Publishers on their dream monetisation platform

[Music] and so we we want to talk about the dream and monetization platform this came out of a conversation we had with that the app a deal guys so all racial who kind of explore it in full in variable and so we have a fantastic group of people with lots of experience from different perspectives and it's kind of always fun when you have your old boss on stage which is you know kind of intriguing so totally hit somebody knows a lot more about the the ad monetization sort of than even I do so what we're going to do is I'll ask you guys just to introduce yourself and we'll kick F into the question we're talking about so make a joiner introduce yourself and hey everybody so we cup the guys using to access these

expresslanes big expense claims eventually just at the quick so you know I was the other days I was running a global beauty for amplifier we got a choir unity and then I'm going to UTS global PD perplexes I've moved on to optic 7 which is the my talking dumb guys and acquired by Chinese Chemical Company whatever so op dusty are all looking off the UI and monetization all different things and and yeah I kinda have some insight on ideation just to be here we've kind of been on both sides of me that's the key thing that's the problem I ruined my name is Sarah Chen I'm the game monetization specialist at Eastside games we are a indie studio up in Vancouver Canada so hello everyone yeah and so we do a lot of our own games

our recent one is Trailer Park Boys which reached top 100 100 countries so really excited to be here to talk about monetization cool hi my name is åsa from mehta mochi we're a game developer from San Francisco known for Mob Wars free pop and most recently we released Wiz Khalifa's we farm I manage product monetization you a sometimes art direction some game design and other stuff so the long panel talked a lot about kind of like choosing right partner and things like that I want to try to get it more practical so first question are really ask is what is it you guys you know what causes pain for you what's this thing what's the sort of tools that would make your job easier in terms of you know monetizing the products you work with also that I said you understand Allah oh I guess I just need more people but I guess tools wise you know since

were actually a pretty small company you know we work with their four or five different ad networks we use we're actually using to mediation platforms it's really hard to negotiate with each platform and also do my other jobs I don't know it gets maybe which there was like a little bit more transparency because oh it feels like you know maybe we could be doing better we're probably leaving money on the table so I don't know I guess it's just a matter of like you know negotiating the best rates with our ad partners those of you not that we will get to be that sure yeah kind of to build off of that - I'm a lot of the tools that we use is uh you know the dashboards that a lot of our mediation platforms have we also have our own in-house so just kind of combining everything and seeing where the trends are it takes up quite a bit of my day just to kind of like look

through all the different dashboards social media all the analytics tools you know and coming together and really understand who our customer bases and players do I switch once you work with I will use you know like some of the guys like iron swords fungal remediation like on charters as well cool it's going to be the boring battle because I agree with this let me in forget miss I'm currently like advising different niche companies helping video databases I've also anyway but again I can act the that that you know it's also good to say for all over there is a small team or a bit because I'll be seven we had about 200 people accompany so I had a team my team in London was looking after they had regular scallops keep small team same problem and go staying at the partners who's throwing partner testing new stuff all this track you know take all these traits and then only other than usually are on on the whole back often buy the product right you know we have you have an

updated with me in next four weeks you know we need to provide us this and that and this and that and while at revenue can be very significant so actually the cash profits having the main very revenue stream it's still kind of all thinkin cleared secondary by the by by the designers right because you want to build an in-app experience is be done at this and that so so anyway so it's kind of like you know take a lot of space a lot of resources just you know manage whether you have like you know small team we become so I tell inside that there's a couple of things that come to my mind we're talking about transparency we're talking about dashboards we're talking about and them they can't even make lots of decisions about quite complicated areas with lots of with not very much results it just showing me that there's a very question here about kind of how the platforms provide you with that information when are they providing you with this kind of information where you can make an informed decision or is it just simply too much data to be able to

cut through it I mean doing you haven't going to be on that may I think for us you like you know I think we have to get to a certain amount of scale in order to get to you know asking for a certain amount of transparencies like we could do you know direct deals with other publishers in a creative profit marketplace or even have our own ad server but that just takes you know more resources or I think there are ways that we could you know figure out how much the advertisers are really paying you know and then how much the cuts are that the ad networks are taking but that just takes you know time and effort so you know for smaller publisher like us you know I think it's just going to be tough you know hopefully tools in the future will help us you can mind getting that yeah I definitely think with a lot of our partners we do get some really awesome data and information sometimes it can be overload but it's really just kind of understanding you know what you are

looking for so if you have that question in your mind and how do you derive from this and you know can you really you know see the results at the end right but yeah I think for a lot of hours and a lot of I'm noticing a trend and a lot of the platforms and companies that they want to work with the publishers they want to work with everyone to kind of create that you know the experience that you want so that you can have a really good experience for your players right so really seeing that trend which is amazing because I think that publishers should be working with you know their networks and having that conversation and not being afraid to answer like ask those hard questions because at the end it's all about the players I don't think he's talking about focus like it's it's not about not about that monetizing all about the people you see where that's in a 90/10 rule or any way that that you know your key markets actually you know 10% of your or 10 to 20% of your PA you which is 10 P of you as some big question marks actually try 80% of your library so make sure you focus on those

more install spent that much time on I don't know Finland where I'm from because you likely likely have like hundred thousand VA you and it doesn't really make a difference if you if you you know increase their abs like easy games like 10 percent focus on the big things first you know I don't know if it's docked and mortgage you have and it's very data-driven so yeah there's a lot of data to kind of digest but you know if you if you break it down your vehicle going you know where actually the money is you know that's going to take you somewhere pretty quickly I think I'll kind of follow-up to the think something Saracen was interesting that the lotta partners are interested in the player experience in particular that that does resonate very much with all the things for the epidural guys are talking to me about which is they're kind of key to understand you know what the platform's themselves need to do to help that process and you know what you would like to see those kinds of companies including you know that would make a meaningful difference in says Claire experience do you have any thoughts in terms of what what things

specifically might you know what is it about understanding the lifecycle player is it about understanding the key good that the triggers the purchase is what something in all your crete add moment which allows them to then retain long ago and i don't all these things like be but if you have any thoughts i mean i guess for us i mean i think all our data like we you know analytics you know actually we're one of our mediation platforms of iron source and they actually have some pretty good tools I think it just a matter of you know bandwidth my bandwidth you know to just kind of dive in deeper you know I think I guess my complaints is this you know I just want things a little easier for me so is that the question I mean these are the alphabet so you know they actually what what you want isn't to propose ways to make life easier and if you did it maybe maybe if there are like more proactive you know saying okay we know we're seeing but they don't they don't

really have that transparency into our user data yeah so I think that that makes it tough like what they're collecting should they have small I mean I know ology don't know dealt these things I mean I think there are services out there that do you know both those things yeah you know it's just a matter of like you know do I go up to our developers and go hey let's test out this SDK and they're just like no we don't have that time but it is you know there's obviously there's a any type of it will have its more it's monkey data it'll have an understanding of games like you that had have done certain things and the results of those behaviors so it seems to me that there we have ways that it can provide some level of more detail potentially yeah I'm like come on wrong on that no no I may I think you're right yeah but I don't know I know what else to say okay sorry but although I yeah I mean I think that's a double-edged sword kind

of like should these you know partners have more transparency and information about your players because obviously the more information you have the you know better experience that your players can have by the same time they obviously don't know privacy you know quickly maybe I don't want someone snooping into you know what I've been doing but ya know I think it's a it is important I know that with us we want to move into a lot of branded ads branding is really important now we're seeing a lot of these companies now moving into games which is awesome but a lot of them need to kind of understand who the players are in order for you to have you know the best experience so it's a give-and-take if you want really if you want to work with amazing ads and brand partners to show their ads in your game that will really resonate with your players on the yeah sure you might want to share a few information but you know you also have to think about the experience of cool oh and it's also because the brand is also like you looking a little bit different model

than having having like a unities in these cars running like a king and came advertising so you know you have the demand like between us there's a lot of email I mean for print for sure there's a lot of demand from you know if your ravio Angry Birds and a lot of eclectic titles out there it's going to be different ballgame you're a smaller company we don't like the recognize game brand these brands actually want to take a look at the impression first you know like is this something I want to be honest is something I want to place my my adult while you know you plug into any of the big networks you have always demand no matter how crappy your game is you know so that that's just you know like the market is a little bit little bit like a level open Rd somebody I helped a bit in the past can say the name but the rather big publisher and this got a double for were you mentions that this is maybe a good example that an idea that we wanted to put more competition to the networks you know on

a water pool so we wanted to be a little bit more transparent throughout the eCPM levels so if you are number one network you know you did whatever 15 box in us number two gets $12 right or deliver 12 hours and so you know we have like eight nine Edwards there so we wanted to open this not revealing the names of the network but TEM and how much traffic they actually meant something like a great idea or once you start looking into it networks and I didn't know about it it is it's easy to it's not many play it's easy to optimize the eCPMs if your network because basically you have let's say you have 110 page right all of them is delivering 25 bucks is zero another one is tailoring two bucks just don't show those fools it performing campaigns so actually your way you're working your way up on it you're not kind of list but actually again a place you're only you know feeling like five

percent right so it what happens when able to network start to do this they have the transparency you're actually your total ad revenue decreases because people not just feeling so so eventually will happen we started to show much more house apps you know with there's a value more house size of course but eventually you know we actually like we do this more best and we don't okay that's not actually going to stay so while the idea was good I think it needs further development how to really make it beneficial for for everybody so sounds like what you're saying fire Bob and Theresa it's not just transparency it's about actually meaningfully delivering the right kind of experience and it just originally particularly when you raise issues that brand I remember back in the early days when I was I am old when we were working out what banner ads were going to be a BT you know that I used to work at British select a very very very long time ago we'd even know what size great aspect ratio banner ads were going to be and it took us ages and none of the

brands were ever interested at all and it came down to a debate which was about reach and it was only the point where banners became something it was critical mass and was the brand started coming in using it and obviously we've moved on from then I think the same thing every time I'm involved in any kind of ad conversation it comes down to the same question when it rounds coming in Oh have we reached this kind of reach level that makes it relevant enough for them to choose ER and I wonder if we are now getting to that stage where mobile games are now particularly kind of significant enough where we now start thinking about that does that make sense yeah I mean so we're working with a brand Wiz Khalifa and first thing the partner said after watching a bunch of ads we have an idol game so you get a boost we tell me watch dad there's like all of these ads so awful I mean they're like you know all game ads like where

the brand ads you know and of course like the usual suspects like you know machines own a king they're all advertising our game and you know they're saying that you know from a brand perspective they think that these ads suck you know and it's like why do people even watch these things so there's like where's coca-cola where's the you know the new Fast and Furious movie but you know I think the reality is that you know machines own you know pay smokes so you know there go always going to have like that you know first view can but the question is one of the things that we were talking about back in the amplified days was actually it wasn't just about who pays the most it was work people likely to kick through I mean are we seeing the platform's paying attention to that more widely I mean are you seeing people paying asking that question at least so I guess good when it comes down to them I mean I guess that they're paying for it I don't know how much they are paying for it is one of the problems Garrett I saw

with brands typically having like like a direct sales team actually close your life down in LA and the problem was that a lot of brands who are eager to jump in the big game title already kind of somehow popular get in your purse but you know the other stuff so so it's difficult when you're smaller you want to establish yourself ramps don't see the value and I'd say I my opinion is that brands still don't see the value of a game right so they just don't understand you know why you guys a coca-cola expect money on you know advertising games I think it's going to change but it's going to take some time this interesting thing that happening in eSports yes yeah yeah I think I do understand the game a little bit on the other side I do see actually a lot of brands maybe understanding especially now you're seeing ads on traditional marketing you know like I'm Super Bowl

or you're going to see them you know word of mouth is amazing and all the statistical marketing that's coming out is really helping these games I don't get out there and brands are now starting to really notice and you know with our company we're very niche so we actually like we're really lucky that we understand exactly who our players are our community is awesome they totally have a good idea of you know who what they do what they like you know so working with us we like for brand they would love us because we can say yeah sure they're definitely going to pay attention to you they're super engaged I think one of my favorite examples this is back in the early days of the Java kind of industry and we had movie app and it was amazing how you know certain types of people would to certain types funding in this case it was a directory inquiry thing but we're sort of things that redbull and our B inverse other things and it's interesting how the same suspects come back time and time again Red Bull Aldi in particular did some amazing stuff in PlayStation Home and it was because those guys have an innovation budget specifically for

advertising in new and refreshing ways Tripathi doesn't matter if it's successful what matters is that if it went to negative good PR that but to transfer between the innovation budget that they have and the day-to-day budget comes back to the same problem does this have reach so getting something works really well on one operator at the time was nothing they had to get something that would replicate in exactly the same in a layout structure with the same source material on every single European operator for them to be able to scale it up and I think this is sort of maybe the question we were asking about the kind of monetization platforms is how do we get these platforms to be able to make those kinds of experience the branding can expresses work in ways which are more scalable is that fair yeah it goes back with the first one about then you know people don't generally have time right and though the game companies don't have time to figure out expecting a partner to come in but the great idea I mean this is how it's

going to work and I know so many games come is like super eager to try anything new as long as the techniques ends and the SDK is not like Julian gigabytes and they two years they you know integrate a separate so people are generally open to trying you know and then but you need to then you need to deliver you know I've been a service provider and if you get a chance you need to deliver the first day and that's how so so it is it's interesting you talk about you know people willing to press decays and stuff all that in its that actually true because I know there's a lot of games out there look at you know 10 20 SDKs having to put into their game and to put another one in is I just makes the whole wiring of the game so much more complicated yeah generally we didn't do that not generate the public message of the public so 9 out of 10 at that companies of you know reaching out to us is it not we're not going to try this because we actually tried everything already back at the base so we're very very established with the set up of

partners we had but then whenever we saw maybe a new ad format and some like that you know we would test it a smaller app you know we would dedicate some time or Inuit and and only you know from that you know things work we would move all of the video titles then have you know crazy crazy idea you so SSDI is a red flag people don't want to hear the SDA but as long you know if you can deliver the value I think there's a discussion so we would plan out basically to drop certain SDKs that was a plan you know replace something with something better you know if something comes wrong so there's always originally this valley so it just just raise that debate about whether you put the SDK directly into the game or if you use a partner to be able to provide that kind of service and you know it in terms like from the outfit seven point of view it was worth doing the direct integration in most case it was REME viewers of running our in-house mediation so when these guys started to started to

advertise so they they didn't really have I mean there was nothing in the market so they started to build you know in-house opening over the years you know testing different things but once you build your in-house stuff for four or five years with all the rules and things it's difficult to kind of you know come up with it just if occasionally good revenue you know kind of replace that the one you have but I say that it feels like the dream is obviously like no SDK and no work and apparently very great but in the absence of certain specific go very well we never but you're singing guys I mean are you having are you willing to put experiments into your game I you do prefer that experience Ramos for Palmer very similar to what you guys do we we like to test out especially new new new partners on smaller games just to kind of see how it is is really just testing at not only the SDK but also you know can we work with these guys because that's also very important too right and then later on sure for bigger titles

we might want to try certain things but yes very similar to what you were saying yeah I mean for us we go by the recommendations from our friends you know we're developers you know have they had good experiences that you know are they making money more money so yeah revenue driver be huge but you know also we kind of have to balance like our priorities like you know for instance we're we don't have any live events in our game yet so you know do we want to test out a bunch of SDKs or you know focus on events you know obviously it's events so you know I think for from our perspective I think it's better to you know delight the players then you figure out like a new way to try to make money from them but I guess events in a way it is but you know it's more engaging than putting an SDK so how sophisticated you get in terms of we're when you're going through that process and you're all trying to settle this all this up how much detail are you

interested in he's going to set general rules you're going to get very specific are you going to kind of try and buy the metadata on the individual who's looking at that particular what sort of level are you after and if you could get more what would you want if you can take a framework from their speak area for warfarin tssaa we can get some you know real-time bidding based on the metadata of the device being used and some ID of the player do you want to get into that level of detail or use or say I want just put this much budget up for me I think it depends on scale and you know for now we just want to you know continue making a better game um so you know I don't think we were ready for that kind of detail yet although there would be nice as you know they're tools that make that easier I think there's a compass up in hell things like on the monitors I mean looking the bigger companies who maybe have like a fear at

ribbons per year can be very trending of pulses or anything so first first thing typically like you know somebody out reaching within you prayed out of here or crazy idea you want to check with your friends your peers you know it does this make any sense you know like anybody using a second one is actually if you still like it second ones to be doing a very greedy STP review by Derrick that was just looking in does it actually press everything doesn't make sense that up in doing the small test etcetera it's rather like you know we have this pros allowed sevens very like particularly this is how we test all the new stuff and and the we friend you know maybe you again 9 out of 10 we're disqualified already in the early day so only 1 out of 10 is true to some part of that fund so and there's plenty of you know stuff available things popping all the time but over the over the years you got to build this knowledge of what actually works for you what not and you gotta like from the first email you're going to feel that okay both this is not

going to help right yeah for I kind of sounds like everyone is looking for benchmarks just looking for things the way you know historical data for us we're really lucky because we actually have games that we can look that past back and check out you know the data and how it was and so for us that's really good so that we set up KPIs when we first start when we launched an SDK that's definitely what we're looking at so that we can you know and just because they don't hit those certain kpi's doesn't mean that they're not a good company or a good SDK to work with maybe we just needed to have a little bit more conversation with them maybe it's not the right game maybe we just needed to try something else and so I mean everything is going to be different but as long as you have those their own benchmarks that you want to hit I think that bench well things are interesting because if you are going you're on your own route you you only have the previous games you have you can't really benchmark about against what else is happening at that point in time where if you're using a platform that's oh yeah idea whether you can at least have them provide you with some insight whether

you're performing in the right kind of court I love the statistics for your particular genre and I wonder if that's an interesting aspect to kind of this idea of whether you go alone or whether you do we're with a partner is this kind of benchmarking you know you kind of interested into law the benchmarking aspects of things and how do you know how do you know what success looks like is really what I'm asking ya oh no I just make you now stick this yeah yeah I mean working with partner like let's say if we work with a ginormous partner and they have all sorts of data but you know what you know the me deed you know what other people doing what what are the averages out there you know are we hitting below or high compare you know having that competitor data really understanding you know if our customers are very similar to that person customers can we get like some kind of data not that we have to you know just I don't have to exactly know everything but you

know definitely having that comparative data to see and then I mean we have it for so many other other aspects of marketing like you know email marketing you know exactly what you know benchmarks you want to hit for those right what's your open rate what's your conversion if we had something very similar in standardized that would be amazing for publishers so they can really understand and not have the historical data on hand for your own game I agree that one of the biggest problems actually like what I've seen is that when you try new networks is that you know I'm not maybe to human maybe it's natural evil good luck more effort and they sign you up table to first couple months on my crank then when you stabilize and I've seen it like the extreme is when back at the after for action so we signed somebody like right abate with a strategy game they never wanted us with as they did very well design of rewarding video places insanely high 80s you look in the $50 box 50 bucks we know costs in in the US etc all this time obviously goes down

right because you know people are in are used to it etc etc so that obviously happens and but you know the problem is mentioning is like the network's put a lot of effort nitpicking that's what you do in every business you sign up and you climb do you want to make sure you want important probabilities which is but that's to some of the channels sometimes that then when you move on after few first few months you know it starts to stabilize and you're gonna like just another partner it maybe not that much fault you know ending ending you know you're in holding your hands that's like that so it's like you know this just needs no propria like from like a bd2 account management and needs to be like a problem handover so again what this goes back to is that the game company needs to be fully on top of it and challenge these guys itself and then again you know there's not that much often time for that but just an I think if you go back to the conversation I had with the epidural is like what would basically chain back to them is look you know we smaller companies who are getting into this don't have the time

and resources to make you know deep strategic decisions that are finitely detailed instead they want to be able to make sure they can make smart choices based on information that's benchmarks so you know give them an ammunition they need with the results they've got to be able to do that well but also to be able as that company scales to provide them with the levers to be able to get to the nuances allows them to scale the revenues appropriately and then at the same time help them innovate by looking at the where the new areas are whether it's an ad format whether it's brands whether it's whatever else and it sounds to me that it's basically about creating partnerships at the end of the day and realizing the needs of the developer you know they need helping to support them through their ongoing process and the value a partner has whether it's a you know mediator platform or an ad network or whatever else that value proposition is their ability to take all their partner's learnings and to be able to

share that in ways that are effective for everybody is that reasonable summary I guess yeah for us like I think you were asking about benchmarks earlier and community ads put out a like a bunch of you know different not white papers but just you know results from like hey these guys are using unity ads they're getting you know this much our town and I think that kind of helped us because we were looking at you know which what kind of game should we make you know we were doing idle games and my previous company we were more mid core core games and we didn't do a lot of reward videos but reward videos made sense in idle games it's the future play guys the next game guys and a few others done since and I think you know I don't work in the ads team anymore by the way I worked in a different team which I'll tell you about another time but it's really interesting how that word that was really useful for us because you know it's that transparency which is incredibly important yeah absolutely I think one of the one of the key we had

back at the amplifier why we got so successful record a video and of course also continue that like you know both of the unity acquires was the active verbs EXO debated by game company like a day right so he's not white because Ames they suck with it it has to be what eventually there's two different different corners and roots but I mean they I think you know the team understood gains a lot better than the average actor and that's the key you you can't build appropriate partnership if you don't actually understand the business of the market in the games and that's that's the key I think I'm not no I just conserve have any questions from the audience anyone asks any questions so it's one of our another frontier but a question about like brand safety have you found it challenging to monetize a game like Wiz Khalifa's we are or is it 2017 and times have changed

no one cares well we definitely had precedence these guys over here you know pot farm but I could have different dental viejo to be but yeah I would say it's definitely tough I mean we can't you know get featured by the app stores you know obviously anything with the name we'd even if I'm you know trying to advertise I just got an email from like Pandora's you know ad ad folks trying to do so I'm going to buy some UA from them and you know they're just like sorry we can't advertise you know you can stuff at drugs so it's definitely tough but I mean there's you know interest out there I just hope that you know regulation gets a little easier legalization you know spreads but your nose we're definitely the perfect city to have that conversation cool yeah any

other rare questions I think on that note lunch is beckoning it and so I will thank you very much for your time thank you very much panel hope you got a lot better out there and go and enjoy your lunch [Applause] [Music]