You're Losing Money Without THIS Monetisation Method

[Music] heyan Sals here at Pocket Gamer where we catch up with everyone in the industry and some people who don't often make the trip David Stelzer I understand president of course of exola but um you don't often make the trip so here you are in Europe um let's start off with some Impressions about the gaming scene or what you're thinking because of course it's one of those years for EXO this is a global play for you yeah it is uh so far you know I've been here since they open this morning uh I came last year to my first Pocket Gamer and it's looking to be a bit more crowded which is great news for the industry I think uh also being you know heavily on mobile uh here at Pocket Gamer we have some great things to talk about this year for part of our service offerings that really appeal more to mobile this year so I'm going to be giving a talk

uh downstairs in about 30 minutes time and we'll we'll go more into that but we've just started a relationship with apps flyer which allows more tracking attribution and more of that information that developers really need to help understand how successful their web shops are and how the spends are going into those web shops for user acquisition and marketing that they're used to getting normally in their mobile play but now they can bring that from mobile over into their web shop so it's a really it's a good time for us to be here tracking is is always the start of testing great results optimization what does what does tracking look like in this is this is this like a a web to app or or or the reverse because you said yourself a stronger focus on mobile than before but what does that look like when I'm a publisher thinking about making this part of my strategy because I still probably have app stores as well I'm probably still not going all out on D Toc that's correct I think you need all of that as part of your whole strategy you don't want to leave anything on the

table and when you think about what we're doing with web shops it's really it's uh changing consumer Behavior to a certain extent right what we like to say is we want you to play on your mobile device but we want you to pay on the web so getting people to have those two actions it's it's a new model for people to have to do but it's also allowing us to to do what exolo does well which is to allow developers and Publishers to make more money but also to keep more of that money and the tracking as you mentioned it it becomes really important and I'll point this way but you can't really see it but you've got companies like adjust over here uh and then the apps flyer relationship like like I'm talking about and this is one of those missing pieces where we've been telling people that the web shops are really valuable there's a lot to be had in terms of the information that you can glean from it there's a lot to be had for the fact that you can make more money and keep more money and have that direct to Consumer relationship but what was missing was this easy way to to

figure out if I spend $1,000 on UA on the web shop am I actually getting the return on that because the data wasn't there you can do a manual uh integration uh take some extra coding and things like that with a company like ajust but with the the partnership that we've just spun up with apps flyer it's not even an extra app or anything when you go into our publisher account and then you go into our site Builder which is the place where you build your web shop the coding is already done apps flyer is already in there you just basically click on click a button and now you have server to server information uh giving you everything that apps flyer would give you from a coded integration or what it just would give you from a coded integration and it's super powerful because now I can see everything about that player data player spends player behavior and know if the money that I'm spending is actually being spent well and I'm thinking out loud and hoping this is part of it as well because then I'm also going to have more insight into who my players are and hopefully some

idea of incrementality you can't really solve for it it's not the point but you can either understand that you're not duplicating your reach that you're augmenting your re reach is that what this is about here as well yeah that's definitely a part of it uh when you think about the fact that apps flyer has almost 100% Market penetration integration with the the games that are out there the more information that you can get directly from an MMP like that the better your information is going to be and as we know like since idfa getting that information has been harder and harder the app stores are not making it easy to get that information and so the more avenues that we can give to the publisher the more Avenues we can give to the developer to know more about their player based to know more about how they're spending to know more about how they're enjoying the game uh the better that that game is going to be the more efficient that their funnel will be the more efficiently they can spend money and then all that money doesn't have to go back into UA it can go into making great content and the things that

people love about those games I mean I won't be able to listen to your to your talk David but I'm sure it's going to be amazing because of course you have things like state of play which is such a solid report really really and truly we will we will plug it we will plug it because I read it I did a podcast about it I was with Chris actually talking about this um yeah give us some insights into the the what you want people to get out of your talk and maybe that will be a way to to get into to the subject matter of it without having to attend it I'll keep it short because I think the easiest thing to say about it is uh we're really trying to push on this notion of direct to Consumer is a necessary piece of what you need to put your game out there into the market if you don't do direct to Consumer you're leaving money on the table and there's companies like us that are making direct to Consumer easier more accurate more powerful and it really doesn't cost you anything until you make money you get to

use our tools those tools are free we have you know part of the income stream but not until you start making money so why not and and to that point what I've also heard a lot of Publishers say when they're thinking about D Toc is they're also looking at it as it doesn't have to be a winning game literally from the start because the data matters the behavior matters understanding and working with you will give a basis that when when the momentum is there then you can really let loose with a web shop and it won't be H how are we going to entract people or what what do they res you know what resonates with our players so it's a lot of that as well so it's the idea of like get in first of all I don't give you anything until I'm making money but the data is gold right that data is really good and um we don't necessarily even know all the different ways that that data is going to be used but unless you're having that direct consumer relationship and finding that data you won't have it won't know what

to do with it um really good report just came out from Matthew Ball's research company and uh one of the things that that St stood out to me in there was the fact that so many business models and so many means of of user acquisition have been exploited to the point that they're overe exploited and something has to be adjusted or something has to disrupt right we don't know necessarily what that Nest disruption will be but if I have enough data I can try things you know I can play around with it using that player Behavior using that data so I think that data in how we experiment and how we evolve is going to be really really valuable so to wrap it up it has arrived gaming we knew was a business but now it's like really a business web shops are a business and to so many Publishers that I've been speaking with it sounds very challenging so maybe there's something they're missing or something they can start doing or even stop doing right now should prepare for

this because it is going to be part of the norm of doing business the the biggest thing to learn here is that you have to you have to look at this as part of your marketing funnel uh we're seeing lifts of upwards of 30% and More in terms of revenue from what comes into the web shops for people who are doing web shops correctly you have to put marketing managers on it you have to treat this as another marketing channel that's not part of the rest of the funnel and so you have to create your plans specific for web shop in the same way you would for your other portions of your funnel and the the Publishers and the developers who are doing that and we're happy to guide them in in what works and what doesn't they're seeing incredible success there's really nothing to put against that we're at 2025 what's something we can expect from you or maybe from what you see in D Toc what you're excited about in 2025 D Toc will continue to grow uh I think that is one of those places where there's plenty of room room I also think uh we're just

starting to touch the surface on what d2c really means we're using it right now as a means of how can I attract more users sell them something with more value uh for the purpose of being able to keep more of that Revenue but if you think about it I now have a channel where I have a direct relationship with my player I can have uh discussions in terms of what do you like about our game what don't you like about our game how can we make it better and you have means to go and then Implement those things uh as we look at how UA or other things can evolve um do we want to create reward programs to like the airline companies or like the hotel companies and and those Reward Points how can we acrew them how can we get them probably through a direct consumer Channel where they'll be able to trade those things in for experiences uh if anything becomes of linear content for any of these things I can now distribute them through my web channel right all of these things become a great area of just how I think we're

scratching the surface at D to C and to your point it's what it's about it's about brand building we're seeing brand inventory come increasingly into the gaming space but you know if you read the reports Matthew Ball but others as well um if you don't have a big brand it's the big brands that are winning how do you build that you build that by having communication direct your consumer knowing your players building trust all of that and more and so I'm sure we will can be continuing this conversation David thanks so much for taking the time and it's proof that you are accessible you are giving your advice to marketers and everyone here at the show because I just popped in here and here you're talking with me so you are the real deal David thank you so much this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love to hear from you we

want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality of the mobile games market and all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast ATP pocketgamer.biz you can find us on Twitter at PG Biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at Pocket Gamer . b/p podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future until then I'm Brian I'm Peggy and salts and that's a wrap

until next week