Moonee is a hyper-casual game developer with over 200 million downloads to its name. Its portfolio includes hits like Square Bird, Idle Streamer, Makeover Run and Monsters Gang. We asked Gabriel Oltarz, Head of Growth at Moonee, how they used ironSource in-app bidding together with Vungle’s bidder network to grow their business.
What does in-game monetization look like at Moonee?
Our in-game monetization at Moonee is focused on ads - in particular interstitials, rewarded and banner formats. That’s why it was crucial we found a solution to fully maximize our ad revenue potential.
We have our own engine that enables us to optimize waterfalls at scale - however, traditional instances have their limitations, making it challenging to fully maximize the potential of our demand partners.
We are still maximizing traditional instances potential with Moonee’s Engine, however, we understand that in-app bidding is where the industry is heading: real time auctions increase competition between monetization partners and give publishers that extra mile that may be the difference between a good or bad eCPM. With such fierce competition, leveraging in-app bidding’s ability to maximize revenues and grow our business is a must.
How have you leveraged in-app bidding to boost your monetization?
We began using ironSource’s in-app bidding solution, and the results on our eCPMs and ARPDAU have been really promising.
The jump in revenue has largely been due to the high competition within ironSource’s in-app bidding solution - they have a large number of bidding networks, which means they’re able to really boost demand for our ad inventory. Specifically, we saw that adding Vungle’s bidding network as part of the Alpha test to our mix performed especially well, helping spike competition and in turn our eCPMs. Vungle is performing above our expectations, increasing its share of voice by 28% thanks to its bidding solution.
Apart from this increase in ARPDAU and eCPM, have there been any other benefits of using ironSource’s bidding solution?
We’ve found that in addition to strengthening these KPIs, bidding has also freed up time we previously spent on waterfall optimization. In addition, the whole user experience on the ironSource platform makes everything easy and quick to manage. Thanks to the very intuitive UI, our team can focus on key tasks rather than struggling to understand the platform.
“In-app bidding allows publishers to maximize opportunities and achieve the best price out of their inventories”
Gabriel Oltarz, Head of Growth, Moonee Publishing Ltd.
Aside from the platform, how’s it been working with the ironSource team?
We’ve been really impressed by ironSource’s communication and service. When they let us know that Vungle was available to use as a bidder via the ironSource mediation, we understood that our success is all that matters to them - even if it’s not only through the ironSource network itself.
In this high-paced industry, communication and availability is crucial to success. ironSource is very professional and provides us with quick responses to our inquiries. It’s really good for us knowing that there is someone to talk with upon having any issue or question.
