get the right data to make this decision but it ended up saving the millions because they could make that decision so part of it is yes I want to grow with the ad partner but

the other is I really want to have a relationship to invest in my game with the help of the ad partner what what do you do in that situation do you come in and also sort of advise on benchmarks or questions I need to be asking the ad Network partner not just to get a great deal but to get good data uh we do a lot of things to be honest so we're trying to be involved as much as we can in terms of whole uh econom the projects so no we not just like a sharing benchmarks no we not just like discussing uh what kind of failures or what kind of um let's say result we can get we trying to Deep dive into uh each project data uh on the MMP level or sometimes if if it's possible on BI level because in terms of data it's very important how you measure it and depends on uh how you measure it you can get better result or result that will will

disappoint you around the end so we do uh full cycle which means that we're trying to uh understand what is your LTV right now what is your roles uh what is your predicted uh calculation and and what kind of period you're trying to understand or you trying to um let's say calculate it will be half a year or it will be one year it depends on the project again it's very unique situation but I would say that I would like to highlight that this benchmarks it's very uh let's say um very old trick uh and yeah I know that a lot of AD platforms sh sharing them a lot but it's not enough it's not enough to to build a great performance campaign it's not enough to build a great project because yeah of course as a studio they wanted to to build something beautiful but we we don't need to forget that we we need

to we need to earn money and all this full cycle management can help us with this only this so Sergey we've discussed how studs have to be creative in the art of negotiation but you also need to make smart choices about your creative formats so how does AD Quantum approach this and how again how do you advise clients creative as I mentioned before creative is um the most important part because I think that this is uh not even 0% of success right now it's much more higher maybe 90% success so uh when the studio come to us and they ask hi guys um we see some some result and we don't meet the qpi we trying to find out what's what's going on and we see the creatives that they used before for this first maybe or second advertising campaign and usually they are not good so this is the the process start we're trying to uh to get some references from the the market we trying to use our best

knowledge and uh attract our own uh let's say resources to create um visual that can help uh and perform for this project it might be 2D it might be 3D and I think that uh 3D um visuals or creatives this is the most I think popular format for uh for game developer industry but we also do some playable ads playable ads also sometimes shows very very good result and if you ask me again what should be the creative P for the beginning I would say we should put different types of creatives in one and let's try this mix on different channels it might be pet social channels like meta again like Snapchat it might be inap channels because we also work with the in up sources like upin or maybe Unity ads or iron Source maybe sometimes that it might be even different let's say banners and so on but before this we should prepare fully we should know what kind of project we we trying to run what

kind of preference we should get before before the um start producing this type of visuals and after that again back on the previous topic about the metrics and about the measurement we have to properly analyze it with the correct uh data we hear so often on on the podcast from so many guests that it all comes back down to the data um and in terms of the the metrics we keep hearing you know that there's no one siiz fits all so I are you more or less making the doing this bespoke for every every client and every game from every client yes uh we're trying to do the mispoke because again each project is unique of course we use some reference from the market because sometimes uh we might notice that specific hook or specific intro might works much more better uh depends on um let's say um never mind what kind of

game it is so yeah sometimes we're trying to combine all uh successful stories all successful hooks in one but at the same time we're trying to do not misleading at all because we we believe that user will pay only uh in one case of scenario when when he he or she will see exactly the same uh gaml that he saw or he uh seen before on on the ads so which means that ads is what you're saying yeah uh yeah so yeah of course we're trying to be unique but don't forget that uh that we have some let's say basic things that that still works H and we just cannot cannot forget about it following up on that question about the creatives um ugc 3D playables also doing really well saw that also and in some recent

research what are the creative choices the mixes that you're seeing and that are working and and how they impact the overall effectiveness of campaigns because like Brian says it's not one siiz fit fits all in anything including the mix of the creatives as well uh to be honest I'm in love with the 3D I'm still believe that it's it's the best case of uh best um option to start uh I believe that it's uh the most performance format because we on our own side we do this with different sizes with do for different uh networks and so on and every time then we test it uh for example with another types of uh visual types of creative um 3D is obwe so we we see on our own side in our Production Studio that this is the most popular request this is the much the biggest volume that we produced overall for this and for the last year so I think that

yeah this is exactly you should start with the the First Choice your first choice I'm just curious why why is that it's just it it's like visually really cool or or what what is there special about 3D um I think that it's more about performance to be honest uh yeah sometimes we see when uh 2D um also works very nice but it's more Universal I think and it can be described what exactly user see uh in the uh in the app and for example if we compare with the playable um usually it's double cheaper than playable so you can get two for one price so in addition to the the sort of the design side and the creative choices around ugc 2D 3D playable Etc where do the hardcoree business intelligence and predictive models come in that help you to enhance you know and measure the impact of those campaigns I

would say that we use uh AI in terms of uh measurement in terms of creative production as well so we use on the different levels so because uh I'm really help that um I'm really glad that uh we can different option how to use them uh we trying to educate our own uh AI system that we create uh in internally uh and in this studio so of course on maybe uh on the whole creative Production Studio we use them but once creative uh go out from the from the production uh do everything we do manually because we really believe that um not any U artificial AI system can help us with us or can can beat uh still can uh can beat the human in terms of

performance in terms of sense of um let's say a sense of performance and sense of uh management campaign uh but um I think that in terms of production of course it help us to test it faster uh create faster and spend much more less money uh less money and less time for uh preparing uh first pack of the creative when uh sometimes ask us because uh everyone has a deadlines um and for example for a small Studio it might be also very good option because in this type of scenario we don't need to hire or need to pay a lot of money for 3D specialist for example we can create on no sign with the IE and it will be much more um let's say cheaper for a studio um and they can afford it and they can test it with our experience just because of the AI supports interesting that it

helps scale but when you're assessing how well the performance is those kpis that's what you're doing um manually so you're paying a lot of attention to the performance indicators even like the pre pre indicators because it's not always just for example Ras there are a lot of other metrics and goals I'm just curious what your client's goals are are how they might have been shifting because of course the shift through idfa through other changes that impacts the metrics we're looking at what are your clients looking at what do they want to achieve well uh I would say that despite the ID and hold this uh Scot stuff um in any case of scenario project that we are on boarding on um on our studio and in our agency always looking for a positive R so they the first question that they ask

us about hey guys uh can you meet our kpi for example LTV or uh CAC which mean is customer requisition cost or maybe can you reach our um Roy because or predicted Roy sometimes because uh yeah we know that uh it's hard to to get accurate data with the with the scan it's hard to get accurate data with the um Ida right now but it doesn't affect at all on the business modeling it doesn't affect at all on the economy of the project so everyone's measure measure uh your suc success or your failed uh in terms of money so we work with the with the like let's say game developing uh basic metrics which is LTV which is uh predicted draws and which is customisation cost or CBP sometimes s we' we've touched on you know Ai and we've touched on on some of the ways in

which you're using it and how it can um increase efficiency but what other sort of emerging Trends are you seeing what what are you paying attention to when it comes to the future of advertising in mobile games and and The Wider mobile app market I think that for this year and maybe next year I will be still on top because we just came back from the baltics conference um and we discussed um with the game developer Society there uh the latest trend and everything bu around still bu around AI so yeah yeah let me yeah let me liberate about why steal AI because again back to the previous question um if you use AI you can reduce your cost for anything for production for for for resources for humans for a for time again uh it help you test it more it help you optimize uh your maybe flow sometime in the game or in the production so everyone wants and

everyone's looking for a new solution that can um improve this flow improves all this process much more that they have right now so they always trying to find out what's new right now on the market what we should test or what we shouldn't because uh it doesn't work and we don't believe in this or uh if we're talking about for example some uh again another Studios that communicate together they asked um each other always about hey guys did you test this one did you test another one is it good for you it was bad for you so always trying to find out uh what kind of maybe solution uh on top right now uh in terms of creatives again performance optimization and so on so on so I believe that still I for this year and I'm pretty sure for the next year we'll be still on top Sergey we we could we could go on but sadly I think we're going to have to call a Hal to proceedings and kind of

wrap things up um an awful lot of really interesting insight and you know some I guess H lifting the lid on a world that I know a lot of developers can sometimes struggle with so thank you so much I'm sure we'll get an awful lot of listeners going back through the podcast a couple of times just to make sure they've got all of the gems and all of the little nuggets of learning out of there um now before we go we have two questions that we ask all of our guests um the which brings it right back into the world of games so the first is what are you playing right now what's on your phone or your console that you're playing at the moment and then secondly what's your favorite game of all time um I think that it will be the pretty same the one game because I'm a huge fan of um football manager from Adas and sports interactive uh but yeah and I'm currently gaming U I'm I'm playing right now so yeah if we if if I choose another one just for console for example I would say that it will be redent Redemption to

from Rockstar Games solid choices and football manager comes up quite often you would be very surpris actually you might not be surprised it's it's a popular choice amongst guests um so Peggy that that was an episode wow that was good I mean it's all about trying to get if you have to do more with less then you have to think about how to get more for your money and negotiation so important and also of course understanding how to find and determine whether or not you need to continue testing your creative or not so some tips there as well all around I can say Sergey great having you and uh yeah I will be watching for more coming from ad Quantum because uh you guys are also very very active in uh in Social and some great blogs as well so probably put those in the show notes as well thanks so much for joining us we shall indeed thank

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