🎮 Inside the Mistplay × MyChips Deal: The Rewarded UA consolidation has started! (MAU VEGAS 26)

I'll give I'll give some tip right but you know we we announced misplay audience network this week right and that brings together connected rewards that we acquired from mobility the MAF or my chips in uh like acquisition so today any advertiser that's buying on misplay we've already built the pipes for that revenue to flow through or the spend to flow through to loyalty play to my chips to all of the publisher network that we have so it's already there and we're working on migrating like a bulk of the advertisers to this one campaign system as we speak. [music]
Jack's chasing the sky with the two and a half gamers the midnight crew talking [music] UA adverts and game design too. Mel bringing the insight. We're rocking [music] those vibes to the early daylight master eyes on the prize. Tracking data through the cyerspace [music] skies. Felix stacks colors like a wizard in disguise. Jack crafters lift us to the highest. Two and a half

[music] gamers talking smack. Slow hockey sick. Got your back. Ads are beautiful. They like the way. Click it fast. Don't delay. Uh-huh. [music] Uh-huh. Uh-huh. [music] Hello everybody. This is two and a half gamers from MAU Vegas. We have Masimo and Mark again. But for those who don't remember these guys, please introduce yourself again.
Thank you. Thank you, Mate. So, hi everyone. I'm Masimo, uh founder of MAF, uh now working to scale the international business with Misplay. So, I'm very happy to to be here once again. Thank you.
Cool. And I'm Mark, general manager for Loyalty Play at Misplay, which is our publisher network. Obviously working very closely with Massimo on building

out the international business as well as here in North America.
Nice. And I'm at Lanche. I'm a host today. So it's a very special episode as you can see the the setup. So Masimo, there was this flag message, who is Maf? [laughter] It's actually really like funny story but how do you kind of like how do you feel on your side when all of this was kind of happening? Uh well I think the the message resembles a little bit how things uh start in our industry you know like from curiosity you know so who is maf like what they are doing what they are building are they building something like us so this message originally was from Ollie and uh I think that after that they uh they got to know us a little bit better and we got to know them a little bit better. Obviously we knew each other in the industry but never never had a chance to to work closely together. uh and I think that from that curiosity we we quickly figured it out that we are uh building different things but going to the same vision no so uh bringing rewarded into

into loyalty we always say math like or payoff is transforming advertising into discovery so I think what what misplay has built in the last decade is pretty much uh that and I think together we can yeah it's natural we can do it better and faster
yeah always say misplay is the OG right so But why misplay? Why now? Cuz I mean that's that's the million million dollar question or maybe billion.
True.
We'll make it a billion dollar question.
Yeah.
Um
there you go.
I think the timing was was was very right. You know when uh uh when we launched my chips about four years ago, uh we had a vision. We wanted to scale it to as many publishers as possible. We want to build an experience that doesn't disrupt uh what the user is doing in the app. So brings monetization and engagement at the same time and I think we uh we scaled it pretty well especially in EMIA in APAC those are biggest region. Uh so we were into a

point where uh we knew where we want to bring the product next.
Uh but at the same time uh I think we we found a partner where we can do just faster like all the technology the data science that misplay has built on the back end. I think it's uh probably the biggest leverage that we're using right now to just get to as many publisher as possible.
Then the question for you as well like why math and why now? Yeah, I think what Masimo was saying is kind of one of the key points which is like getting there faster, right? It's
where we could be independently in 12 months from now if this deal didn't happen. Like bringing us together if we can bring that to today where we can be in 12 months is obviously a lot more significant. So obviously you alluded to it, you know, the strategy is there. We were both gunning after the same kind of ambition of creating this platform where you know advertisers can buy and really get scale and they've been focused on international predominantly with sites on the US really this year you guys were ramping up and we've been very

intentionally focused domestically in the US. So it kind of dovetailed really nicely that hey actually the two together is more like 1 plus 1 is more than two and then we can really just accelerate a lot quicker because we had all of the pieces of the puzzle.
So those are pretty much the synergies.
Exactly. Yeah, there's almost no overlap in terms of people and focus and customers. So, you know, it's all incremental for both of us pretty much. Yeah. Okay. Then the g you mentioned, right? So, you're strong in like North America. What do you bring in like APE? Like what kind of inventory?
Yeah. So, historically, MF always been a supply first company. We've been focusing very heavily on the supply and uh the the team and the partnership that we build in AP pack Japan and Korea first uh are really outstanding. Uh we have a publisher from banking to manga that are going live as we speak. So we adding more as we speak uh which are

really changing the game like the the type of loyalty and the type of engagement and loyalty you see from users in AP pack it's uh it's completely different from USA or it's insane. Yeah, you're seeing uh if you see 80% retention rate day one, it's it's probably in the norm. So that's uh that's really crazy. So the thing there is that you don't have to uh win the trust of the user again and again as you maybe you have to do in USA or or MIA.
What do you mean
the tr the trust of the users? Yeah. Because they are used to loyalty system. They are if if you go there, if you spend like a week in Japan, you see point systems. They call it point system for pretty much everything. Even you want to get a drink, you can use the point system to get a Coca-Cola or whatever from the vending machine. So they born historically with this in their mind. This is their life. No accumulating points. So when we got the experience of you play a games to get points to uh publish like NA so the the airlines the major airlines in the country I think it's natural for the user that this is just another way they

can earn uh points and rewards and uh yeah that's why they are ging engaging crazily with that. So I think the the local team that we build the trust that we have with the with the partners which is not only a monetization partnership we help them also with the UX we help them with the product. It's very important in Asia to have like a 360 degree partnership. Uh I think really made the made made the difference.
I think one little call out slightly tangential but when we talk about the geos
obviously the misplay consumer app is we're strong in North America so US Canada we're obviously in a lot of northwestern Europe European geos but we're we're increasingly strong in Korea and Japan and we're investing there. So there are synergies not kind of overlap because we're strong on the consumer business in those markets and obviously MAF brings uh the B2B business. So when I mentioned like we've been focused on North America that's purely on the network strategy of bringing on publishers. So it fits together nicely like demand and supply and
how does that demand and supply between

my chips and misplaywork?
Yeah, it's a good question. And obviously we careful not to speak too much of under the hood but already very early into this integration
something exactly I'll give I'll give some tips right but you know we we announced misplay audience network this week right and that brings together connected rewards that we acquired from mobility the MAF or my chips in uh like acquisition. So today, any advertiser that's buying on misplay, we've already built the pipes for that revenue to flow through or the spend to flow through to loyalty play to my chips to all of the publisher network that we have. So it's already there and we're working on migrating like a bulk of the advertisers to this one campaign system as we speak. Um so yeah, the team's been working really hard on that since close so that we can realize that like announcement as soon as we made it here. So literally next week coming out of MAU, we're going to be, you know, getting advertisers set up. So it's a pretty here and now. It's not like, hey, 6 months maybe we'll be

in a place where it's kind of working. No, we're kind of good to go.
How is that even possible? You're good to go. Come on.
I'll let you speak to this is one of the things about why, you know, you obviously asked why misplay, why now? But but you know, why MAF? Why my chips right now? you know, Masimo, Ricardo, and Alessandro, the three founders, you know, they're hustlers. They're executors. They've been running this business. It's bootstrapped, which means it's profitable, right? There's no investment from outside, really been growing it. These guys move super fast and they're bringing that to the B2B business. So, especially Ricardo on the engineering side. He's like, I'll get it done today. Like, he's like writing the code as we speak.
How big is the company now?
Uh 70 people around 70ish.
That's pretty good.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean but the engineering team is like five, six, seven people. It's a handful of people. So very again, although we're bringing a lot of AI on the like engine side of how do we power smart decisions, they've been leveraging a lot of AI tools of how do you build the code quickly and build like a really

cool product. So yeah, like already their team's having a massive impact to our velocity.
Nice. So then you now you explain please because this is incredible the UK. No, I mean the the acquisition is has been just announced two weeks ago, but obviously has been in the making for a while. So, I could say we we cleaned the house a little bit to be ready for day one.
Yes, we had a shared picture of okay, this is how it's going to work. Like this could be for nothing. But, you know, we've been working these things don't take weeks, they take months, they take years. So, we've been speaking a long time.
And I think also how we built the the back end of my chips historically, it's it's very modular based. So it's not too too tough.
No spiky decor.
Uh maybe
maybe a little bit. I mean we are from Italy so you know
we have to I guess we have no but it always been Ricardo and the tech team they always build with a vision of uh this not going to be uh a backend a platform to serve like 10 apps or 50

apps. We always wanted to scale to thousand and thousand of publishers. So from the day one we made in a way that it's scalable. You can plug in your source. you can plug in more demand. So the first thing that we are actually doing right now is integrating the teams but also integrating the demand.
Uh I think we have done an amazing job on the supply. We're doing a very great job on the demand but misplay has been uh in the industry for more than 10 years and I think everybody knows that it's considered one of the top sources when it comes to UA rewarded UA. uh so I guess that uh the the quality of the inventory that they can bring to our publisher it's it's just outstanding and uh we we already see a reflection directly in the CPM or ARPA of the publishers without touching anything in the integration so the publisher doesn't have to I don't know adopt a new feature or change anything it's just a matter of having uh more inventory to to bring it to the to the user to the players and a better way a better data engine to sort

the games for the user But you mentioned you want to scale and you also mentioned it's still high quality like usually doesn't really go along.
You mean scale the number of uh
pictures? Yes. And then still maintain the quality. Like how can you ensure that that's going to happen? Uh well I I like I tend to disagree with that because I I believe that uh
yes
I mean the the vision we had is uh we want to be uh an open network where anyone any publisher can register and go live in 5 minutes. This is the idea. Uh so that's why we build the platform. We be the self-service registration for publishers. Of course there is a there is a control from our team and they need to be guided because uh as of today like using an offer wall is not the same as using uh any any mediation or any rewarded videos. It's it's more standardized. There is a format
it's just full screen it's very easy like offer wall it's more like a like a loyalty and engagement solution for the user. So it needs to be built in in the app. If you just drop it there it's not

going to make them much revenue as you think. So there needs to be a contact with our account manager. We need to work together with the publisher. But the idea is that the more we move forward, the more we give a tools to the publisher to build everything on their own. No, like we're working now on um on a placement which will actually be like the first native placement for offerables where they can uh show games even outside of the experience of the offerable. No. And manage everything on the UI. No. Very similar to what Google did with the native ads like uh back in time. Maybe just to add like my two cents this
secret exclusive.
No, no, no. Like it's exciting stuff that we're working on, right? And we're stepping up the amount of stuff we want to announce and share. But on quality, all I was going to say is it's kind of a product of a couple of things. You've got engagement and you've got fraud, right? So the misplay engine as well as the my chips back end, we built a lot of great fraud solutions to really weed out those users. And then it's like how do they engage with the rewards? If you can price that correctly and remove the fraud, there's always a price where the

quality makes sense because quality is really just how much am I spending and how much am I getting back and maybe a little bit of retention long term.
Retention doesn't pay bill.
Exactly. Retention is a nice glory metric on top. It's like, hey, we kept 5% of the users cuz they love the game. It sounds good, but ultimately if you solve that problem, um, if I can buy it for a dollar and I can make $1, 20, that's fine. If we can buy it for 20 and make 25, also fine. Great for everyone, right? What does that all like this means to you Mark? like you come back from MAU on Monday and then okay what's what now because you said you're ready so
yeah so like the technical integration part and like you know opening the fire hose to all of our publishers or across the my chips and loyalty play platform is actually relatively easy compared to the bigger challenge which is how do we combine the platform long-term the people integration right now is we've got you know 70 people coming from my chips a bunch of people coming from connected rewards. It's how do we bring them into the culture into the mindset.

You know, we never would have bought a 70 person organization if we didn't feel that our philosophies were pretty close to each other. But there's some working differences. So for me, the next 6 months is like integration hell as they call it, which is like just getting everyone, you know, into their functions, into their roles. Advertisers can have one account manager that manages their business across the entirety of the platform. Just streamlining a lot of things.
Yeah. But you need to change a lot of processes, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean evolve them. You know, I think there are some things that we do really well um that haven't been top priorities for the my chips team and equivocally there's some stuff that these guys are awesome at where we're kind of just starting to scratch the surface on what to do. So, we're really taking a look at it together and adopting the best of both. Um and then we just want to get back to executing like cool [ __ ] on the product side, right? That's the next bit is like what can we do to really be at the bleeding edge frontier of how the offer wall space should work.
The you might chief is still remaining

like fully operational.
It is it is fully operational. There's no disruption for for clients uh on both sides like advertiser or publishers. Uh yeah as Mark said uh we are we are making the integrations right now. Uh but nothing's changing for the publisher.
That's what everybody wants to hear. Yeah.
No, exactly. Like we wanted to reduce the amount of thrash and movement is like yes, we'll be rebranding some stuff. We will move some integrations from the loyalty play platform onto my chips which is essentially now the loyalty play engine for the publisher side. Um but we don't need to create new campaigns and get new tracking links and new IO's and all that stuff. We're trying to keep it simple as possible. Like Aaron said, just one click extend that spend off platform.
It sounds very very good.
That's the dream.
Yeah, that's the dream. Look, so revered UA and like everybody's talking about consolidation, but only misplayed done it so far. Like why is that why is that happening?
It's a good question. I mean, I'm

actually interested to get your thoughts more than mine. But I think look, we've got a lot of rewarded platforms, whether that's consumer apps or B2B networks like us that have got to a certain scale where it's like a it's expensive to acquire. Like we've just spent a lot of money building this business cuz we're really investing in this space. So there's probably a handful of companies that can afford to buy the platforms that are meaningful out there. So that's definitely one factor. Um, but these businesses are generally quite profitable. So not to speak on your behalf, but the my chips guys weren't looking to sell when we started talking to them. This wasn't like an auction where everyone was jumping in, it was very much like,
you know, we we were like, hey, there's some synergy here. We think there's Yeah. Hey, there was a lot a lot of flirting happen. So, you know, I think it's um a lot of these founders that are in the earlier stages of business are seeing if they can be the leader, you know, out of a peer of four, four or five or six competitors. But I do think we're going to see more. Who is the question? Um you know, there's there's big guys in this space like the AOS

where, you know, my personal opinion, they're probably not looking to buy anything right now um because they have the B2B. I guess they they used to have a consumer business I believe which isn't I guess it's not as big a part of it but you know there's other players there's Xbox there's free cash there's all these guys that have cash and could could make a play for similar stuff I mean for me it's exciting it kind of validates the strategy that we're already executing um and we like worthy adversaries right well I I heard UA is dead rewarded UA is dead like everything is dead pretty much in mobile like 10 times in the in the last couple of years here we are here
but can yeah what's your take on the like consolidation.
I I agree with Mark. I think there will be way more consolidation moving forward. Uh some will be driven by strategy, some maybe will be driven by foro. Let's see. Uh I definitely always it always happen like that way to get good price, right?
It always happen like that. But I believe that yeah uh Mark is right. We were not looking to sell when Misplay

came to us. We just decided to sit together and see where this conversation brings us. And uh actually we found out a lot of things in common. So it felt very natural to to combine the forces. No, I think uh yeah you say misplace the OG. We have been uh looking at the apps for when pretty much from when we started
always been one of the point where we we looked at uh as as a good case study and example of when we want to build a reward solution. So, I think joining the forces with them makes much more sense to any other players that would be just more like a financial acquisition rather than a real partnership and long-term plan. But yeah, I I agree. There will be there will be more. There will be more.
Who it is? Let's see. We can put some money on it later maybe.
Let's fast forward to MAU 2027. So, here we are now. The deal is fresh. What do you think you're going to be able to say next year when we sit together about like how it went?

Well, if we're sitting here in a year's time, I'd like to say with absolutely no uncertainty or controversy that we're the number one UA platform for rewarded. That's really the north star, right? And I think we both share that vision.
Yeah. be the number one one rewarded platform for rewarded and also we want to bring all the rewarded play experience uh to to vertical that now hasn't been touched yet like historically all the offer are very strong reward apps the performance is there the scale is there everyone likes it but uh we believe there's there's still a lot to discover we're just scratching the surface so I think in a year from now we'll come here again to this table being the number one and having a solution which is adopted by many different vertical because not just rewards
and maybe one or two other people that we bought into misplay. [laughter]
I think I think we need to stop. I think we need
Yes. Yeah. Exactly.
No, it's all about strategic opportunity, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you guys for coming here again. I mean, this is I think our third Misplay MAU podcast, so

definitely going to be here next year and with you as well. Thank you very much. See you next time.