As promised last week, we’re back sharing the first promising results of our latest product, Mapendo’s ad technology for video and playable ads. Indeed, similarly to what we do with dynamic banners, we’ve revamped our technology, now able to dynamically optimize also videos and playables towards ROI.
We’ve tested such dynamic ad units in app install campaigns we ran for mobile games, which heavily rely on video and playable ads in order to acquire new users. Given the higher placement cost for video and playable in real time bidding exchanges, optimizing towards conversion rate was essential. However, when dealing with mobile games, ROI is the big deal, and we’ve built our technology in order to hit that goal.
Let’s now take a closer look at our new ad units, by following through these steps:
When promoting mobile games, you immediately realize that video and playable ads drive way more engagement than banners do*. And such engagement often leads to more conversions from users who are really interested in the game, willing to spend money in-app.
*This doesn’t mean that banners’ era has come to an end and we should all switch to more engaging ad formats. As we wrote in a previous article, mobile banners still play a huge role in app install campaigns thanks to their unique benefits like high reach and cheap eCPM.
Therefore, we’ve focused our efforts on those ad formats, developing a multi-step dynamic ad unit, which combines videos and playable ads, with the addition of an end card. The multi-step process works as follows:
- Users are shown a 30 second video;
- The video is followed by a playable ad, which allows users to test the gameplay and perform a few simple tasks;
- Users are shown an end card, which can be either static or dynamic.
The end card is built automatically by combining assets from the app store with items we build internally such as a dynamic button. As mentioned before, it can be either static or dynamic.
Our crown jewel is Mapendo’s smart technology which dynamically optimizes every step, by switching assets in real time. As soon as we ingest data, from impressions to all the way to installs and in-app purchases, our technology switches assets in order to maximize ROI. So, the multi-step process described above can change based on contextual signals and user data collected by MMPs and our platform.
Now let’s see numbers and assess the impact of such brand new dynamic ad units on app install campaigns for mobile games.
ROI the north star of our newest dynamic ad units. As mentioned above, video ads, playables and end cards are dynamically tested in thousands of different combinations, aiming at achieving the highest possible ROI.
When testing our multi-step ad unit in app install campaigns for mobile games, early results showed a significant increase in ROI compared to banner performance. Such improvement in ROI was driven by new users’ quality, measured in the number and value of in-app purchases.
The following chart shows the breakdown of app revenues by ad format, making it crystal clear where most in-app revenue comes from:
But that’s not all!
First tests of dynamic ad units have also shown different levels of ROI based on the final touchpoint of our 3-step ad unit. While they all outperformed banners in terms of ROI, video and playable ads delivered different results.
Users who downloaded the app after clicking on the video showed a lower ROI compared to users who proceeded to the following step by engaging with the playable ad. Likewise, users who completed the whole process by clicking on the end card button delivered the best results in terms of ROI.
The higher the engagement with the ad the higher the ROI, it seems. That’s the reason why our dynamic ad units technology keeps testing different combinations of assets to better understand what users should be shown.
What really drives ROI are users with high LTV and ARPU. And that’s the biggest update brought by our dynamic ad units. By integrating with MMPs and our advertisers’ internal platforms, our technology collects data about LTV and ARPU. As a consequence, video and playable ads are dynamically combined and optimized in order to increase those 2 metrics.
As soon as we received data about LTV and ARPU from MMPs, our technology automatically optimizes ad units by switching assets, testing thousands of combinations between video, playable and end card formats.
First results show that LTV from Android users acquired through video ads is 40% higher than LTV from Android users acquired through banners.
Speaking of ARPU, as shown in the chart, it is higher for video ads than it is for banners.
Even though the major focus of our new ad units is ROI, installs and volumes still matter. That’s why our ad units are also designed to increase engagement, conversion rate and, ultimately, installs.
First of all, video ads are a more engaging ad format than banners, showing attractive content and prompting more clicks. As opposed to videos, banners tend to be ignored by users (the so-called banner blindness). Indeed, CTR for video and playable ads is 30-50% higher than what banners usually generate.
Secondly, users who click on video ads are generally more interested in downloading a game compared to users who click on banners. As a result, conversion rate is also higher and this allowed us to maximize install volumes through video ads. Conversion rate achieved by video ads is 6 times higher than the one achieved by banners.
Finally, we’ve already highlighted how the engagement gradually increases over each step of our dynamic ad unit (video, playable and end card).
Wrapping up, our new dynamic ad units combine video ads, playable ads, static and dynamic end cards in a 3-step process. Such assets are constantly switched and mixed in order to increase our advertisers’ KPIs, especially ROI.
First results show major increases in all the following metrics:
- ROI;
- ARPU;
- LTV;
- Conversion rate
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