How Mobile Gaming’s Solitaire Giant Shuffled Its Strategy and Won Post-ATT

[Music] Hello world. Welcome back to the Pocket Gamer Podcast with your hosts, me, Brian Baglo, and our Grand Admiral of Growth, if not the sorceress of strategy herself, Peggy Ads. Hello, Peggy. A pleasure to see you again. How are you? I am fine as always when I get a chance to chat with you, Brian, and I don't know where you get it. So, if I'm sorceress uh of growth, I think is what it was. Grand Admiral of Growth, you know, sorceress of strategy, you know. So, I was going to go one or the other, but you're you're worth the you're worth the two honorics, I think. I was going to say if I'm sorceress of strategy, then you need to be the wizard of something, but I'll figure that out. I'll figure that out. But it's always always Adam, Adam and I can think of many British words starting with W that we could associate with me. Um, but we'll maybe

leave that towards the end. I will not go there. Um, we have a great lineup. You mentioned Adam. I will, although he doesn't need an introduction, I will introduce him very shortly because I've brought together I thought let's do something different. Let's switch it up. Let's not just talk about examples. Let's go through them. Let's actually turn our podcast into a master class. And so we don't just talk about how to shift to growth, sustain growth, and how to survive and thrive in our shifting UA landscape. No, we're not going to talk about how to do it in theory. We're going to unpack it with a realworld playbook because we're very lucky. Mobility's incredible success story is ours today. We are we can delve into it go into all the detail and of course solitire need I say anything else Brian it is the game is the su success

story and we have it here first of all are you um excited about this Brian you know I'm always excited when I get to come and talk on the podcast with you Peggy but yeah let's be honest one of the simplest games out there and how do you do it in a way which actually impacts the whole wide world it's a masterass in game design, development, but all of the other things that we talk about on the podcast, user acquisition, lifetime value, maximizing and optimizing every part of your players journey to make them happy. And you've brought together some people who should have some fascinating stories to tell. Indeed, and we brought them from across the ecosystem. So, I will start and maybe again raise your hand or let us see you that you are there. Let's start off with the mastermind of UA himself. We've got Chris Kim, director of UA at Mobility. As I said, UA mastermind between a growth story that is so ex inspiring. It's not just the topic of our podcast today. It is a lot of

coverage on Pocket Gamer as well. So, Chris, first of all, great to have you here. Thank you, Peggy. Great to be here. And we've got Adam Smart. I said no introduction necessary, but yes, global director of product gaming at Appsfire. the man, even a legend, because he has a new podcast if you haven't seen it yet, Brian, which is called UA Legends. So, yes, the man, the legend when it comes to measurement and turning complexity into clarity. Adam, great to have you. Thanks for having me here today. And finally, Director Desai, our VP of performance for North America and AMIA at Inobi Advertising, who has practically written the playbook on a privacy first growth strategy, bringing them all together that gives us the playbook. Ryan, great to be here. So Chris, you know, mobility versus success in solitire as a category is nothing short of legendary, but you know, success in such a crowded space and in

such a well known and well-loved game, you know, doesn't really come easy. What what challenges did you did you face post attribution? Yeah, of course. So, when AT hit, like everyone else, uh we lost almost all of our iOS tracking overnight along with a huge segment of our iOS inapp ads revenue. Um, as you know, we are very very heavy on inapp ads. It's our bread and butter as those performance advertisers kind of panicked and pulled out of iOS. So, those were two sides of the same badcoin. At the same time, we were not partnered to the extent that we were partnered today. Um, like folks here, but both strong demand partners like Inmobi who came to really understand the technical ins and outs of scan and measurement partners like Appsfire who provided best-in-class attribution at the cutting edge of privacy became really key for staying ahead of the game. Also, the release of subsequent scan versions that provide more granularity as well as eventually

probabistic modeling absolutely helped us. Until then, however, it was really difficult to switch from the mentality of the old world to UA buying to the new privacycentric one in the short term. I I definitely won't lie, but we eventually gained confidence in kind of triangulating those different sources of truth available and getting our iOS spend back up to par. and also brave that you didn't just put it all in Android at the time. There a lot of people thought I'll just do a workaround. I mean curious why you didn't choose the easy way out because of course it paid off in the end but uh why that? Yeah. So definitely in the short term we did see our Admon eCPMs go up on the Android side. So that was a short-term refuge. Uh I won't lie. But as we went along the path of the new world, we saw the iOS eCPMs begin to come back as that demand slowly came back and other advertisers slowly gain confidence. So that in turn gave us confidence that there was value to be

still found in those users, which everybody knows is a fact today. Chris, let's let's go back to the the the creative. You used it brilliantly. You know, a 21% boost and CTR is kind of mindblowing. So what was the secret source? Yeah. So I want to really uh pin it down on one of the major changes that led us to be able to scale our creative efforts and efficacy as a whole across a portfolio of I would say 10 to 15 active games on user acquisition at any given time. It was kind of a dramatic reorganization that put some of the folks internally that were in charge formally of UA buying into almost a full-time creative testing and optimization role as well as hiring another team lead and director that was kind of fully in charge overseeing that side of things. So that person has also been in charge of kind of building an in-house platform for all-in-one creative asset management, uploading, reporting, and analytics that is also looking to eventually integrate AI

features to facilitate the job of these uh newly branded creative managers. So honestly, while we aren't leveraging AI to the fullest extent quite yet, it's solidly on the road map for this internal platform, and I'm super excited to see what it yields. So if I understood you built internally therefore your own platform to turn your insights into like strictly into performance plus. Yep that's correct. Um it is it is a platform that has a vision of not only making the jobs of these creative managers much easier as they have a myriad of tasks they need to complete to uh fully execute their role but also eventually give us higher level insights that are powered by AI that um lets them lets it see things that perhaps the human eye will miss. Well that answers the question Brian. We were just on a different podcast where I said we have mobility wear telling us how they did it. It's like yeah I have to know I have to watch this. That will be

a big part of it obviously but you didn't do it alone. You have your platform. You're also tapping as many companies are and should AI but then you have your partnerships with our companies here. We have Inobi. We have Appsfire. We have all the parts of this master class. Maybe you can touch a little bit on how the partnerships with InMobi and Appsvar helped you rewrite your UA playbook that ultimately also fed into a new way of doing creative. Yeah, absolutely. So, I'll start with IDMobi. Um, Dar and I have have been through this um at length, but Inmobi was one of the few DSPs or perhaps the only DSP that truly was committed to being an iOS and Scan first partner. We we definitely tapped into a lot of their resources and the knowledge base that they were building internally to gain a lot more confidence in scan and utilizing scan first as uh as our main

source of attribution on iOS. And even if you look at our metrics internally today, they provide the best scan numbers um of all of our DSPs um bar none. So we're very very happy to have them on board helping us um just continue to acquire users on the iOS side. And in terms of Appsfly um Appsfire SSOT was a huge part of us filling the gaps especially in the early days when perhaps scan 3.0 4.0 wasn't out. Um, it provided a solution that allowed our UA managers to have a lot more confidence in that what they were seeing. And aside from very rapid and cutting edge product development like that, they also had great people on board that really knew their stuff. Uh, folks like Adam and uh, folks that basically acted as advisers and consultants in the world brave new world of scan that were more than invaluable for us uh, in figuring this stuff out. You know, I think it it's a testament to the fact that while a lot of companies,

a lot of studios, developers out there try to go alone. There's real value in surrounding yourself by expert and experienced help who who can help you deal with the the with the change and especially change at that kind of scale. But when it comes to actually that scaling, the scaling use your UA, well, keeping those high quality users, it it's a bit of a tight rope. Chris, um, how did you balance the need for that scale with the pressure to maintain retention and long-term player value in your LTV? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, for us being primarily uh, inapp ads monetize, long-term player value is retention or long-term retention. So, our primary goal on the vast majority of our games and user acquisition is to build our long-term user base with users that uh have great long-term retention. And one of the ways we do this is through a metric called cost per retain user or

what I like to call cost weighted by retention. So, that's really one of our uh brightest north stars. But overall, as long as our player bases are growing and retaining in our set of top monetizing geos like those in tier one and tier 2, our ad monetization team will usually find ways to monetize them effectively. Or in other words, it's very rare for us to find legitimate users that retain for a long time that also do not monetize inapp inapp ads. So again, for us, long-term retention is value. Beautiful. Love the idea that you brought brought together a metric for that. I hadn't uh done we've done a lot of interviews. We haven't heard that as a northstar metric. I think that's very very on me. It's I I'm I'm making notes. So, we might come back to you on that one, Chris. So, we've heard about mobility's approach to incrementality testing and optimizing their media mix to find that balance. And let's be honest, it's it's impressive. Um but in this master class, we're going to deconstruct that with the partners that

made it happen. So Darc uh let's come to you now um if we may. Mobility was able to scale installs while navigating the the post landscape. So what were the key strategies that you implemented in moi to to help make that happen? Yeah, absolutely. So I think when when we take a step back to when AT happened or even before AT, right, there were two parts to that. First part is you had limited tracking. you had the ability to still see users who did not have the IDFAs available even before long before ever happened. I think uh so probabilistic attribution or limit tracking or targeting users without the IDFA has been around in the industry for a long time. Not many did focus on that. Now when the AT was released which was back in 2018 the first time ever and then it was reaffirmed in 2019 and 20 I think one of the ideas that uh many people did not really look at was uh well what ADT

was going to do was there were still two pathways to attribution or the measurement right it could be scan or it could be probabilistic and we'll talk more about what that hybrid attribution could look like but one thing was for certain which is the ability to target users you need to build a tax stack that allows you to target the users without the idea phase which was consistent regardless of how you measure it. So we focused on that when we began right 2019 we started building the DSP uh and around 20 2021 we released the first version of that but it's it's it's all about how are we utilizing the available data and the signals from the advertisers as a first party signal from in movies exchange which is the third party data collected through SDKs and marry those together and build an ability to create uh efficient targeting for users who do not have idea phase. So I think that's something we invested pretty early on in and did spend a lot of time on honing that and I remember I think last year around GDC when Peggy

you and I sat down we had just released our scan for bidder in March we were so early in that game in targeting right so I think we've done a lot of that stuff on that front so I think that that's one part of it right so we did invest and we utilize a lot of that with mobility aware campaigns as well and uh the second part to that is the hybrid attribution right where we understood the differences between probabilistic and scan and how we could utilize the signals from a single source of truth from apps flyier and also rely on the other data points uh and work really closely with Chris and his team right to understand their KPIs like you know some of the KPI uh you know metrics he mentioned in addition to that the whole idea of uh of inapp advertisement based games inapp uh purchase based games what really matters to each of them uh a solitary is is an app that is mobility where is perhaps the first mo solitaire game uh in their top 10 ranked game, right? So how do you work with a game like that uh which has a very strong

recall uh and a long history. So I think a lot of those factors went into that where the idea of who we're showing ad to what messaging are we showing and how are we measuring all three had to come together and it had to be consistent. I think that's really key here is not just the model but the consistency in the model and particularly in the hybrid attribution models that you were building. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. I think the data uh piece of of hybrid attribution model is very unique in the sense that uh with scan you have significant amount of delays. Attribution windows are different uh the feedback loop is delayed probabilist and even granularity of signals that you receive uh because of the limitation of campaign ids especially in the earlier versions of scan. Now when you look at probabilistic a feedback loop is faster uh more events you can track uh denser signals. Now, how do you combine those together and and build a certain modeled

uh you know, sort of feedback loop for your own bidder, which then feeds into how you're basically targeting those users and optimizing the campaigns becomes pretty critical. I mean, it's great when you're first and then there's of course the fast followers. mobility understanding this and grasping this opportunity when other companies were a little hesitant even a little cautious even frightened but now we're seeing more interest in this but then you can see more experimentation so just curious D because you're working with studios you see so many studios out there when they adopt this approach what's a mistake they make that they could possibly avoid that's a fantastic question so I would break that into two pieces This first piece is what are you expecting out of each campaign, right? Let's say when you're running a hybrid attribution campaign, you're going to see different kind of data. Like I mentioned, the signals uh the granularity and the feedback loop are all different and hence your reporting is going to look

different. So when you're comparing things for both, instead of comparing them against each other or weighing which one is better, work them together, which is where the single source of truth comes in. Right? The whole idea of combining those two data sources and actually understanding what your campaign is doing and how the channel is performing is way better than trying to figure out which is better. It is it's more like oh is this apple better or orange better. Now that's not how it's going to work, right? You have to mix them and eat your rainbow so that you're going to feel you know healthier. So the idea is that try to do that instead of uh doing that. And I think the second piece is when they the same thing right that's the second step of that when studios try to deploy hybrid attribution uh they also pick channels based on uh certain expertise so oh I'm going to run one channel or one partner with scan but the other one probabilistic now then again that's where the problem is because you're not comparing apples to

apples for each channel or each partner uh instead uh of uh you know instead So doing that I would say you do that and then also com use that data together and intelligence that apps provides to sort of make uh you know decisions on how your looking like uh is looking like and then uh make further selection of your partners and channel mix that's great thank you so much um let's bring applyer into the spotlight Adam I know we've we've not heard from you um so SSOT single source of truth as you call it was a game changer in in all of this. So for those who have not come across it yet or who have heard of it but not really kind of got any details, can you explain how it works and why it's become indispensable for studios in today's let's be honest privacy first world? Absolutely. I I I think DA actually made a really good use case for explaining this one uh with the mixing apples and oranges. I I I like that. Um it

essentially it is exactly that you know you have two completely different data sets which are both linked to the same thing and the only way you can get a true picture of what you're trying to measure is by combining the two. But obviously there's loads of areas where they overlap. So you need to you need to uh combine them in a way that really breaks that and gives you the the true picture of what you're actually seeing. Um, so that's that's what we've done at Appsier. So what we wanted to do was be able to provide a picture which gives CFOs a very clear path of this is the return on ad spend for iOS when it's it's murky essentially. Um, so we, you know, we when iOS when scan first came through, lots of people pulled spend from iOS. Um, but being able to provide this full picture has increased the spend coming back into the platform. Also like to note, Adam, that I'm hearing also a lot more about product

and all departments actually across gaming studios looking at this. So it's uh it's the consistency not just for the campaigns but actually for the product and marketing fit, right? Yeah, it's it's essential. I think in this day and age on certainly on mobile games, it's it's imperative that the product side of the business understands user acquisition and essentially builds for user acquisition. It's something again we've heard about this um from a whole number of guests that we've had on the show. Adam, it's you can't compartmentalize the whole sort of mindset that the the KPIs used by the CFO and the uh financial people are different to those used by the design development team different from those in marketing. So for studios just starting out uh with SSOT but what's one tip to keep the process from feeling you know potentially overwhelming or where do they start to be able to answer that question? I think the first thing is and you would need to understand where they

are in their journey of user acquisition. Like if if you've literally just begun user acquisition on iOS, then you've got to understand what what networks are working for you. Um so either starting with probabilistic to understand how the the performance is operating for those particular networks and then mixing in the scan to be able to see the the sort of overarching picture of of the performance there. Um I would always say to to to start simple like like do not over complicate what you're running. Run with a couple of networks. really try and get an understanding of what is working and what isn't because there, you know, you still have the multiple facets of creative, you know, you can you can affect the performance of the user acquisition campaign by using the wrong creative or or advertising it in the wrong way. Um, so understanding and getting that understanding of what you're doing and and how you're

advertising, I think that's essential before you start to to sort of over complicate everything. starting as simple as you possibly can. And don't forget that SSOT is a is a tool. You know, it's a it's a measurement tool. You need to be able to run your user acquisition campaigns. You need to be able to to run all of that effectively for the numbers to flow in through the tool and the installs to flow in through the tool and then the tool will give you a clear picture of the advertising. It is a different approach, a little bit of a of a different mindset. And thankfully, you know, we're hearing from our audience that they are experimenting, but they're also making some mistakes. And um although Adam, I think of you as sort of like the man for measurement, you know, there are going to be mistakes along the way as we sort of adjust. So, what is some advice that you can offer that helps them get the campaigns back on track even when they go off the rails?

Cool. I think, you know, obviously this is for people who actually run user acquisition on a daily basis. We create the tools that enable that. Um, some of the things that I've seen are, you know, similar to what Chris said earlier about the creative side of stuff, actually being able to nail the campaigns that you're running, looking at the the target demographic, the segmentation that you're using for those campaigns. You know, there's there's there's the the two areas of of um that have to combine in order to be able to make a campaign successful is the creative and the targeting. And I think if you can get both of those aligned, uh, generally speaking, one of one of those will be the cause of any problems that you're seeing. That's to keep track of both of those. And that's another thing we're hearing so often about this as well, Brian, is, you know, segmentation is coming up as being one of the mantras, I think, for marketing

more now than it was before. You know, we're caring about the player personas. We're caring about context, contextual signals. So these are the things that and having a network that can that can is able to target under scan is becoming increasingly more important, too. Yeah. And and and and this is you're you're absolutely bang on, Adam. You know, we've heard from a number of guests that we've had on the show, it's there's no oneizefits-all for any element of of design p development, publishing anymore. It's you have to be paying attention to the details. You have to know your user and you have to be able to sort of meet them where they want to be. So it it makes perfect perfect sense. Um Derek, you've probably seen campaigns go sideways with your with your customers and then help them get back on track. So same sort of question to you. You know, is is there any lessons that you can share for the listeners about how to potentially get things moving again? Yeah, so I would

agree with Adam. I think it's all about the uh about the user segmentation and the creative. So going back to what I had earlier mentioned, it's all about who are we showing these ads to, what is the message being delivered to them, and how are you measuring it? As long as you figure these three things out, uh I think you're in a good place. And uh and why would a campaign go off rails, right? I think there are different reasons it may go off rails. And I think uh one good way to rule of thumb is is they say in statistics is it's it's all about experiment design. When you're running any experiment, you have to design the experiment in right way because the way you design is what you're going to measure. So I think at the end of the day, the idea is that what are you trying to achieve here? Is your goal? Okay, if that goal is D3 rorowass or is it D365 rorowass? Is your model accurate enough? Are you baking in the inaccuracies in your model from the 30th day rorowass which is what you're utilizing to make a decision versus the D365 which is what your CMO and CFO is

going to look at right are those models accurate enough is that being baked into what you're looking at from a network performance standpoint or the campaign performance standpoint so I think since from the point of a user actually uh seeing an ad to the click to the install to post install event to the purchase to the predicted value. There are so many hops and every single hop could present a a potential uh for for for issues, right? So I think the idea of one being open to those and then when you see discrepancy any place, pivot quickly and adjust and be nimble is very important. Right. So I think and that is where you have to rely on the right set of partners uh from both lenses. Mhm. That's that's definitely the key. The the pivot quickly that you know you're it's it's dynamic. You're constantly having to change your concept of what is right and what is wrong and being able

to move quickly. I think that that's imperative. Yeah. Again, it's something we hear so so so very often. Agility is everything. You know, constantly optimize, measure, and question what it is you're doing. Yeah. is make sure that that and make sure everybody as we've said um across this episodes everyone is has to be aligned. This is great information. I think there's an awful lot in here that our listeners are going to be taking away. Peggy, absolutely. I said it was a master class which is why I'm eager to get on to one because this is the one where there isn't an answer but there are exciting approaches and that's what we have here with Chris because you have also focused a lot on incrementality. you know, you're not just about proving that the UA spend is getting the growth. You were also very careful to make certain you're not just cannibalizing organic installs. It's a stu it's it is the challenge bar none. But what was mobility's way of approaching this? Yeah, absolutely guys. Like you said, um it's worth noting that

we have the largest and oldest solitary game on the market. So incrementality is a huge concern for us by nature. We have strong organic visibility and ranking. So it was difficult and honestly still is difficult to fully sus out which user came in as a product of paid acquisition and which users would have found their way in organically. So that being said, there's kind of three broad categories of incrementality tests that we've been using. The first is a kind of crude before after or onoff test or um I've heard some people refer to this as switchback tests. This category is prone to noise like seasonality and honestly isn't the most rigorous but sometimes it what has to be used before you have more sophisticated methods. Um the second is hold out groups. So a number of products that we use are based around this method such as apps flyers new incrementality product. Um what it does is it kind of splits an an existing audience into smaller subgroups that either receive or

don't receive the treatment. And this way you can get around factors like seasonality through a simultaneous test. Uh a third is through statistical methods like media mix modeling that look at a very large data set and make generalizations and regressions. This model requires likely the most technical knowhow and tweaking. So we're really still trying to polish that one internally. Um but we're hoping to combine a number of these to to get the picture that we want. I think that's the exciting part is just as we were talking about a hybrid approach at the top of the show, you know, it is about combining these incrementality frameworks. You're not looking at just one is what I'm hearing here, Chris. Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, there there's a number of ways to attack this problem and they are each going to have pros and cons and require different specializations and different resources and that's going to be up to the team to decide which solution best fits best fits this problem. If I can just have a

quick followup here, how does that bring us back? Because at the end of the day, it is about measurement. It is looking at again single source of truth. So I'm going to assume that this is also a much larger role than just uh just lip service really. Absolutely. So again, while we've made great strides in mobility and as an industry as a whole in iOS measurement and confidence from that measurement, things like MM and incrementality testing provide another triangulation point with which you know UA people can look at their iOS spend and feel more confident that they are getting value out of their iOS spend. So again, these are additional data points that need to be triangulated um to get the full picture of things. So absolutely right there. This is a question for for for all of you chaps. So for studios in crowded categories just like solitire. What's the one lesson they can apply today to stand out from the crowd even if they have got you

know much much smaller budget? Uh yeah I I can start off this one as you know somebody who has to buy for solitire. Um, it would be to quickly identify the channel or nature of channel that's the best fit for your game and be able to uh be able to quickly determine best practices and scale up on that channel. It's going to differ by category and different kind of game. But in today's crowded UA world, there is a channel for everybody and every kind of game. And it is imperative to quickly determine what that is for yourself. you know once you've come up with those channels then you're looking at media diversification which is also a very hot topic. Um ask you D you know what is a channel or approach that studios should be exploring but aren't again with that goal of trying to stand out even on a smaller budget because that is the goal. Yeah absolutely. So I would like to add one more thing uh to what Chris mentioned is uh definitely uh around

let's say being a solid solitaire studio uh we have worked with a bunch of different solitire studios big and small. Uh and one of the things we have realized is that everybody's monetization plays a huge role. I think with a gaming studio there's only one way you make money is by having user in the app. That's how every single dollar is made and hence monetization plays a huge role. So, shout out to Mobility Wear on how they've done that pretty phenomenally well with Michael um and his team to figure out different ways to optimize that because that will allow you to afford uh testing budgets, afford higher price points, afford fighting in this crazies of CPMs of Q4. So, I think a lot of that stuff will play in to that. So any studio that is trying to make any decision about the channel uh or or network they want to use I think you have to look at both sides of it not just UA look at how you make money as well and what is better optimized for or

which channel is better optimized for maybe both which channel is better optimized to help you get signals on both side of things uh I think that would be a great starting point and in terms of let's say if we were to say misuse I think there's a lot of uh a lot of uh you know reliance on the classic uh risk evers techniques of search and social which could end up being not very great because again going back to the piece of incrementality. Well, uh, we can, you know, there there there are debatable, uh, you know, points here, viewpoints, so to speak, around the incrementality of each of those channels and are you how heavily are you relying on search and social, which gives you the amplified reach, but also you have to understand your growth phase. If you're starting out, that's a great channel. If you're starting to hit a growth point, maybe not because now you've established something, it's not as incremental. And if you are seasoned and matured enough absolutely uh you know you have to explore and diversify

out of those channels. So I think two three different angles play into that together uh to build a build an airtight strategy. I think this is also where it comes back into the the sort of having the product team involved in all of this and everything because the biggest thing that you need at the beginning is to understand your audience. You need to understand the personas that are playing your game and you know where you can find them. And I think that's where you need to start really understanding who's playing in order to be able to source more users like that because that's what's going to matter in the personalization of the campaign uh and everything we're talking about that's going to be so important going ahead. Um like to start wrapping it up. We set a master class at the beginning and um I thought it'd be great to leave people with a little bit of a cheat sheet. Yeah. So, put out a problem and then you tell me a workaround and maybe we'll switch it up a little bit that it's uh um me and then you also Brian sort of

throwing these out here a bit rapid fire. So, I'll start with you Chris. So, the problem and then you tell me the solution and that will be the cheat sheet. So, we talked about everything you did in creative. Um, and that's also about testing to stay ahead. So, what's one thing studios in crowded categories like your own solitire should prioritize to maintain growth? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's been mentioned here, but actually two things. So, in short, I'd say focus on organizing your processes and teams for both scalability and flexibility. Um, while it's be while it's important to be able to throw a lot of budget and resources at what's working, it's also just as important to stay nimble and quickly change course if needed. Beautiful. It's okay, let's come to you. So, um, integrating hybrid attribution, diversifying your media portfolio smartly, how can studios best integrate scan probabilistic attribution and creative optimization into a

coherent and unified strategy? Yeah. So like I had previously uh mentioned uh two parts to that. First choice of partners you work with uh be it the channel or the partner or the network and the mobile measurement partner. Make sure you pick the right one that has the understanding depth of understanding of the ecosystem of the problem has the solution for that and can actually give you a an end to-end solution for all different kinds of aspects of hybrid attribution plus creative optimizations and such. Uh and the second piece is define your goals uh and ensure you work backwards from those goals and ensure who fits there along with all the other aspects that I mentioned in top point one so that you have a a cohesive way to to test uh every single dollars worth that you spend and the good news is that there's a lot of room there for experimentation I think you know we talk about how to combine them that's just it the combinations the hypothesis this is

not done yet this is work in progress. Same as well for you, Adam. You know, it's not work, it's not done. There are many ways to build and optimize firstparty data strategies while navigating all the privacy challenges. Um, you won't have the answer, but give me an idea, a workaround, an advice to get the most out of this. I I I think like I said at the very beginning, like start simple. That's that's probably the biggest advice that I could give anyone. Don't start working with 15 different networks at the same time and trying to work out how to work with scan and probabilistic and everything else. Start simple. Work with a couple of networks. Try and get your user understanding nailed. Get your user base, you know, really understand the behavior of your users, where you can find your users, and really go for that. Also, work with partners. You know, you've there's fantastic partners. We've got some here today. Um, just don't be

afraid to ask questions and really sort of try and get advice from the partners. I I think we're always happy to uh throw out advice here and there. Um, so just just try and get some uh get as much understanding as you possibly can by by using every resource that you have available to you. Perfect. Yeah. It's like there are no stupid questions or there may be stupid questions, but they're not going to be stupid for another 12 to 18 months. Um, so listen gentlemen, this is this has been an absolute pleasure. Um, as Peggy said, we are going to have to bring things to to a halt. Um, otherwise I'm sure we could keep on talking for the rest of the day. But before we let you go, um, there are a couple of questions we ask all of our guests. That brings it right back to games. The first is, what is it you're playing right now? What's in your pocket or on your your desk that you you're enjoying? And secondly, your favorite game ever. So, I'm just going to go around the room and pick people in alphabetical order. So,

Adam, we'll come to you first. Uh, it's got to be Last Epoch on Steam at the moment. That's that's my go-to. Uh, favorite game of all time has to be something on the Super Nintendo, probably Super Mario World because it was just an amazing first game that ever appeared. Um although I did meet John Romero recently so I should really say doom. It's and we know John's listening in. So it's like here you go John. That's that's one thing. I'm I'm sure it's uh Chris. How about yourself? Yeah. So I I want to give a shout out to a game that I've been very addicted to recently. It's actually a card game made by a solo indie dev called Bolatro. Um it's topping the charts. Yeah. It's it's kind of a rog like Yep. rogike poker solitaire. Um, it's topping the charts on paid right now, so it's it's hard to miss. As far as favorite game of all time, I'd say probably the Civilization

series. Uh, I've spent untold number of hours and across the series, so got to give it there. Beautiful. And and very strong contenders for both. And then last but not least, Darren, how about you? Well, I think currently I'm just experimenting with Royal Kingdom uh that came out of uh came from Dream Games. Uh I mean part of my job is to also keep playing all the different games that are out there so that I understand more about who we work with and I've played solidar countless times just to understand how the hands are dealt and stuff that that allows you to sort of have a better conversation and understand the pain points of the uh of the partners that we work with. Uh and I think so that's why you know my my current game will keep changing but my favorite all time is Age of Empires. I think I grew up on that uh and uh I would still play if I could. good choices and and a nice little plug h for the day job as well. So, you know, I'm not playing games, I'm researching. That makes perfect. That's a best justification. Yeah. Like as though we need it. Well,

again, that brings us to the end. Uh and I would just like to thank Adam, Chris, Derek, you have been exceptional. We really appreciate really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks for having us, guys. Well, thank you Brian and Peggy. And uh again, shout out to Chris and Adam for being such fantastic partners, not here, not only here, but also dayto-day, you know. Uh great stuff. Excellent. Likewise. This show is all about how to do your job better, how to make an amazing game, how to market it, and you have a say. So, if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on, then we would love to hear from you. We want to hear from you. We want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market in all its wonderful complexity and strangeness. So if you have any suggestions for us, if you have any feedback for us, you can always get in touch. You can email us at podcastpocketgamer.biz. You can find us on Twitter

@pgbiz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website. If you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts, you can find them at pocketgamer.biz/mpodcast. and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms. So subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said, look for us on YouTube. If you want to read it, hey, you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website. Tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future. Until then, I'm Brian Baglo. I'm Peggy Saltz. And that's a wrap. Until next week.