Bridging the data gap with real-time, accurate ROI data

Overview

• Mobile gaming brand AppQuantum grappled with fragmented, changeable cost data across paid social networks, as well as delayed ad revenue reporting.
• Lack of fresh data, and the inability to measure ad revenue in real time or share data with partners, made it hard to optimize campaigns and impacted profitability. 
• AppsFlyer’s ROI360 gave AppQuantum access to real-time cost and revenue data, enabled accurate data sharing, and helped them optimize campaigns efficiently. 

Background

AppQuantum is an industry leader in mobile gaming, managing a vast portfolio of apps. Despite their ongoing success, the team constantly seeks to evolve and push boundaries to deliver the highest-quality experience for their players. It was this inherent drive for improvement that led them to seek out advanced tools to help manage their growing enterprise.

Challenges

AppQuantum was actively investing in marketing campaigns through key partners and handling a heavy load of data with various platforms. But they faced challenges in quickly measuring ad revenue from these sources, accurately correlating revenue to ad spend, and efficiently managing various ad networks. 

Handling multiple ad networks and media sources meant that AppQuantum needed a fast and accurate way to measure return on ad spend (ROAS). First up was the task of handling the highly fragmented cost data, which was siloed across 30 different sources. It was a massive challenge to stitch this data together, standardize metrics so they were comparing “apples to apples”, and tie it all to revenue and attribution. For example, some ad networks’ API supports campaign, ad set, and ad granularity, while others support creative and site ID.

However, fragmented data was just one part of the problem: inaccurate and changeable cost data also posed issues. Cost data can often change and get updated in the days after its reporting, due to delayed attribution, currency fluctuation, fraud, data discrepancies, and other errors. Without constant updating, AppQuantum found it difficult to get a true picture of ROAS. 

Our main challenge was the large costs on some paid social networks and troubles with attribution. We needed a way to measure revenue from these ads faster. Fortunately, with ROI360, we even see day 0 data, and we’ve been able to use real-time data to effectively reduce our time to optimize campaigns. This has helped us stop non-profitable campaigns and significantly increase our profit.

Rauf Valeev, Marketing Analyst

AppQuantum faced other challenges with ad revenue measurement. A two-day delay in mediation data reporting meant they were slow to identify underperforming campaigns, and this was draining the budget. Their outdated approach to optimizing ad revenue was time-consuming and inefficient: the team knew they needed a more effective solution. 

Solution

By embracing ROI360, AppsFlyer’s ROI measurement suite, AppQuantum were able to address their challenges head on. 

First, they combined their fragmented cost and revenue data under one platform, tied to attribution at the most granular level. This simplified the process, enabling more accurate and effective decision-making and increasing the return on marketing spend.

The data was also much fresher. Rather than a two-day delay, the team now had access to near-real-time data, enabling them to quickly optimize campaigns and terminate those that weren’t profitable. 

With ROI360, AppQuantum no longer had to choose between data freshness and accuracy: the data was both fresh and accurate, providing a true ROAS picture from day 0 to day 14.

Finally, ROI360 made it possible to share data with partners for even greater optimization. AppQuantum could now share data via ad revenue postbacks, guiding investment towards profitable campaigns, and resulting in a 20% lift in ROAS. In particular, strategically sharing ad revenue user acquisition signals with Unity led to a remarkable 20% performance boost.

The difficulty of manually optimizing campaigns without being able to share data with our partners highlighted the need for superior tools. AppsFlyer’s ROI360 filled this void in our processes. As a result, we achieved a notable increase in campaign optimization accuracy and effectiveness, leading us towards increased profitability.

Rauf Valeev, Marketing Analyst

Results

AppQuantum achieved noticeable improvements by enhancing their ROI measurement capabilities. 

Firstly, aggregating their cost data from multiple sources gave them a complete and accurate view of their spend in real time. This also saved a huge amount of time and effort, as the team no longer had to manually or programmatically stitch the data, clean it, and match it to attribution. 

The freshness of the ad revenue data enabled real-time measurement, while postback data-sharing with partners helped with optimizing campaigns and allocating budget effectively. Together, these capabilities increased the effectiveness of AppQuantum campaigns by 10-20%, leading to an increase in profits of approximately 10%.

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