Learn how to leverage machine learning with Moloco

foreign good to be here likewise we have rocked up after a three-year Gap it's been it's been three years really has since the last 2019 was the last Helsinki yeah I think I was here for that excellent yeah and it's been basically far too long we're happy to be back in this venue it's one of our favorites High ceilings and big Windows yeah as opposed to murky basements and hotels yeah it's lovely we like that so for folks who may not be familiar with Moloko what is it that your company does so we're a machine learning business and we apply that to acquiring users that meet our Advertiser kpis ultimately so profitable user acquisition mainly Across The Exchange space so we apply machine learning Across The Exchange space people have been more used to using ml in the owned and operated

properties of Facebook or maybe Google we can Leverage HR right now I'm fine and utilize that across the remaining app ecosystem I know some people can find that quite a daunting Prospect when you talk about machine learning I think from the customer side they can be like you can seem quite opaque because it's like well no the algorithm does the thing and then we see what the results are how do you sort of explain to people or reassure folks that like no no there's we've got a system it does work and here's the data to prove it what do you show folks yeah it's very opaque right and if a seller ever tells you they understand it they're not being truthful either and that's really one of the the problems but I think ultimately it's based on performance and what you'll see is the man room which you run campaigns and optimize campaigns and how you uh associate with a machine learning business just needs to change slightly you have to factor in

a bit of time and you have to make gentle adjustments so it's not to disturb the Algos but if you work from that you should bear fruit and really see some great great results so is the advance of machine learning tech one of their sort of exciting new things that you've been you've been harnessing are there other new developments within your sector specifically that have kind of you've taken advantage of or you're looking into so I don't think it's a new thing I think the big winners in our space um ultimately offered ML and offered advertisers to try to leverage ml to to grow their business or even create a business and if you look at what happened with Facebook there's countless thousands if not millions of businesses that would not be here without that I think the new thing with molokos that we're really applying that model to the rest of the the app ecosystem and enabling um enabling advertisers to leverage rml in a broader space now in terms of new new things going on in our industry

um obviously we live or die by our philosophy which is the machine learning will ultimately perform better than human learning so for us privacy is a very interesting new development um it's probably not right now to go into but ultimately the landscape will change the signals available to Any Given Advertiser and any given Campaign Will Change kind of become more aware that their data is valuable their data is being sold and it is one of the major things that kind of drives drives the industry in a lot of ways and it has I think forced people to become a bit more protective or cautious do you feel that um well at the consumer level yeah yeah I think so and you know in a in an environment where data there's a paucity of data um we're going to need smarter machines ultimately to make the most out of it uh the dust hasn't settled yet we're still in a transitionary phase but as as and when we get to a sort of more solid

solid footing we feel that ml will be in a really strong position to help advertisers still acquire users that reach their their kpis right um and then I'd also say the other thing that hasn't been done that we're making in Rose into is creative exploration and optimization so you can apply and we do this in our camp in our campaigns and with our largest clients like applying our machine learning to understand the performance of the various creative sets that are being uploaded and how best to do that how best to cycle through creatives how best to value a creative based on either upper or mid funnel metrics and and if we can automate and therefore scale that that can really really help uh a creative Studio or any kind of any kind of that developer to uh to maximize the performance of their apps and I'm assuming a lot of this automation saves a lot of time and Manpower and potentially costs because things are a bit strange at the moment globally we just had a pandemic we're

out in a somewhat volatile situation back home apparently our prime minister's trying to tank the pound weird things are going on all over um how are you guys finding these sort of economic situations I mean you guys weathering it okay yeah I think you know I think we're in a in a great space traditionally um our industry has been has proven to be quite resilient I think partly because you know cpms drop as well so there always seems to be this balance out in the market right for buying an acquisition um however there are sort of comments that things are changing for in a much more fundamental way um I think from the part of miloco we've just won you know our we've been valued at 1.5 billion last summer of our most recent funding rounds we've been recruiting some really really top level senior leadership in the last sort of quarter or so um and you know we're we're really trying to focus on using

our competitive advantage in this moment to really take Leaps and Bounds forwards so I guess we're quite lucky at this at this moment and again we also feel in tougher times and machine learning product oriented business is well positioned um to to enjoy a competitive Advantage when you're interacting with your customers or your clients what's the thing that they come away with from working with you if they've come to you looking for a specific service what's the thing where they're like right this is what we wanted and this is what they delivered this is why we stay with them so there's two things there's the performance um and then there's the the human interaction um I'd say the performance and like we're offering great performance at scale for our clients and you know that that's wonderful to see you know our client portfolio has increased in in a mirror at least from one when I launched the

office in January 2020 I think we've got about 150 clients or so now in a mirror Alone um and they'll steadily perform at a decent level some huge uh some not so huge but generally it's a massive portfolio there uh on with ongoing performance and then I kind of feel like we need to add more than that as a business um and you know our account managers and our sellers you know they've got to be and they are I'd say oh I'd hope I would hope our clients would say they get value from interacting with the team right we are product experts in our own products I'd like to think also Market experts and we can offer advice um on best practice and how best to go and given up whatever life stage or a life cycle stage a company might be at and we've mentioned that it's been a bit of a strange couple of years we're now back at physical events finally I know you've been at Helsinki before with us what do you feel is the benefit of

coming to physical events versus the endless Zoom meeting system so interestingly I mean in the UK we we didn't really care that much I think about lockdowns and everyone battled it hard so uh the Local's been going to events since probably the beginning of the year we went to Moby dickton the the first edition of Moby Dick to make sure I shouldn't say that out so um and but it's been great to be there and it's great to be back at Pocket Gamer which has been a staple since I joined the industry in like 2012 I think I've been coming to pocket Gamers right I think you used to do one in Amsterdam which is one of my favorites so I wish you'd bring it back um but I think what what you get at events is firstly you get the content that you guys produce I'll be going to quite a few of the talks um I'll be hosting one later as well um but also the chance to really interact at a deeper level than on the zoom meeting I understand what's going on and talk to people in a in a much more personal way and understand the the challenges that any given client

partner competitor a face and I think it brings together that shared shared learning moment that it's really hard onto because okay you can talk to each other on soon but you can't talk as a group randomly over a coffee on the zoom and you know that's the same thing with being in the office that was mostest of ideas is pretty fundamental [Music]