Challenge
Background Vesta Soft - the developer of the mobile games on Android platform acquired in-house marketing solution from programmatic technology provider SmartyAds in order to solve the problem associated with high CPI expenditures. The company has been established in 2013. During five years of functioning and providing a full cycle of app & game development, Vesta Soft created numerous applications in various categories. The games released by Vesta Soft today are played by more than 4.5k people worldwide. The media-buying was previously performed via media agency and programmatic chain. At a certain point the company realized that a huge part of their budget was lost before the ac tual ad placement took place. The further audit revealed that every intermediary consumed a big fraction of the advertising budget inside the programmatic chain. The company came to the conclusion to bring programmatic and other marketing channels in-house in order to gain total control over expenditures, enhance the installation rate for apps, reduce the cost of media-buying, and gain operational transparency. Objectives The calculations and several industry insights helped to find out: while the advertising budget moves inside programmatic chain: DSP, SSP, Ad network, DMP, and ad tech providers, towards publisher, around 70% of it disappears. The number of intermediaries required to serve an ad campaign means that businesses must pay charges, commision fees, and hidden costs for services. Each party, including the media-agency determined commission fee individually. In-house marketing was the only option for Vesta Soft that could guarantee the control and clarity of marketing processes and the removal of middlemen. Thus, the company decided to adopt SmartyAds in-house solution in order to achieve these purposes: Reach 30K installs Optimize the budget spend: reduce CPI from $3 to $0.65 Remove intermediaries Gain control over first-party user data Achieve operational transparency
Solution
SmartyAds in-house solution allowed to gather a set of marketing tools for various channels under one roof, within the company. This helped to meet the individual needs of the brand, remove the informational detachment, and create a single funnel for marketing outcome analysis. Just in few months, Vesta Soft has managed to upgrade own media-buying ecosystem across various media channels with in-house. Using the customer first-party data enabled the company to identify the most valuable segments of consumers for their campaigns and establish connections with them via various channels. As a result, more than 30K+ installs were achieved. Because in-house approach eliminates intermediaries and associated with them extra expenditures and commissions, Vesta Soft quickly managed to reduce the CPI from $3 to $1. With additional control over inventory applied within own system build on SmartyAds technology, the developer has successfully optimized its media-budget and subsequently reduced the CPI to $0.65. Taking the marketing technology in-house has helped Vesta Soft to achieve the greater heights in the quality of the creatives served inside the app as well. This was a great bonus. On programmatic platforms, the creatives didn’t always meet the developer’s specifications. The in-house solution has helped the company to close this gap and save the effort of dealing with several ad platforms and tech vendors at once.
Results
First months of in-house experience proved the initial hypothesis, - cutting down the third-parties helps to retain the biggest part of the media budget inside the company. As a result of cutting off the intermediaries and their commision fees, Vesta Soft has reduced the cost of media-buying by 70% and the CPI decreased as planned (from $3 to $0.65). As well, Vesta Soft put all marketing technologies and resources under its roof consolidating the marketing channels, achieving operational transparency, gaining control over first-party user data and improving cross-channel communications. More detailed approach to the mediums the customers typically consume content at has helped to individualize the user experience and enhance installs. 30K installs achieved The budget spend optimized: the CPI increased from $3 to $0.65 The intermediaries removed First-party user data control granted Operational transparency ensured
Want fresh marketing stories in your inbox?
Get the weekly email that makes you a marketing genius.
Stay informed and inspired, for free.