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PLAYSTUDIOS has had the same blocking strategy for a long time. It consisted of blocking all problematic ads that were harming the user experience in any way - from bad UI patterns to ads causing players technical issues or displaying inappropriate content.
This made sense since PLAYSTUDIOS is focused on delivering the best possible experience to their players, whether while playing their game or watching ads. Beyond that, they were also blocking competitor ads from other slots and casino ads.
We decided to challenge that approach and remove the competitor blocklist entirely. We suspected that the extensive blocklist they had in place was reducing the competition by excluding some advertisers from reaching their inventory, resulting in lower eCPM and ad ARPDAU.
As part of the new client onboarding process, we recognized that there is a potential to improve ad monetization setup by optimizing the current blocklist. Specifically, we wanted to test whether allowing competitor ads inside myKONAMI game will result in an increase in eCPM and whether there would be any impact on retention or churn rate.
First, we needed to understand the current situation and map out all of the blocked apps across eight different ad networks. We concluded that the blocking list was not consistent across networks.
Second, we analyzed current traffic, using Unity LevelPlay’s Ad Quality tool. Thanks to this, we found out that some competitor ads are already being shown, that their eCPM is significantly higher than the rest of the ads served, and that the churn rate was not higher.
Thanks to our findings and in close coordination with the PLAYSTUDIOS team, we started the testing process of showing competitor ads across all ad networks.
At the same time, we ensured that ads that were blocked for other reasons (problematic ads) remained blocked throughout this experiment.
After we started showing competitor ads we focused on monitoring the following metrics:
• Share of impressions and share of ad revenue coming from competitor ads
• eCPM
• Fill rate
• Ad churn rate
• Game retention
We repeated our analysis during several consecutive timeframes to ensure that our results were significant.
The conclusion was that there was a significant increase in the share of impressions and share of revenue generated by competitor ads across both iOS and Android apps. At the same time, we did not experience any change in fill rate nor a measurable difference in churn or game retention. This was true for both platforms.
Finally, when analyzing eCPM, we noticed that on Android, it did not change significantly. However, on iOS, we measured a +20% increase in eCPM thanks to our changes, which translated to an increase in ad ARPDAU.
PLAYSTUDIOS, Inc. is the creator of the groundbreaking playAWARDS loyalty platform, and a publisher and developer of award-winning mobile games, including the iconic Tetris® mobile app, POP! Slots, myVEGAS Slots, myVEGAS Blackjack, myKONAMI Slots, myVEGAS Bingo, and MGM Slots Live. With offices in the United States, Asia, and Europe, they have a truly global team focused at delivering the best player experience possible.
