How Chocolate helps developers monetise "more intelligently"

it is day one here at poker gamer connects in San Francisco I'm joined by Kevin Tucker from chocolate Kevin what is it that you guys do chocolate is a ssp and marketplace so we help app developers and specifically game developers make money through our video ads and through mediation okay so it's kind of a crowded marketplace now or certainly getting more crowded as video ads are taking over as one of the primary revenue streams from free-to-play games now what is it that you guys that do that maybe kind of differs you from from your competition is there anything specific you offer that you feel sets you above what your competitors do yeah I mean I think you know obviously it's just table stakes in terms of providing the video ads and being easy to integrate and helping game developers make money off of all their hard work we differentiate because we want to provide you know real product

value beyond just the ads so what I mean by that is features or functionality that allows them to a be test different monetization schemes and figure out what really works for them user based analytics to see how those ads really affect their retention and their churn of their their their users and which ones actually lead to better you know engagement with their games so I think that's that's you know kind of the path of differentiation that we know down and and finally like you know everyone's talking about with video ads and with that and monetization general real-time bidding and bringing that type of real-time or another word used as header bidding even though there's no header in the app but you know the real-time did into the apps and into the games and and

so we offer that as well so what about targeting the right users with the right ads that's always a tricky thinking yeah we talked about a/b testing there within the apk that you got because it is it just the one apk that kind of does everything that you guys are using yeah yeah yeah so within that are you able to aim specific ads at specific regions for example through the one thing and or other other web methods you use to make sure that the right people are seeing the right guys yeah yeah yeah so I think yeah so changing your monetization by geography is obviously very important affects floor prices you might want to affect you know which partners who actually work with depending on the geography the the other way we help game developers monetize you know more intelligently is based on you know what users are you trying to target with these ads so you know a users that are you know not purchasing stuff through

in-app purchases are you trying to do it for you know users that have you know I'm just making this up but like have gone past a certain stage you know they're perhaps like level five plus users yes that little chance to like engage with the game and really understand what it's about and I've definitely shown some interest so so that type of segmentation we help game developers set up so that they're delivering the ads to the people that really makes sense that won't you know negatively hurt their game and will in fact help them to you know have better CPMs and better revenue because it's it's it's it's it's the it's the segment that's more mundane okay what do you think is the lifespan on this because with everything changing so quickly as it does and so you would start off back in the day with just simple like pop-up ads and then it shifted to video is it still working as

effectively as it did when the idea up here is it is it still growing do you think or people getting wise to the whole video ad thing and just because there's always that tendency when you're playing free-to-play games like I've got an hour to 30-second so you just do this put it down look at something else pick it back up when it's done are the users getting wiser and you have to use different techniques to keep them engaged or do you think it's still churning upwards yeah I mean that's a good question I I mean it I think it's incumbent on our industry to create add experiences that actually delight the user and you saw this in the form of rewarded video ads which you know have been quite out for some time now but there's been more innovation on that with playable game ads and I think you know we're I think this is going and where our team you know we talk about this a lot is you know how do you really create branded

sponsorship type of advertising in games so that you know if you think about like going to your favorite sporting event yeah right like you obviously there's ads everywhere right but is that really like inhibiting your enjoyment of the game and we have to you know strive to get great an experience that's like that so that it's not interruptive to your your your game experience so if you like it's like videos like into the background like place a video screen on a wall inside a game space okay yeah yeah I mean if you kind of think about we kind of like look at you know some of our favorite football players out there and you know they have their jerseys and you know they have the logos on it you know it's so it's like part of the recognition of the team it's oh you know you know that that that car company is part of their their Jersey like we recognize that and we have to kind of create that type of experience for games as well so that it's not interrupted to the experience but it actually enhances it because it's it's part of the fabric

of the game and I think I think we're innovating and getting there and we have more to do okay and how do if people want to hook up with you guys and see what you've got to offer how do they find you so you can check us out at chocolate platform calm and if Bob viously we're at pgc but you can go down the website sign up to learn more about our platform and how video ad monetization works excellent Kevin thanks for talking to us today yeah thanks a lot