Rewarded Ads Pay Back in 30 Days for Small Studios

Here we are at the L Media Summit, the first of its kind, certainly not the last. Opportunities to learn about rewarded and the companies that are doing it and maybe have done it for a little longer than the others. Igor, I'm thinking of Tatum and your experiences there. But I know you, we know each other. They don't know you. Tell us a little bit more about Tatum, but also where you are on your rewarded journey.
Thanks for having me. We are in the top of the rewarded because Tatum Games work on mobile since 2009.
Yeah.
We we work with the rewarded. It was like in cents before that.
Yeah, I remember.
For like the last maybe eight years. It's really really evolving and because of like a new companies and new approaches, but still the behavior of the users pretty much the same. So people wants to get the rewards and especially when they have this

opportunity to have fun playing the games as well as like to be rewarded for that.
Well, it's like in the experience. It's in the DNA that it's not just rewards for the sake of rewarded. It's this a little bit of competitive, maybe a little bit of fun
Yeah.
that makes players do that.
Well, actually in the western markets it's not as like a behavior which was in DNA. But I was very surprised when we launched campaigns in Japan.
Yeah.
And we saw that the Japanese players play much deeper, play longer.
Mhm.
And I asked then for then networks like if they reward what what's happened? And they said, actually we have part of our DNA in Japan because we do a lot in real life based on the rewards.
Mhm.
So that's why we actually optimize a lot depending on the geo, depending on the network just based on this learning we what we got.
You also shared lot of learnings during the panel. You shared so much. What

would you like to share as something that you're saying, you know, hey, if you're doing rewarded, do this or don't do that or something from that cuz I have to say you were very very straightforward and you shared some numbers, which is rare.
If you're already acquiring users, it's different, it might be different approach. So, let's say if you are just starting, consider rewarded as a very big opportunity for for the company. We start rewarded and it's as easy as like maybe other networks or you need you need to to be really prepared for that. I mean, the the mindset at the beginning, the behavior of the users is different. People play more and it might influence your data, it might influence your uh if you are on advertization, your uh CPM decays, for example, right? The same as a product way. We optimize the the difficulty of the different levels. We use it for segmentation based on the on the geo as I mentioned. So, the people maybe take a main advice, need to think up

front what they have to do, what they plan to do with it. They can run a quick test if they don't see the results because I talk and discuss with many other developers and then they said, "We tested it, it didn't work." We have the same products, we have pretty much the same the same games, but it works for us and didn't work for them, not because of the bad product or bad networks, it's just the price, they need to take more time
Different approach.
analyze, set goals, be patient and discuss with networks. Networks might help you to optimize because they can share like different retention metrics, rewarded campaigns or ROS metrics.
We did hear also from ironSource what's coming, what's next, you know, more about link, more about the other products you're testing. What are you What can you share about what you're testing and and maybe also the motivation and and the the observations so far since it's early in the game.
We have quite a good conversion to link for example because at some point people

understand
were very good.
Yeah, so and it's still I know that the product still evolving the product still requires like a different updates and I I strongly believe that at some point there's going to be like a more new features which actually give us as developers the opportunity even to grow but also not for us but also for the players because it works on the both sides. So I think it's kind of like a option for for the players to be part of this like it seems like the offer wall in the in every game, right?
Yeah.
So basically users can start they can join or they can reject it, right?
Right.
But if they join they can slightly do every action, you know, everything they they they do in the game they will be rewarded. So it's pretty pretty cool.
And it feels fairly seamless when I was watching that demo. I mean it shows up as part of the game.

Yeah, so actually we tested on the the churn and we don't see too much churn in our games. Maybe this level of churn was uh was in our benchmarks but but but in general like my main question I ask my my product manager and and and UA team like do we see do we see like a big churn which we know can use it or we need we we need to stop analyze and we see it's better to use we still see the more benefits of using rather than not using this.
And I guess as it progresses you'll have more of a view into that as well. And as the industry progresses I mean what I got excited about was the whole idea of now we're going to have you know in app purchase we're going to have ad supported you know and we're also going to have in real life. gets exciting or does it get more challenging for you?
I I think that the the the market is definitely changing right now. So, it's in terms of like not only we can see different kind of like a consolidation in the market.
Mhm.
Uh on a different level, but also the

product having the competition having the high standards, which actually some of the companies, you know, can can give to others.
I really think now is very good opportunity
driving the innovation in rewarded
all of these companies together.
Absolutely.
And then the offer walls, yeah, I mean, they're there, but they've also progressed because it used to be that publishers were like, I don't like the offer wall necessarily cuz I'm going to, you know, they're going to see all the games.
Yeah. Yeah.
And that's a way of losing them in the funnel.
Yeah, and and also, you know, it's it's a very important thing that um the rewarded network gives um the opportunity for like a smaller studios. So, we're we're not very big company, to be honest. Uh with the shorter payback
windows
we can we can run profitable campaigns comparing to the to the performance which actually require like a more more creatives, right? It's a different perspective, but the paybacks there is much much longer,

which actually for the smaller studios quite difficult.
Yeah.
With the rewarded uh they they can achieve it and they get like from starting from 30 days even less. But it's it depends on the game, it's type of game, on on the funnel and the network. Lots of different things might influence the big opportunity for smaller studios run run out uh not run out of the money to be in the business.
Mhm. So, you've been doing it for a long time. Other companies are just starting, and you're so free with your advice, you know, and you've told us like, what do you need to do and what do you need to avoid? Advice for yourself, you know, what would you what would you do differently um if you were starting in rewarded now.
I would look at the game.
Yeah, the game first.
The game first.
Yeah.
So the game first and the second way if the infrastructure. The infrastructure is very very important and maybe the third place is a mindset. It's a different

performance network. The users and the networks work differently despite your run the raw campaigns. Not not too many companies work on the rewarded space with raw campaigns. So basically not even lots of them receive from from developers monetization metrics. So that's that's a big surprise, right? The product need to be adapted.
Mhm.
The infrastructure should be ready at least to understand your data. And [snorts] the the data need to be looked at the completely different way.
Mhm.
Final with the many details for like a level churn, LTV we run on the admin station on the number of impression per each format. So we can understand where we can optimize and the mindset. We are understand that this segment of users and we need to work with them not like others, you know? So that's that's very important.
at the very start, too. So if they're

coming in for rewarded, different onboarding, different recognition. I it's just a business within a business.
Yeah, absolutely.
answers, Igor, and I love the fact that you shared them. We don't have everything you shared during the panel, but you did share a lot of it here. So I thank you for that. Thank you for taking the time and for being up front, Igor.
thank you. Thank you so much.
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