Curated Panel: Buying on Rewarded Platforms: The Benefits & Challenges.

[Music] great stuff uh now next up um we have our panel our final panel for the morning uh we have buying on rewarded platforms the benefits and the challenges and we've got Monica from cash KCK we've got um Magic from Pixel Federation we've got Lea from Robo and Paul from 52 entertainment so I'm going to ask the guys to come on up over to you guys thank you for having us um let us just squeeze here thank you for joining us today I have this Awesome Trio with me and what we want to do is BAS basically open up a

conversation so we've heard about rewarded you know a lot uh in this conference and instead of just saying how rewarded is the best and all the benefits and why you should be with rewarded we want to open up a conversation about thank you um the benefits the challenges basically some best practices and how to start with rewarded so I have Leila here with me from Rio she has a very cool corgi dog um who doesn't really know how to play fetch if I'm right um I have Paul from 52 entertainment coming from C right prev previously from Cur games from K yes and I have mates here from Pixel Federation um we went karaoke yesterday so I hope your voice is back oh no it's not nice so we want to start by I want to start by asking you what's your favorite travel destination and why just to break the ice

yeah I think it's a little bit of a blasphemy to tell it in Finland but actually I really lately like Sweden so yeah why it's because like it combines like really cozy chill wipes of H and key but also like a little bit more variety in terms of shops and cultural attractions nice nice Bish oh me um I have to say Dublin now Dublin only though I discovered like 2 weeks ago but I'd love to go again Google yeah i' love to go Paul so you stole my response I want you to say Finland obviously uh but now I'm going to say Italy because of the food and the good wine nice you're you're from you're from Paris right so you could always say France you know right France is also nice yes but I live there so I won't say it's my favorite travel place all right so now we're going to go back to the rewarded the topic so we want to start with maybe EX telling

what's your experience with rewarded you know how have you been working how long have you been working with rewarded so people the audience can understand a little bit more so Paul how long is your experience sure so we saw the rewarded U channels booming in the last year and a half uh especially in 2023 um and we saw the the Rev share growing from 10% 30% 40% and in some cases even 50% and higher um and so now we have to manage that channel and making sure that we are optimizing that particular Channel with those particular parameters properly perfect what is uh if I'm not mistaken the first time we tried was the PGC London last year so there was like was the most random conversation that I had over at dinner and the guy was from a reward play platform introduced it to me I was like I'm surprised we're not doing this already and ever since then we've been testing many other networks uh it's been part of the marketing mix for us ever

since then yeah nice yeah I'm going to represent and you be in the rewarded World cuz like we had like uh uh number of good and bad experiences but minor within the last year and uh on the higher scale we started to search for the for our way to rewarded platforms maybe month and a half ago so like uh I kind of hear to tell a little bit about growth like penetration struggles with the rewarded networks yes so like for some games like especially your Ria games are a little bit older so it might be difficult you know to to re-engage that user so what was the reason that you chose you know to test rewarded because I know you haven't been using them um what was the what changed your mind uh yeah there was a number of internal changes a number of like

industrial changes I would say that uh on the internal scale is that like we are looking for diversification of our channels we know that the industry changing a lot and we need to be adaptive to the changes so meaning testing more meaning like search for the new approaches and with uh rewarded Market booming it would was like a natural decision in a way but also rewarded networks changed a lot like if we came from all the way from like uh standard kind of uh traditional offer walls to um marketplaces with like real cash rewards which is like very natural motivation for people to play so uh I think it's a little bit more reliable on the advertis from The Advertiser point at uh the state where it is now got it got it Paul um it's rewarded working with you know

450 to entertainment why why have you chosen to work with rewarded so obviously now you need to work with rewarded U channels this is uh you can't uh you can't miss it um we are the the the show voice is growing slowly um you need to play with the fragmented ecosystem that the rewarded uh channel is currently and making sure you have enough maturity in terms of data to take the proper decision we need we need to have the first thinking principle understand how users come into our game through rewarded channels and making sure you understand that they are incentive and so they have a specific behavior within the game uh and so we are growing into into into understanding the different uh behavior on the different games and adjusting the targets according to this 100% can you share like any specific maybe metrics

you know or examples um that can address the the some of the success that you had with rewarded like basically what kpis we should said I sure um so obviously as uh all UA managers uh you said the return at spend targets you need to make sure you understand your LTV curve because that's going to be different than with other type of U channels yeah so you want to have um maybe maybe a first test understanding where when it flatten and set your target accordingly in terms of return at spend the X uh depending on the Uhn you are working with I know Lea you can't really share like metrics can you share like how rewarded is working specifically for your games maybe uh yeah I I mean we're still figuring the key metrics that we are going to look into uh like I think what is uh the most important for us is that like according

to our previous experience we know that um like the life uh like lifetime of rewarded users in the game like it's drastically different from the other platforms we working with so uh for us uh we are trying to sport all the uh like foreshadowing of like future Behavior how long uh the user is going to stay with us how like basically like what is going to be our window for monetization of this users because uh most likely it's always a possibility that we lose them after they hit the final event and also what are the events um that we we can uh Implement in order to make them retain uh longer I think like at this point at the very beginning our key success with rewarded network is like uh better understanding of our own

product in our own game and a better um like in like better interaction with our game team I would say okay so you mentioned that you um sync with like product team development team right so it's a you mentioned that you have to have a collaboration between those departments right to make sure that everything's working uh this is our generally like the position of the Roo like we all need to communicate really good but uh I I would say that with rewarded Network in particular it's uh one of the key things you cannot separate like product from acquisition anymore okay yeah mates you know like how do you measure um the effectiveness of rewarded um pixel fed well we always kind of take a look at the retention but we in a in a bad way we kind of know what to expect IR retention wise so we are always measuring the caps in terms of Roi and that kind of stuff and now we are I'm I'm going to say like we are not

doing it properly in terms of Paul mentioned great thing the other day like we should configure our game in a way like in a way to prepare it for the rewarded platform in general and just make sure we are monetizing the users up until the last event they they able to cash out on and we are not doing that so that was a great inspiration for us thank you appreciate that yeah that's it that's nice so um well like we rewarded with particularly with Kash like with us is that the more events you can share with us the better we can create the reward structure and understand the user Journey um is that something that you currently are working on like implementing those events that or well we are always you know we are always trying to rework the whole youth Journey like the first couple of I don't want to even say minutes more like hours like it's always it's been constantly worked on not necessarily tied to like a rewarded play like I don't think the game designers are actually keeping this in mind but they should because

it's like a yeah yeah it's definitely relevant and definitely it's going to be a part of a mix for for a long time so it will be a nice hindsight for them to just to keep that in mind like we might be monetizing the users in a way in a certain way in a particular way and uh adjust it you know of course there's also a difference between you know games who are more IAA than IP focused I guess you know with the IEP it's like of course you know events and tracking levels and tracking progression with IA is mostly the time when uh so I guess that's the the differentiation how do you balance you know rewarded in your overall UA mix poll like how do you how do you make sure that everything is is working so do you have like different teams maybe or like specifically for you know different types of network yeah yeah sure uh so the way we are operating usually is basically no budget spend as much as possible uh as long as you are

on target so this is um how user acquisition managers work uh so we don't try to control the share of voice based on um this UA Channel or or this other UA UA channel so it's basically based on results and then generate as much predictive Revenue as possible so this is how we work the challenge here when you have a predictive revenue or predictive Aspen approach is to make sure you have the right prediction for those specific channels and once again like you mentioned the the science of selecting the right event I think this is this is key here so you need before starting the the compaign understand the average LTV on user reaching that specific event and then um selecting it with the Uhn that enable you to do so uh and then making sure that it is actually happening

the LTV is actually generating at that level for that specific event because sometimes users can find shortcuts and stuff so that's true like I think for us it helps we always ask you know for time to event how how long usually it takes for your users to complete that event and conversion rates for specific actions right so do you do you track that information you know with with Rio uh yes we do uh we are in particular as I referring to my previous uh answer like we uh take into account because like as I mentioned there is always with rewarded Network there is always um this issue of potential loss of the user one users one they're reaching the um the final event so like you need to to to to uh have this in mind that basically like your uh profitability Horizon each is much uh lower compared

to uh what you naturally have in another networks but getting back to uh your question about the healthy mixture I wouldn't say that at this point it's something that uh is that critical for us because like we still do not have uh enough scale on the rewarded side but once we hopefully here like I would say that rewarded networks have by Nature like generates like faster cash flow which uh like potentially can allow us as we can see it to make more um risky experiments on the on another Channel and potentially improve them as well sure and do you think like there are any particular genres maybe game types that work better for awarder or do you think that all of the games are meant for awarded if they're optimized like M what you what your thoughts I'd say it doesn't matter the game it's just the matter of the events

like basically you can just if you are setting up the events right I wouldn't say there's like a preferred genre to be honest I think it's like a refit for anything cool Paul and I think all the all the segments are benefiting from that new UA UA channel so um no I believe it applicable for all type of games even like the old ones the old titles with you what's your thoughts on that Lea um I think so like I I however think that um uh more casual games might benefit better because they appealing to wider audience that like can be interested in uh rewards a little bit more than in the gaming process that's true also I think it depends per per rewarded platform what kind of users they attract so I guess you also need to check um before what what type of traffic they get so I guess it's all about the trust and all about transparency when you talk

with um rewarded so okay we talked about some of the good stuff the positive but we're not here only to glamorize rewarded we want to also talk about you know address some challenges and how to mitigate them um so from my experience you know on the other side working in rewarded so I had this like you know one year two year ago it was sort of a trust issue um that people were not so sure about rewarded it just were it wasn't it wasn't something normal for them them right it was something new like G giving money giving rewards for playing like what some that's not that's fake or something you know so um that's from my experience on my end so did you have that you know when you first came to reward it and were just a little bit skeptical or mates like how was your um experience like I couldn't believe it it actually works to be honest myself and um whenever the initial conversation that we have I was the influence mobile company and they mentioned like they were giving out like a gift card like a cash gift card I

was pretty amazed like they are actually able to pay the users out so I was a bit skeptical because always it seems like a scam to be honest like when you're giving out gift cards I was like I don't know we'll see but it was all right it was legit so um I was pleasantly surprised to be honest Lea what about you I mean uh rewarded networks back when from the days when I just join UA like they they are a bit notor like the the the they used to be a little bit notorious because you always have this ass Association about like okay this is like pouring the traffic on the keywords to boost your like uh ranking in app store and uh remember we were discussing like particularly Nordic market and one like why rewarded networks are not that popular in the N Nordic markets and um being a part of roio for a while now like I can see that for Nordic uh

companies it is very important to be very transparent and very honest with our customers so like uh bringing this like notor to the customers like I think it it is considered by many it's a little bit like it's not the move that we would like to do uh but uh again like uh we already discussed that everything changed since then uh um the rewards has have changed the approach have changed uh the tracking have changed so uh but the stores have changed so you cannot for like traffic anymore but uh this is uh uh this is um I think we we are in the point of uh big reconsideration about what the rewarded networks are at this point sure Paul

what was your experience before so in incentive traffic as bad press uh remember 10 years ago where you could buy the first spots on the iOS store or Google Play Store uh basically that was fraud uh back then um and so when they arrived two years ago basically were we were like okay this is on again another fraudulent U channels uh the impact will be very shortterm you tried it because you heard about some of your friends in the industry having success with it so you Tred it you see very different LTV curves very different user behaviors you're like yes that is fraud and then user actually generates money the users actually watch ads buy APS and so you're like okay this is not this is just like the way they incentive is different so understand that and and scale it and

you generate revenue and so you're like okay whatever it is we make profit with it whatever it is we generate traffic that is engaging with the game so we keep on going do you see maybe any other uh issues because we were talking about the LTV curve right that it flattens a little bit so do you have any specific maybe metrics or things that you do internally to assess that so when using rewarded traffics basically we were seeing that right after the event you selected people drop off so you need to understand that so you need to make sure that by that time by that time you monetize them enough at least higher than the CPI CPI versus LTV logic of course then you need to make sure that the event you selected is cheater proof we had the issue where we selected an event that users could easily fraud and so basically we lost that traffic

totally um and so once again select the event and then monitor it to make sure that users don't find a a shortcut and can't time cheat or whatever yeah yeah um do you see any other like potential challenges that we can address you know and help people medicate them M do you have you seen anything like with with your games I well just the retention issue for us to be yeah yeah that is the like but having that inside people should keep that in mind like it's it's just this is how it works and uh it's it's just going to go to well for us it's pretty much Dro in after the collecting the last event and we should optimize properly for that particular Network and this is it how long do you track events like what what's the latest event that you track for your game I'd love to say that I know but I don't I I I thought there was like a proposition by different company

and they suggested to do like a high super high reward but let's put it down like 180 days so like a half year away just to make sure people actually won't reach it so the payout won't actually happen but it's super super motivational but I don't know things kind of yeah I think that's there's a lot you need try different ones you need to try different ones one shortterm one midterm one longterm optimize based on this but I heard about this trick as well that basically you you yeah you set an event that they can't reach uh and so you are not paying the event while generating Revenue still yeah I guess like with the rise of rewarded there's so many rewarded platforms coming to play so I think we will be about you know the quality and retention so I think the new advancement would be what rewarded platforms will do actually to make sure that the curve doesn't flatten that's something that we do our marketing team at kashk actually yeah they they're working currently very very hard with our advertisers to address that so I think that will be might of that will be

one of the the future um optimization so I want to go to to the Future now and basically think about you know over the next 12 months what do you think um will happen in the in the rewarded Marketing in terms of the growth of your games and your user acquisition strategies um mes go I don't think we'll well so far the perform we tested a lot of the reward play Networks uh was it came to a point where we designing whether we should keep it in the mix or not because the performance performance was like okayish I but I'm going to say uh there there's work to be done on our end to make sure that we are uh doing the events properly and optimizing properly and in case we are able to fix it then uh why not I think we should keep the marketing mix fresh in these terms so we not going to stop using it unless it turns to be like completely hurtful for us which it's still fixable by by

USA how do you feel uh yeah I think uh as we are in the very beginning of our journey with rewarded traffic it's going to be a lot of work for us first of all like we have like a long list of Partners to on Board second of all we need to like uh again like look at our game with a new vision with a new perception of what uh the goals we would like to reach and figure out what's going to be the uh the events that work for us what is going to be uh personalization for users that are coming from uh rewarded traffic specifically how do we approach them because they are the different users um than we see from uh non-rewarded networks like uh I probably told you when we were discussing like partnership

that our first steps in reward it like we set up an event uh that typically takes 60 days for our users to like nor like non-rewarded users to reach and people from rewarded networks we're doing it like for 10 days yeah they're pretty quick yeah so it's it completely changes our perception of user Journey right so um I think uh very important part for us is to clearly communicate it to the game team to set the expectation to understand what's going to be a place of rewarded traffic and how many efforts we need to invest in order to make it work for us Paul how do you feel about 12 months picture so 12 months and onward I feel like the landscape is currently very fragmented so I expect it to to consolidate a little bit more um I expect um indeed the the the providers

to not I wouldn't fix I wouldn't say fix but like improve that um retention issue yeah to make sure like we have retention curve LTV curve that is closer to other networks um on the publisher side I expect us and and and them to better optimize this Channel Through segmentation having a dedicated user experience based on the on the on the channel on the rewarded Channel this is what we talked about with with matate to increase the monetization on a specific event um so that's it then um yes on the market to uh because using reality channels make you work with your product team as a UA manager you have to work closely with your prod team because first you need to war him and one them that that the retention will take a hit

with that new uh chnl so you need to have a close relationship with them so they don't freak out on their side because the game has a minus 10% decrease on retention day one so first this and then once again potentially having dedicated segmentation so I thanks to the re channels it helps to U improve the relationship between new and and and product so I believe in the future that will go into that direction that's interesting and do you see like any other Trends and Innovations in the mobile industry in general we can reward it or in general what do you think will happen all on my side so I I believe that um he aspect uh uh is a new user Behavior now user can expect to be rewarded uh by doing some specific actions so I believe that might be also embedded into the games so we see that with offer walls but even as a publisher you might think

about integrating some rewarded systems into your game or into your web app or whatever to Foster engagement Foster cross promotion so I believe that um concept might be fully embedded within the prish sh teams oh that's interesting mates what's your take on that that's I'm going to say like AI is going to take over take over us and uh even more and uh there's going to be lot lot of more networks that are utilizing AI properly coming up and my wishal thinking is that they just going to polish it in the future so it's going to be more usable for us and that going to makes things a lot easier yeah but hey we'll see Lea what your do you see uh something that I'm observing uh is uh like uh communication and engagement between uh user acquisition and traditional forms of Market marketing is getting more and more popular

to have this mixed campaign and top the TOs into uh word of traditional marketing for uh user acquisition managers as well uh so I think this would be the one potential change like bringing more nontraditional user acquisition channels probably like I don't know probably like something like um Netflix Amazon ads as well yeah we'll see we'll see and to finish off what will be something that you can a GI like an advice to user requisition marketing manager who's interested in in trying reward it like the first steps you know how to mitigate some potential challenges Paul what what would you say yes sure uh so first go ahead test it monitor the the return ad Spen monitor the user Behavior adjust accordingly and that's it yep I'd say uh be prepared for the fact

like the retention is not going to be there but just keep that in mind so uh your other metrics won't get influenced by this so we won't get that much noise and uh keep that in mind all the time and make sure you are monetizing them very well just to make sure like you make actually making money out of it so there's a lot work to be done on the game or on the product sidea uh be bestest with your game team if you're not yet it's very important to adjust your game for any type of non-traditional user acquisition yep perfect thank you so much guys for joining me that was very much insightful um I guess we're 10 minutes before our time but do we have any questions maybe that's a good idea let's find out do we have any questions guys do you have any questions for the panel no so I I think I'll I'll I'll try so one of the comments you made was about um kind of like when you're using rewarded mechanisms about retention is

there do you think there are any techniques that we can use to think about the kind of flow of the player experience but when we prompt those kind of rewarded experiences to mitigate against that kind of issue in terms of you know keeping that player because my my my view is rewarded has a place it's understanding the audience and then their reason to come back and how you connect the dots Am I Wrong am I or are there are there better techniques doing are there good techniques to do it yeah so like from from our side from rewarded platform so we do we have like a marketing team who actually is dealing with with exactly that just addressing the retention and the curve flattening so we do have all of the cool things that are happening into play We're working directly with game Publishers to create like retention campaigns you know to actually um retar re-engage sorry users so I would say first thing is to be very close with you know the game Publishers to work together to understand how we can make this better for that specific game because every

game is unique well I think it's also about being aware of the user life cycle so actually thinking as a game designer in the game itself I think there's only so much you can do from a platform point of view yes that's true you've got to I mean to your point you've got to have that close connection between how the platform's utilized and how the game is designed 100% and knowing that sorry I'm being I'm going question now sorry I I think this is U one of the reason why you need to work closely with the product to understand at which point you need to to put the events and at that point maybe you hooked the player because they had the full experience of the game so yeah totally so that's why like working with the prod team is is key in maximizing the impact of the of the rewarded platforms and it's why I mean hopefully I didn't come across too many to the TR play guys it's why I was kind of referring when they were talking about this connection between what you're offering in terms of the reason to come back and what's in the game and how you blur the line between in-game experiences and those external rewards and that's a challenge but I think it's an

interesting one to try as a publisher tell me if I'm wrong but we we don't have much um leverage on what we offer and what is the reward so this is one thing potentially not necessary to be improved but be aware of that you don't have uh impact on this yeah exactly and I think this is the I mean this one of the challenges of of that kind of model um but again be in mind I'm coming from a legacy of being there at the early days of rewarded video ads where it was all about the in-game offer as opposed to the external offer so I know I'm I'm sharing my biases here so again no but like that's once again that's why embedding that rewarded system within the publisher ecosystem might be one of the solution of what you mentioned yeah but great that makes sense does anyone else have any thoughts or comments in that case I think we're going to find a way to break for lunch so thank you very much to the panel please thank you thank you very much

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