Fireside Chat: Ad Monetisation - Best Practices with Wooga

we've looked at everything around the research the strategy the analytics now it's time to do what i love is to talk about best practices with a practitioner and for this we have dylan umali business manager development manager rather at hyper mx is our moderator and we have jan pollock who is head of ad monetization at wuga his colleagues i did some research call him the best account manager in the monetization sphere hands down no pressure there so we are ready to rock and roll and learn best practices from you yan thank you i guess i'll i'll start here thanks peggy for the introduction and you know it's great to be here at pockygamer connects digital number eight yet another digital conference here um so we're gonna have a nice chat uh exciting hopefully to many of you on the

line on all things admonization as peggy described um dylan umali from hypermechs and joining me is jan pollock head of ad monetization probably a familiar face to many of you uh yan thanks for being on how is everything with you thank you durden for inviting me nice to talk to you again and yeah looking forward for a session now absolutely absolutely so i guess let's just jump right into it so you've been with woogo for a few years now let's talk the audience through sort of what a day in the life over there looks like for you i mean the kind of job as an ad monetization manager be it like a header or like a standard admobilization manager i think is very diverse because you can deal with so many aspects um of of kind of job if you really want to make like a holistic job and for me communication is really key to that role because you have to talk with a lot of people be it like internally be it externally to your ad network partners any other kind of service providers analytic partners etc

or big internally like game teams developers game analysts maybe your a team to learn new things from the other side of the business and so on and so on so there's a lot of things you have to talk about you have to learn you have to always know about so communication is really key um also being always approachable um by anyone else from the company was just kind of any kind of question about admonitization ad placement any kind of weird ads they have seen and they want to escalate and you have to look into it so i think always being approached but it's very important but then obviously also being always aware of the data what's going on in your ad integrations um being able to track a lot of things and monitor all of that understand what's going on and then yeah also help with game teams to see what kind of kind of expansion you can do with ad integrations how you can add more ad placements how you can improve them how you can tweak a little few things here and there um and also how you can give your partners or your

your detect partners suggestions for improvements like if you have any kind of problem if you want to have any kind of improvement from your tool like mediation or any other kind of tool you use give them proactive feedback and just help each other to improve along the way so there's a lot of different aspects yeah i know for sure it seems like the job stays interesting right no day's the same seems like you have your pulse on a little bit of everything yeah exactly perfect perfect well drawing into it even further right so google has several evergreen titles like jun's journey you know how has your ad monetization strategy you know for titles like that changed over the last few years yeah actually june cerney um i mean was it was amazing hit and we were really surprised also by how well it was doing over time and um especially also the administration integrations there um and we could actually actually couldn't really um improve anything in any new games yet because roon journey was actually the last game we released nearly four years ago um but

little spoiler here we're gonna release fairly soon like at the end of the year we're gonna release another new game um from vuca first of the game um and yeah we're looking forward house that is working um but in general yeah we definitely learned a lot of things in june's journey and also uh managed to apply these kind of learnings from june journey to the other games we had already out so we also improved a lot of things in post period for example like another hidden object evergreen title which we just took again it's okay at some point in the year okay let's just see what we have and how we can improve things and how we can make things much better and more closer to what we had in june's journey and obviously it's much much harder to change a running game and and not really impact the running game economy um from a live game um especially when you have really deep gain game economy already but yeah we managed it to improve the administration quite heavily and were really happy about that even though it was not really to that

level of what we have seen in june's journey but you can still see like that you can even improve very old games which you have run for why you can still improve them to a much better level um if you really understand what you're working on and and what you're doing there got it got it yeah that that's an amazing insight sort of you know playing both sides both you know the big hits and then also more the evergreen type thing so you know building on that you know generally what tactics are you employing in something like a june's journey you know to balance ads versus user experience if there's anything that that you do specifically actually it's both really important like ad revenue is obviously important for us because we want to make money um but the user experience is even more important in most cases so really what we have done is um that we decided we want to only work for now with rewarded videos so no industries no banner nothing else will disrupt us there so only reward the videos for now um and then we also have as a key aspect always user experience so for example we always give some

reward to the player even if there's no ad available if the ad provider is failing for some kind of testing issue or so we always give the reward to the player if they want to get an ad they also get it so there's only a few edge cases that are not get it like when they cancel an ad or so then they don't get it because they maybe try to cheat the system or so but if they wanted to get an ad if they wanted to watch it until the end um if anything fails they still get the reward so that's really important in our point of view because user happiness is much much more important than the revenue from like a few dozen or hundreds of ad use um so that's really important and then what we also always focus really on is the engagement rate so what kind of percentage of your dnu is actively watching at least one ad per day and that's always the first metric we want to increase when we have a new game or when we look into an older game which we want to improve again we say what is engagement rate is it like 30 40 which is maybe kind of average in the industry for some games but we orient more like a june

journey what we have achieved there which is more like 80 85 90 percent always depending on how much new users you get in how much their progress in the game because in the first few levels of the game you cannot really access any ads at all so you really have to um progress in the game to get the ad placements um and when you get there you are basically most of all players are really watching ads every day and when you achieve that when you achieve like a 70 80 of engagement rate then we look into okay how can we get more ads like how can we increase the frequency um obviously favorite is important for that so we also have to always keep in mind that we have like a close hundred percent fair rate always so adding enough networks in there having like a backfill in there maybe cross motion to other games etc um so there's a few things which you can learn over time but user experience is really key and um as long as um yeah you're not really sacrificing any kind of big revenue um you should always make sure that that user experience is much much more important and higher priority

got it got it you know very interesting tactics over there you guys employ it seems like it's a big balancing act but once you sort of get the keys to success you sort of ride them and you know spread them across all your other titles yeah that sounds great perfect perfect well you know let's shift over a little bit you know there's been a big shift in industry as you know uh you know beginning of the year there's been a lot of talks as you know just general industry stuff um specifically for you guys over the last few months have you seen any changes in performance you know across platforms ios and android since the latest ios 14 and i guess now 15 adoption has has increased yeah i mean it was definitely a big topic right i mean everyone talked about it for the last year um hearing about it first time from apple last year around that time now then um trying to understand what's going on how to prepare etc so obviously we also tried to prepare as much as possible and did a lot of things which we saw that could truly help with that um and in the end we didn't really see that much of an

impact actually on our end so i also have heard from a few other publishers that maybe android is going up ios is going down etc like some kind of expected things but also i heard that for example banners have much more impact uh versus rewarded videos so on our end only rewater videos um quite a few preparations before and so we didn't really see any impact on our end um so i think apple released it like was of april may um to all to all users so then q3 kicked in there was some seasonality we have seen across platforms um and now we're getting into q4 um so i can't really say that we saw any concrete impact because of that be it because of our focus on rewarding videos be it because of our preparations can't really say that but i'm fairly happy that we didn't see that big of a drop um like maybe some other publishers have seen yeah now that's a great point like you mentioned you know publishers have been they have all these horror stories some and some like you guys very very

unaffected so it's interesting uh the sort of hypotheses and theories that you have behind it and i guess taking a step back a little bit too maybe you could talk a little bit about you know the expectations that you had forecasted before prior to the latest ios and then you know how things actually turned out uh both for you guys and then just industry-wide as a whole yeah yeah yeah um i mean cena was very unclear from the beginning on what was really the impact right so it was just that okay idfa is basically gone but we didn't know it was if it was gone for like 30 50 80 or 99 of players um that was already one unknown fact and then also how is the the industry reacting to that how are advertisers changing how are networks changing the whole the whole uh chain right of the of the industry um so i was actually really not giving any kind of concrete [Music] estimation internally because i said okay it's way too unclear what's going on and how that's impacting

things and it's actually still ongoing right so because i mean probabilistic um targeting is still allowed by or it's kind of tolerated let's see that even though it's just kind of fingerprinting as we all know and um yeah so it's still running from a few networks and attribution partners so i mean there's a few changes now from apple which are not really enforced yet so it can still happen that it changes and that we're still going to see a much bigger change in the next few weeks or months but that's also why i said okay i cannot really give an exact estimation or any kind of number on that but i just said hey just prepare for a drop and then let's see how much we can prepare and then buffer right right yeah now that's the one thing about all of this it's just been so uncertain especially this year too um and you know you mentioned preparing for things have there been any sort of specific actions or strategies that that you've used to sort of mitigate you know the impact um i know you mentioned really been unaffected but if there's anything particular that you could talk about that that you've

noticed has been working yeah i mean what i mentioned also in the beginning right the communication the kind of understanding of the market and the industry i think was also key here to just be connected to other publishers to networks and just to understand what people talk about what say how they interpret also the news from apple just just understand what should be prepared for what should we kind of design our pop-ups for etc like really understand how what's the best practice in the industry and then also applying the learnings internally to our games but then also um applying this kind of learning so updating sdks um adding the sk8 network ids into the p list on the on the on the apps on the ice apps um we also added more networks in the waterfall because we said okay if some networks are going down maybe it's better to increase the competition as a waterfall i hadn't i mean i also had before but i still had an ongoing focus on bidding because i said okay bidding is still going to work as a principal and it's supposed to improve things so let's keep on focusing on bidding and and push our

partners to um activate bidding uh yeah improve it for for for us as a publisher um and then yeah updating sdk versions not sure if i mentioned that um and uh yeah so a few things um then these and the pop-up itself like we i mean obviously you have the att pop-up from apple but then you can also show like a preparation pop-up and then before and in advance um to just prepare the players for it um so we also had to understand what kind of design can we take should we take more like a neutral design should we take like a game focus design so that's a few tests we have been running actually beforehand which we learned from and then which we also applied to our game said okay should be more like a game focus design should be really this kind of design is a close button or not with the wording etc we also got rejected actually a few times in the beginning when we said okay we're going to try it this way and then we got rejected because of a few um little aspects in there but that's all things we we were prepared for and we knew okay we can do it maybe like

this but maybe not but if we get rejected we should really act quickly on it um so really understanding what's what can we do what can happen and then if the worst case happened what can we do about that right and this worked out in the end so we're live it's running and yeah there you go yeah no that's some amazing insight too it's it's great to hear sort of that behind the scenes stuff that you know not everybody really knows about you know all this taste testing and all this playing around and making sure things work what doesn't work that's that's some great insight and a point that you you drew upon there too is bidding which i love that you brought up you know that's also keeping things within indicy trends it seems like a large number of publishers uh that have moved over or are testing bidding solutions now um so you touch on a little bit but are you using bitters and if so you know what's your experience been like with the tech with performance how things been looking as a whole yeah yeah um i mean i'm definitely a big fan

of bidding since that whole idea came up and since the first networks experience was that um and i've tried actually now i think i'm on the third mediation doing bidding um so i've gotten a few sites already a few networks how they do it differently etc um and i still believe in two bidding as a concept and i still think it's a good idea and it's the only future going forward for mobile internet advertising um but it's also not the holy grail so yes it's much more efficient um to not deal so much with waterfall management it's much more efficient also on the testing side but it's also a big change for the networks it's a big change for the advertisers spitting into your traffic to understanding maybe new data points a different kind of technical flow etc so there's new aspects there's new um possibilities of failure so um it's definitely not like uh just let's turn it on and then everything is perfectly fine we can find it we're making much more revenues but i also understand that it's tricky for the mediations that's tricky for the network that's tricky for the advertisers so there's a lot of

different companies out there still trying to work on it integrated video on there and improving it understanding how they can compete with that better against other networks in the waterfall and i wouldn't say that um dedicatedly like the bidders are much better than the waterfall networks but i think it creates a better positioning for them that they can have more access to more traffic they can optimize better so um yeah i wouldn't say let's say just because one network is moving from waterfall to bidding um that suddenly might make much more revenue for you um but they're in a better position um to optimize so um yeah bidding is a great topic yeah no for sure and that's that's some amazing feedback that you gave you know i think there's a common misconception like yes it is new um but you know there's also legacy things have been working so i think the biggest piece of advice for you know a lot of people online to take back is just really you know use a system that

you that works for you test a few things you know turn things on and off um and sort of see how things go and you know that's again that's great insight um i think trying to tie things all together here is there anything that you're excited about um i know you mentioned bidding is is something that you've been testing frequently is there any sort of efficiencies or other day-to-day processes that you're starting to employ and anything that you're excited about um i think it's really mainly about the bidding point which we already talked about um which can change a lot of things right so in the managing of the waterfall of the whole ad integration we can also it can also change the way we work with partners so maybe some partners have really inefficient before and that we're not really working so well in the waterfall and suddenly they become much better can also happen um but i think it's still in a very um changing situation right now so there's a lot of networks which just got on bidding they're still experiencing things how it's different and they're learning from it and improving some are just about to work on it internally and they're about

to test it some are already live with spitting for like two years or so but they're still um able to learn things and improve so i think it's it's actually much slower than on desktop side where we have seen like a more rapid change a while ago but on mobile it's i think um also a very very important change but it just takes a much longer time so um other than that i mean we have seen a great uh session video before from the facebook guys antonio and his colleague um so rewarder videos obviously is a go-to format for your games we keep on doing that um i think there's also nice new ad format coming out with like in play ads like that it's not really any any kind of standardized name i would say it for the format for like fully in words ads which are really interesting to us as well uh going forward because they're also not really disruptive and also interesting uh movements there as a new ad format so also something to monitor i would say but other than that um yeah i mean there's always challenges right so we

have seen the challenge of ios 14 now we look into is 15 which seems to not be so disruptive again um but there's also like any kind of legislations from countries or organizations which are like similar to gdpr or ccpa there's more legislations coming up from other countries like brazil and other areas so there's always things you have to be aware of that you have to look into with your colleagues maybe from legal team to always see okay what are challenges you have to overcome and prepare for them as much as possible right right amazing yeah no that's that's again more great insight you know and forward looking to it seems like there's a lot on the horizon it's just staying on top of things and making sure you know you're ready for for the changes that come so yeah uh we're wrapping up here um yawn again thanks for thanks for being here last question i have for you um is you know what can we expect from you forward-looking you know from luger in the next six to 12 months i know you you teased at a new title but is there anything beyond that maybe you could talk a little bit more about it and you know anything else you have on the

horizon yeah yeah so i mentioned already beforehand when i talked about jun's journey as our last title released we actually have two more titles in the making right now one of them is very very um in the final stage so we're gonna release it before the end of the year really happy about that it's super exciting for all of us internally we can really not wait for it and looking forward for hopefully having really good success with that um the other game will take a bit longer and i cannot talk that much more about it but i'm really excited about that um first in game coming up i can only say name because already it's already on the stores it's uh the name is witchcraft um it's about a kind of uh witch's theme on an academy and then having some crime again and and it's very typical for for again very story driven so be it's a symmetry game and you're going to have like a very complex and a nice story again can uh play along and um just find out what's going on in that universe so uh watch out for it uh for the launch that's awesome that's

awesome and that's a great way to close out we leave it at that uh thank you yan for for being on here um be on the lookout for switchcraft as well and peggy i see you jump back on something yeah because we're not gonna let you guys go that easily now we have some questions and we do have a green light to go ahead with some of them so why not uh because jan i mean your colleagues are right it's uh great hearing you talk about monetization great tips and i think that's why so many in the audience just want some tips right i've got one here what is a common mistake first-timers often make when looking to monetize their free-to-play game and what can they what have you learned from your common mistakes they want to understand your first mistake and what are the common mistakes maybe to avoid out there so we're going to go into your bio deepen your biography yeah well first time mistakes um i think what we have seen also before from the other talk from the facebook guys it's important to understand your type of game is it like a hyper casual game hardcore game etc what kind of ad

format does suit your kind your type of game um and then i mean i think rewarding videos is a good fit for most of the games but then you also have to figure out okay is it a good idea to try out with banners as necessary as native ads etc um but i think those reported videos you can't make that much wrong um and then uh yeah i think it's kind of standard nowadays to work with the mediation partner there's a few out there like four or five really big ones um and yeah i think any of them should be good for like a for start all of them are pretty good um i think you can just mention a few names here so we have admob we have mob we have um super iron source uh with the mediation we have uh max from app love and we have also fiber so i see these kind of four or five as um really good mediations out there um so just take any of them try it out and then definitely um like a three to five networks from the beginning on so don't just start with one network that can always mean

low fare rates um low ecps but really have at least some competition from the beginning on and then you can take it further from there so if you start with like three to five networks and then you can see um how your data are looking like of course you're big on uh bidding and uh some questions around just the the nuts and bolts of that it seems that there's quite a lot of education and relationship building it's not just saying hey i want to do it because you know i have access to more traffic and i have access potentially to more money there's a downside to that you said it's tricky some people are wanting to understand what you mean by tricky so tell me how tricky it is to work with a bidding platform i mean i would say it's not super tricky as a publisher so i would say from my point of view it's just this kind of the same sdk from the network it's the same kind of dashboard so it's not really that much much more tricky from a publisher or from a developer point of view but it's i think more from the demand side which has a

different way of bidding into your traffic they have to change their model from maybe a cpi to a cpm model internally they have to change the optimization algorithms they have to change the way um how the ads are requested or how they are cached on the technical level on the client maybe depending on your mediation partner if you have your own in-house mediation also you have to also change that mediation so there's a few things which you have to be aware of um but i would say if you have one of these five uh mediation partners i mentioned already all of them support some networks in a bidding environment um it shouldn't be any different as a publisher i would say but just as the industry as a whole it's it's a complicated process to move forward that's what i meant so last question because you're talking about the differences between the platforms somebody wants to understand the differences between um different ads working in different markets maybe that's a little bit more of a regional question for you so do you have insights on any trends towards

different ads working more effectively in different markets um with different ads i guess uh yes i mean ad formats you know like playable yeah and i mean we have only rewarded videos um so i cannot we speak much about um how they differ towards interstitials or banners or playables or anything like that so i don't have any experience on that um i mean i'm for a while already at vogue but we have always focused on rewarded videos so i think it's probably better took some other um companies out there and here what also gives you advice again communication talk to your mediation partner and especially especially mediation companies they should have really good access to a lot of data from different ad formats different markets different publishers so try to talk to a contact you have a mediation company and try to gather some data and it sets from them and they should be able to give you some benchmarks um on these type of differences if there's anything

well it's been a great talk and you did a great job as a moderator as well dylan because i will leave you with a question you don't have to answer because i think this is one you might want to take off offline is uh do you do consulting and advice i'm usually happy to talk to other publishers and also happy to share kind of insights and and talk with my like-minded people is it really more like in a consulting approach it may be different i mean i'm having like a full-time job at vuga but yeah let's just connect offline i'm happy to give my contacts i can also just answer directly in the q a i think um so um yeah people can yes please do it left an impression somebody wants you to have a side hustle i can i can see it but always usually happy to help and i also try to help our network partners like the the ad providers with some product feedback usually um so we're having sessions with that so i definitely see that also as part of my

job to help other people in the industry to make a better job and that just raising all of our uh positioning as an industry well i thoroughly enjoyed it because again i'm the one who's the analyst and the author and not the marketer here and if i get it then it's it's really good and i've learned a lot so i really have to thank you both for such an informative and entertaining fireside chat thanks again thank you thank you cheers everyone thank you you