Session: Successful Retargeting - The Essentials -Vera Manhoso, RTB House.

[Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Without further ado, we'll start off with our first session of the day and I would like to welcome a very special person to the stage, Vera from RTB House uh who is going to be talking about successful retargeting. So, please put uh your hands together for Vera.
Thanks.
And then you got
Hi, morning. Thanks for being here. um skipping the party last night. It's really nice to see you all. Um I I know we a small audience this morning

because everyone went and had some fun. Um so I'm very happy to to see you all and hopefully we can have a nice time together talking a little bit about retargeting. Um which I know is still so new in the mobile ad space, believe it or not. So I would uh hope that you come out of here with a better idea of um retargeting and how can you use it um to leverage your your camps. My name is Vera. Um I'm a gaming account director at RTV House. We are a programmatic DSP that specializes in retargeting. Um so I'm hoping I can share a little bit of knowledge with you um this morning. Right. So I would love to get to know you a little bit more as well. Um can you please um raise your hand if you have never tried user acquisition campaigns? Okay, great. Um and for the ones that have tested it, anyone is testing has tested user acquisition campaigns. We're not testing now. No. And anyone that is

currently actively working on user um acquisition campaigns. Great. Perfect. Okay. There's a little bit of a mix. So that's quite good. What about retargeting? I think this is going to be a little bit different. Who's never tried retargeting? A bit more. Um, so I'll skip the next one. And the ones that are currently doing retargeting. Yeah. So that'll be less the use acquisition, right? We kind of expect that a little bit as well. Um, so for the the ones that focus on user acquisition only and do not do retargeting, I feel like this number is quite interesting. 77% of your users are lost within 3 days of install. So often you will invest quite a lot of efforts on user acquisition. A lot of your budget will be put in that pot as well. Um but only three days later you might lose 77% of those users which is quite punchy. Um if that is not enough to still convince you 90% of your users will give up with your app um before they 30. So that is quite aggressive and

it's also a testimony a testimony of how competitive the market is out there as well. Um, these numbers are not specific to mobile gaming. There are mobile apps in general. Um, but we're not too far off when we think about mobile gaming as well. Um, especially because it's becoming so competitive, too. And it's really hard to get the sticky users in your app. So, for everyone that is running both these acquisition and retargeting campaigns, I would love to get a feel about how you look at things. Um, can you please raise your hand if you have less than your budget on retargeting versus UA? So 30% say 30% of your budget less than it is on retargeting. Yeah. And then more um than 30% on his acquisition on retargeting. Sorry. Yeah. That would be like usually no one or very little, right? Um you with everyone else in the room because only 30% of the apps um implemented retargeting campaigns um in 2020. It's so hard as well to get um

updated figures on retargeting for for mobile apps or for gaming in in specific when it turns to retargeting. And I think that shows a little bit of how so not popular it is yet compared to UA. Um but it's actually really simple. Um so what are the key differences when we look at user acquisition and retargeting campaigns? Um with UA you constantly need to be testing. And for those that are actively working on user acquisition campaigns, you all know this. Um it's key that you always looking out for the best partner, who has the best technology in place now, what's new out there. Um and you constantly need to be adapt to that as well and to the world out there, how competitive it gets, any new partners that come into play and how do you need to react to that. Um you need to be sure that your game is stronger um to be sure that your users come in and you can attract those new users to the game. with retargeting is way smoother, believe it or not. Uh, every time I have a conversation with someone about retargeting, um, they will

often always say, you know, it's really complex, so we have to put so much effort into it at the start and the strategy and everything. And I totally get that, but honestly, you just have to do that at the beginning. Um, the beauty of it is that once you find your optimal setup and you're running, um, then everything becomes really, really smooth. You don't need to reinvent the wheel, which is exactly what you have to do with user acquisition. And obviously you can get as creative as you want. Um you can continue do continuous testing, you can try different things, but you don't have to if you just want to sell it smooth as well. So the next question will be when should you start retargeting? Um, and we often really hear that retargeting should only be for games that are older, um, or have a certain amount of years. One of the, you know, one of the key things that I hear when I speak to someone about retargeting is always like, oh, you know, my game is quite new still. Maybe in a year or two we'll have enough users and we'll start

thinking about retargeting. Um, so remember when we spoke back then that you lose 90% of your users within day 30. This is why you need to start sooner, much sooner than what you think as well. um churn is really really fast specifically in gaming as well. Um so it's really important that you have that strategy before and especially if you're also heavily investing on user acquisition. Um so I would say that my number one tip is really do not wait the one or two years that you're thinking before you start running retargeting campaigns. Um we have an example of an advertiser that we work with for example that um has actually launched a new title um and the soft launch was really aggressive UAI they had a lot of budget invested in it they really wanted to be a massive hit and for that reason they've enabled their postback events um with the retargeting the SP straight from the very beginning. So from day one that they were live that data was being collected um so that partner could be ready immediately to support all their user acquisition efforts um via

retargeting comparings not only just for re-engagement but also to help with retention. Um so that's something that you can think about as well when you think about retargeting. Um there's two different strategies that you can think of. A will be your retention. Do you want to use retargeting to retain your users from your user acquisition campaigns as well and your organic users that are coming in or you can just focus as well on those older users your your all the laps users that obviously haven't come back to the game for a while maybe or played for some time and then left but obviously you still have their data and they still really important to your game. So you can even have two different approaches and use two different strategies um for both early installers and those older laps users um on your campaigns. And then lastly, just ensure you are ready for it, right? There's a few key things that you need to run retargeting. We'll cover that a little bit as well. Uh but in general, your game needs to be ready for it. You obviously need to be tracking your users, have some knowledge about them, obviously have those events

that you can share with partners, too. Um but all pretty simple which we will look at as well. Let's break it down then. Um what do you really really need? What is the musth have for retargeting? There's three things. Um actually speaking with a colleague this morning, it turned out to a lot more other things. But the three three key things will be audience size. There's a minimum threshold that you will need. you won't be able to um have a retargeting campaign. If you really just have like a couple of hundred of users um you need to have a little bit of more to work with. Um and a lot of times people ask what is that number? How many users exactly do I need to have in my audience to run a retargeting campaign? Um and I really say that you don't have to be very generous. It really depends on the quality of the users as well. Um we've run retargeting campaigns with you know 1 to 5k um users. if they're really really good, if they're really valuable and worth it for you, then that will be sufficient to

start with um you know, so you don't have to wait on until you have a certain amount of users minimum to to run retargeting. You do need to have an MMP integration. Um so for those not so familiar um still a mobile measuring partner obviously will be what links your DSP or programmatic or advertising partner with your game uh for data measuring as well. on attribution and that is obviously needed um for retargeting. And then lastly, your postback events um ready in place and postback events can really go from very little to a lot. Um the more you track the better and not only for retargeting but for your own game as well, your acquisition, your internal strategy, how you know your users and how you're using um that knowledgeable in general um is really really important and obviously helpful through your postback data. So that's the other key point that is not an exception in terms of um retargeting.

So why is data so important? Um we talk a lot lately about AI and uh you know is becoming such a big thing and everyone is so much more familiarized with it but we've been obviously running campaigns powered by artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms for a really long time now. It's not new. um it's just becomes really big over the past um couple of years more than ever. But as you probably everyone in scrim will be common with it um you know used to to to use um machine learning and and intellig artificial intelligence you will know that algorithms drive on data uh you'll know this as you know basic speaking with chatbt the more you prompt it the more we'll give you it's not going to be any different um from a retargeting campaign that is obviously powered by data and algorithms the more data you feed into the algorithms the more postback events you are tracking and you are feeding into the algorithm, the smarter will become as well and the more it will help you be more efficient and faster as well um by getting the right

users and and the right data into to get back to your game. Um one of the concerns usually when we talk about data is how safe is my data? Um and there's still a little bit of fear of sharing all data because your data as as as an advertiser and and as a studio is is so precious, right? That is key um for everything and you want to make sure that you share your data correctly with the right partners. If you feel ever uncomfortable, just make sure you have that conversation with your partners. Um data is kept safety. Um ask them how are they using your data exactly? How is data fed into algorithms? How does it work? Um so I can talk by by our example that we do not mix um data. So if we are using your data from your own game, your data won't be mixed with anyone else's data. It will just be purely used for it and your our algorithms will be specific to you as well to your campaigns um and centered on that data only. Then

obviously the more data we have the smarter the algorithm gets. Um so you can leverage as much as you want from it as long as you keep feeding it. How to prepare for retargeting? I would like to think about it as loading a game before a boss fight. Um, probably not so aggressive, but just be ready. It's quite fun as well. Um, have a clear plan. So, really, really important to obviously have a technical setup in place. What exactly are you going to do? Um, and again, when we talk about user acquisition and retargeting and those differences there, this is where it comes into play a little bit. Um, it's really important that with retargeting, you have a plan of what you were doing. I mean it's not expected that you will know that from the very first day. A lot of the questions will be what should my inactivity be? What kind of users do I need to be targeting? And really just leverage your partner's knowledge to help you guide through that as well and allow yourself to do some testing. Um product fit is really really important

and when we think about product fit is more of is your game fit for retargeting because if you are telling me that um you know you game that has 5 to 10 years um old already we have really really amazing users but we're not building any new levels um then what other reasons are you giving your players to come back to the game if there's nothing new to them there um you know and if they have been engaging with your game for quite a long time, why why do you think they want to come back? What are you giving them to come back? Um, so it's quite important to make sure that's well defined as well and that you are communicating well with your product team to you on your ongoing daily basis to make sure that they are supporting you um in making sure those campaigns work well too. Define your goals. So it's really important that you also communicate to your partners when it comes to retargeting. What exactly do you want to achieve? Um, and be really specific because the more specific you are, the the better you will get from them. Um, you know, I would say that

saying as best as possible can be really vague because whatever what else is is the best for someone might not be for you. So just be really really specific of what you want to achieve with retargeting and then have a post-launch plan. Um, so after you set your campaigns are live, you're running, what exactly do you want to achieve with retargeting as you go along? um and more future-wise as a BEu activity as an ongoing um campaign, what would you like to see from it? Set your goals, right? So, um talking about goals, I I almost want to say that if I ask everyone in this room, is your goal rowers? Everyone will put their hand up, right? Because that's everyone's goal always. We want to have money back. Um and that's absolutely fair. I would say that's 99.9% the answer, but there's so many other ways as well to use retargeting and play around with it. Um, so obviously Rose is amazing. Um, and it's the key indicator that we profitable. Uh, but there's many

other strategies that you can also use in conjunction with um, rows. So, you know, think about um the number of of active users you want to have in the game on on a daily basis. Is that a priority for you? Are you measuring that? Um, if it is, then maybe it doesn't really matter what is the value of some of those users and maybe you want to have a completely separate campaign that is only focusing on bringing as many users back as possible. Especially if we think back on those early installers and you want to make sure they keep coming back to the game. Maybe that is your retention campaign uh where you want to make sure you don't spend so much on those users because you already spent quite a lot via UA, but you still want to make sure they keep coming back to the game. um you might want to focus on new payers or a non-payers campaign. But when you think about non-payers, are those users going to convert? Is it a reason for them to become payers? What are you giving them to become payers? And is it fair that you're giving a royal for that campaign as well, giving that those users are typically not

really spending in the game? Um so there is an advertiser that we work with that is local actually um in Finland. And when we tested the non-payers campaign, one of the things that we talked about was like, you know, we want to have a creative that is so so attractive, that has an offer that is so attractive that it will convince non-payers to actually make a purchase. And then once that happens, we'll monitor will they continue uh being payers and all the idea with it is obviously just trying to tease them with what they can get in the game um by having those extra features that they can pay extra for and then just allow them to hopefully continue doing it and that's how we will convert them. So just different strategies and you can obviously think about different goals for those and then your audience segments. Um so I feel like this is probably one of the most complex um areas of retargeting and what puts people off a little bit the most I want to say uh every time I speak to someone about retargeting. What's

always a question mark is how should we start? Uh should we look at the activity of our users? Do we need to focus on the LTV? you know, what is the best way? Um, and to be very, very honest with you, there's no right or wrong answer because it really depends on your users, your game. It can be so different. Um, so generally speaking, my recommendation is that you try and be as broad as possible, but not too broad. So, you want to allow the algorithm to explore users as much as possible at the start of a campaign when you start retargeting. Um because if you put too many conditions in it and you become too strict then it might not be exactly the results that you're looking for. Um and also just remember that different partners will have different algorithms and you might have different results from it too. So whatever works with you know one retargeting partner that you might work with. It might not necessarily be the same with another. Um and that's why it's also so fun to test different partners and see what works for you. Um, and you might potentially

end up thinking that, you know what, actually I can work with three different partners and have a different strategy for each of them because I can see different results um and tap different types of users more efficiently um that way. That la last leads me to the last question which is will you run the same audience for all partners? Um, and I think this is really important as well because if you have a massive audience then you're great. You don't really need to worry about a lot. Um, obviously just make sure that your partners aren't are not competing with each other and they all bring in value. Um, but if your audience is a little bit more limited, maybe you want to think if it makes sense to actually have everyone doing the same thing or should you just try and learn what is the best of each partner and just allow them to do something different. Um, so you covering all different areas um and most likely results will be most costefficient as well. So just different things that you can think about. um as you're setting yourself up.

Is deep linking a mustave? Um this is another question that comes up quite a lot for retargeting. Um where you know you often will say I do not have deep links or I don't have my game ready um to take the user to specific space in the in the app when they come back. Do I really need to use deep links? Um you do not. It's not um a mandatory requirement to um have deep links to to run retargeting campaigns. It does really help though and we really see that through data. Um so when you use deep links obviously the user journey is way more personalized. You directing users to exact content and even if is that not something in specific in the app just the fact that they are coming back to the game exactly where they left it off you know whatever time ago that was it really makes it special. Um and it's so much smoother, right? If you put yourself in in in the position of your users as well. Um according to AppSire, it does help increase uh conversion rate

by two and a half um times, which obviously is again a testimony that they really really work. Um and in general, it's a very nice to have um feature. But again, you do not have to have deep links um in place if you are not ready for that yet. And then last topic on a more technical setup strategy is creatives. Um, I'm sorry to tell you, but your user acquisition ads will not work in retargeting unless you are an amazing game. Um, and all your users already know you. Um, and you don't really need to sell yourself out there much because your brand is just so strong. It honestly does really, really, really make a difference. Um, it's just about personalization as well. you are, you know, you don't want to be showing an ad about um something that is so basic of your game that a user that has played it for over a year or two already knows about. Why would they come back? There's a reason why they left in the first place, right? Um so just really try and personalize your creatives because it's

very helpful. Um customized creatives will definitely allow you to see better rows on your campaigns. We do see that where you know um we have a case study with huge games and something that we test quite a lot was on creatives um and revenue was you know 2.6 times higher um after 3 months by using personal likes creatives and I actually think in general social casino titles are a prime example of retargeting um creatives and how they use that because they they get super creative about it. Um, so if you're curious about it and and want some ideas, no matter if you're not a social casino um, studio or not, I definitely recommend you to have a look at it because they do a lot of cool stuff, um, they constantly reinventing it as well. So, it's really really nice to just take some ideas um, on things that might work for retargeting. So, I definitely recommend you to look at that approach. um you know even if most of your videos are are user acquisition and it's quicker for you to tailor the

message by using display institutional creatives then that's a very nice way to start and you can definitely do that um but try and tailor your message a little bit because it's very helpful um and then one um last point that I is also quite key when we talk about um retargeting we talked about a little bit about this at the very clarity was product um and how product um will fit part of your campaigns. Um I was speaking to to WTO um which will be on a panel just just next um as well on retargeting yesterday about product and how you know how are you talking um with how is your market team talking to product um are you working together are you completely separate because if your product team is doing something completely different um and then you you know you're trying to run retargeting or use acquisition campaigns in a way that doesn't fit what they are doing um it is really a blocker. So just make sure that

you are working together because your game needs to be ready to welcome users back. Um and you need your product team to help you with that as well. So it's really really important that you share feedback. Um you know as a user acquisition manager as well if you see that something doesn't seem to be working around on the game um you see revenue is behind there's some sort of drop across all your partners or you really cannot identify why maybe have a chat with your product team. Um it might be something a little bit more deeper than just your campaigns not working. Um and it's really important that you have that communication going. Um there's a studio that we work with in Asia that um our campaigns were not working at all for quite a while and they couldn't really understand you know user acquisition work so well for us and we have so many old users how come retargeting doesn't work. Um, and then we we came to understand by also playing the game and having a deeper understanding of how the game works itself that once you stop playing the game for a certain amount of time, then when you come back, you lose your team. So, the game is a little bit of a

strategy game where you're part of a team and you play with that team um throughout the time you're live in the game. Um, and then you have to build your castles, you have to buy, you know, your extra bits and once you stop playing the game for a short period of time and you come back, all of that is gone. So we were like, you know, these users have invested so much in the game and they had spent so much time playing and building their castles and doing all of this and then when they come back everything is gone and they don't even have a team anymore. Why would they want to come back, right? They have to put all that effort again. So this is like a key indicator of you need a little product change here. You need to make sure that that's still ready there for them. Um and that's exactly what happened as as a consequence of it, as a positive consequence of it. Um so yeah just make sure that you are working together with your teams um as well in terms of the product. Um and then just lastly one size does not fit all. So just remember that each player um base is unique. Um it's obviously amazing to have benchmarks and

idea of what everyone else is doing and you can get that for insights and some inspiration. Um but I would just be very very open to test when it comes to retargeting. Um because honestly it will be so different. What might work for someone doesn't work for others. Um and as long as you keep that open mind, I know testing sometimes it's hard because it takes time. Um but it is really worth it if you're open to it and you learn so much from it as well and from your users. So the more you tailor your campaigns, the better results you're going to have. Um so just be open-minded to that. And once your campaigns are live, what do you do? Um, just to close it off in there. Just be, you know, um, obviously you you can let it sail smooth as I said at the very beginning and do not worry about retargeting anymore. Everything is working. I have a campaign set up that is optimal. Um, you know, you can just monitor your KPIs. You can just leave it there or you can continue challenging it. Um, you know, look at your long-term trends. Something really, really interesting is that you might start with

a day seven rose goal that is X. um and you might not be hitting it at all, but then you might realize that actually when I look at day 30 is way better than my prediction. Um and we've experienced this um with other advertisers in the past as well where your initial goal might be different once you start gathering more data and actually understanding how your users behave through retargeting which can be very very different as well um to how you're measuring your user acquisition campaigns. You might want to focus on user engagement a little bit more as well and let your, you know, evergreen campaign continue running. But you might want to have a separate campaign or campaigns uh where I just target a specific audience at a specific event that you might be doing. You can just get as creative as you want to and then just make sure you continue doing creative performance tracking. Um iterate, have a look at, you know, what your precept might be doing. There's so many creative ways nowadays of um you know tailoring creative messaging as well um for retargeting. So just continue being active on that and making

sure you are refreshing um and up to date. And that is it for me for now. Um would be obviously more than happy to answer to any questions if anyone might have them. Um
give that a little
Hello.
There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Give it a little tap.
I'm doing a Morse code question.
Yeah,
that's cool. Um, I was going to ask I mean it's really uh fascinating and it's clearly very important and and as you say a lot of focus is on UA and maybe not enough focus is on you know spend all that money getting people in and you should spend a bit to try and retain them and bring them back. I was going to ask you what impacts because obviously there's a big revolution at the moment with the app stores and the relationship with the customer and this DTOC web shops and relationships. What sort of impact does that change have? Presuming that makes it easier and even more important to have that that sort of relationship with the customer.

Yeah, 100%. Um and talking about it as well, we just started testing um some campaigns very recently on on web shop in particular as well. And uh even though it's very very very new still um and you'll know this there was some very interesting talks as well on uh on web shops yesterday where we tapped a little bit on that but um it's becoming more and more important if you want to keep it everything in house and keep with that trend then absolutely using retargeting for it is so key. Um we've started our first web shop campaigns very recently it's um you know we we currently working with Exola for example and a couple of the advertisers that we work with on them. Um it's only recent that we are able to track it properly via MMP. Um so it's all still very very new but it's been such an interesting period of testing and I am so hopeful for it. Um I don't have enough data to talk about it yet because we literally at the very very early stages of it but if it works and it will

work um it's you know it's going to be great um really really good. So I'm I'm super excited for it. Yeah.
Can you give an estimate of when that data will be available? Yeah, 100%. I would say that maybe we just about to relaunch a campaign again that had to stop just for a few technical tweaks on MMP's side. Um, so I want to say by the end of the year we'll know way more.
Oh, London. There you go. There you go.
Talk about it in January.
There you go. [Music] [Music]