Players aren’t loyal to a single app, but with the right data and strategy, you can stay top of mind (and top of wallet)
Why you should listen
Retention is no side quest. It’s the main campaign.
In mobile app marketing, acquiring users is just step one. You paid to acquire that user, but winning their next session and each one after that is where the real ROAS happens.
That’s exactly what we get into on the latest Pocket Gamer podcast, where Aman Sareen (CEO, Aarki) and Francois Daoud (CMO, Eyeball Games; ex-EVP, Ludia / Jam City) unpack insights from Aarki’s latest Retention Radar report and show how to track users once they jump to the next app, then drag them back profitably. You’ll hear real data on user behavior outside the game, strategies to build smarter campaigns, and why combining AI with human intuition matters more than ever.
Whether you run UA, growth, or retention, this is a masterclass on building for long-term ROAS in a world where user attention is more fragmented (and valuable) than ever.
Top 3 takeaways
- Retention is 90% cheaper than acquisition and still underused.
Marketers chasing new users alone are leaving money on the table. Combining UA + RT can lift retention by 40% and improve your return on spend dramatically. - Players don’t stay put, but data can tell you where they go.
Puzzle gamers + e-commerce? Yes, they have a 60% overlap! Understanding where your players app-hop lets you craft smarter creatives, build better retargeting campaigns, and open surprise acquisition channels. - Creative × context × AI
Ads matched to app category tripled engagement in our tests. Add supervised AI (aka smart human oversight) to AI-driven targeting, and the learning curve flattens faster, beating spray-and-pray every time.
The transcript
Brian Baglow: [00:00:00]
Hello, world. Welcome back to the Pocket Gamer Podcast with your hosts, me, Brian Baglow and journalist, author and region of retention. Peggy Anne Salz. Hello, Peggy. It’s a joy to see you again.
Peggy: Thank you Brian. Also a joy to see you because I know you are hard at work working on a couple of very interesting events we’ll be hearing more about, and I’m about to go to another event.
either way, uh, retention is the word and it’s got the world buzzing. and that’s what we are talking about [00:00:30] today.
Brian Baglow: it’s like we, we hear from a lot of people that it’s not just user acquisition, it’s like how do you keep them when they’re there?
Peggy: but we’re not just looking at why it is important. We’re looking at data that shows how you can look more holistically at the question of who am I acquiring? How do I retain them, how do I reengage them? And the apps. Very importantly, Brian, it is the apps that they are in when they are outside of the game.
So [00:01:00] that’s very exciting as well, because we always think about acquiring users in the game, acquiring players in the game, retain them in the game, but mm-hmm It’s really helpful to understand where they are when they’re. Not in the game.
joining us today to talk about this are two industry leaders who are going to share the top line takeaways and tips from the report I talked about, but also talking about the other apps where players spend their time.
So we have, and maybe [00:01:30] just raise your hand when I mention you,
I have Francois Dauod. Chief marketing officer at eyeball games. Great to have you. Francois and I have seen in prep and in some of our conversations that you are indeed sweet as French toast. So no, no pressure there.
Francois Daoud: Correct. Correct. Thank you.
Super happy to be here. You know, um, I met my wife a long time ago, so I never got to do the online dating, but that would’ve been my username, frankly. It was all set and then I met her, [00:02:00] so never got to use it. I’m sure it would’ve killed.
Brian Baglow: I feel this is a very different podcast to the one we had planned, Peggy.
Peggy: I think so too. But we’ve got, we’ve got such great guests and such a great discussion. I’m just gonna let it go. And of course we have Aman Sareen, CEO at Aarki. Aman, we won’t say that your sweet as french toast, but what would we say about you?
Aman Sareen: Uh, thank you for having me, Peggy and Brian. Uh, you know what?
We, [00:02:30] we can just keep focusing on Francois. So I call him my French baguette. How about that
Brian Baglow: beautiful. That’s a possibility. I sense, I, I, I, I sense a fabulous friendship here. Um, so welcome, gentlemen.
Aman Sareen: thank you. Thank you.
Brian Baglow: I, again, this is, this is an awful lot warmer than some of the, the, the episodes that we’ve had in the past, Peggy.
Well listen before we jump in, gentlemen, and it’s a pleasure to have you both here. Um, let’s find out a little bit more about both of you, [00:03:00] because I am definitely intrigued. Okay. French toast, French baguette. There’s, there’s stuff going on here. Um, so Francois, coming back to you, you’ve spent, uh, over 16 years in mobile games now scaling hits like Jurassic World Alive and now leading the marketing at Eyeball Games.
And I believe you’re now working on the world’s most downloaded mobile pool game. Is that right?
Francois Daoud: Correct. Yes. So 14 years at, uh, Ludia, uh, outta Montreal. And, and funny enough, uh, things happened fast, [00:03:30] right? So Ludia spun off, it was sold to Jam City and it spun off like a couple of months ago. And so I’m working with them as well to, to held them, uh, rebuild their publishing arm and marketing as well.
So very busy there. And then also, yes, I’ve been working with Eyeball Games for the last two years. They’ve been working on this incredible game. Pool Masters Um, and it really, uh, redefines the mobile pool, uh, pool gaming genre, in my opinion. So the level of realism.
The physics, it’s, it’s [00:04:00] out of this world. And you’ve got some really interesting tweaks. Um, they’ve partnered with some of the biggest studios in LA to do some awesome brand integration. The first partner, the biggest one is NBCUniversal, and the first brand integration will be with How to Train Your Dragon,
So imagine having like, how to train your dragon cues, skins, emojis and what not, combined with an amazing pool game. So we’re super excited. Um, mm-hmm. So yeah, so that’s, that’s the latest, uh, title we’ve been working on.
Brian Baglow: [00:04:30] Fantastic. Well, welcome on board. Thank you so much.
Peggy: Aman, you yourself, now you’re located in San Francisco and, um, yeah, it’s, uh, it’s interesting not just at Aarki, but in your, your life, that life balance because, uh, you are, you are building a company and you are running it sounds like a zoo.
Aman Sareen: So, so look, uh, yes, we are, you know, we are, we are building Aarki, uh, so [00:05:00] Aarki is a mobile marketing platform, which is a hundred percent built on top of machine learning and AI. Uh, our goal is very simple.
Uh, we are a hundred percent ROAS focused. We live and die by ROAS and our goal is to help mobile marketers like Francois, acquire new users and retain them throughout the user journey. So we are full-funnel marketing platform. Very few of us actually exist because it’s difficult to do both of these things together. I think most companies focus on either user acquisition or remarketing.
We happen to do both [00:05:30] and uh And we do it in a very privacy friendly manner. Um, you know, our focus has been like, how do we make sure we are building for the future? And if you look at the future, future is going to be super privacy-centric.
Right. What Apple is doing, what Google is supposedly releasing in the next few quarters or years, you know, depending on who you talk to. Um, I think like, uh, client, uh, or I should say user privacy and like access or not access to that user [00:06:00] data is going to be super critical. And how we use those signals in a way that does not violate any of the privacy policies that these big companies have set is very crucial to us.
That’s what, you know, that’s what we are doing at Aarki. And you know, funny thing is, uh, this is not my first rodeo, uh, at performance marketing. In 2012, I built the very first performance marketing DSP, uh, like decades ago. And I swore to myself that I would never do performance marketing again. And here we are, you know?
[00:06:30] Mm-hmm. Doing it yet again. It’s like a bad habit that keeps, you know, that keeps coming back to you
Peggy: we know about Aarki that you built and Aarki will be talking about, but also, uh, yeah, you’re building I think, um, something there I was.
Seeing something about chickens. Am I correct?
Aman Sareen: Yes. Yes, you’re right. You’re right. Uh, Peggy. So, you know, this is actually my home office, and if I were somehow able to flip the camera, you’ll see a little chicken coop. Uh, so, uh, okay. You know, people, people tell me I live on like a farm, [00:07:00] even though I live in, I live like 20 miles away from San Francisco, slightly east of San Francisco.
Uh, but my kids, my wife, they love animals. I love animals too. So we have way too many animals to count. We have, I think, uh, two dogs, massive dogs, um, two bunnies. Uh, we used to have goats also, but our, our place is not big enough, so we have to rehome them, but, and we have now I think, like 10 plus chickens and counting.
So if anybody needs eggs, you know where to go.
Brian Baglow: it’s lovely to have you both on board and [00:07:30] I, I absolutely sympathize it.
You can’t actually see, but if I tipped my screen up, I have one Labrador here. I have one sleeping in the back garden and the sunshine. So not necessarily, you know, conducive for the chickens, but I feel that it gives us a, a really warm and kind of personal approach to this episode.
Peggy: We’ve got that. I mean, I can, I can also bring in my two cats and then we will be set here.
Um, you know, we usually say at this, at, at some point, Brian, you know, we want them back for an encore, I think. I think we do, but. [00:08:00] I wanna have, pun intended, ’cause that’s me, right? Pun intended. Because pg.biz also just covered the news from Aarki that they have a recent release also called Encore. So I thought I would just bring us up to date on that.
You told us about the company, but, uh, what is Encore? What was it built to address? What, what is this?
Aman Sareen: So, so you know, Encore is our new AI platform or machine learning engine that’s a lot of people would call it. I think these terms have become interchangeable these days. Um, so [00:08:30] at the core of Encore is our new DNN.
We used to have obviously, you know, Aarki launch DNNs, you know, with you Peggy actually at MAU last year in May. That’s true. Um, and we have been subsequently enhancing, you know, our model infrastructure and how we. Evaluate users and various, uh, models. Uh, so, uh, over the last years, we have now, uh, launched, uh, a new set of, uh, AI models.
Uh, and we call those as a collective encore. Uh, what Encore does is we do a couple of things, right? as I [00:09:00] said, we are a full funnel marketing platform. Uh, but this time we are heavily focused on privacy centric ways, especially on iOS, on getting those users. So we have created some very sophisticated, uh, algorithms, uh, on SKAN and how to get, you know, those SKAN postbacks to work properly so that our machine learning algos can actually do the best thing possible for, you know, our client’s media spend.
You know, at the end of the day, encore’s goal is to reduce media, spend wastage, right? Like [00:09:30] how do you make sure that your users remain with you and are not poached by other competitive games or apps,
Peggy: Great, great segue. ’cause that brings us full circle back to the mm-hmm. Aarki retention radar that talks about exactly this, you know, where are players when they’re not in your game? So, Francois, you mentioned in prep, uh, you found that traditional targeting is often like throwing darts [00:10:00] blindfolded, you know, um, yeah.
What about this report changes that.
Francois Daoud: So I see it in three silos. I see creative, obviously media buying and analytics.
And a lot of the times when you focus on media buying, everybody says, well, okay, it’s commoditized, it’s arbitrage, and everybody knows all the tricks, right? Mm-hmm. And it’s kind of true to a degree, but when you see, uh, a report like Aman’s and Aarki’s coming out, it, it, it gets really interesting. ’cause you always try to think outside the box, like, where [00:10:30] can I find these users?
Right? And, um, I can’t tell you how many times in the past I was like, okay, well we advertise in other games. Yes, we advertise in social, but where else could we advertise? And we’ve made a lot of assumptions. You do have information, bits of information about affinity here and there, but it’s not packaged like.
Like this report that we see at Aarki. So it really allows you to think outside the box. It really allows you to, uh, anticipate the app hopping from your app to another.
So having the ability to [00:11:00] anticipate where they’re going to be next, um, allows me to just customize and personalize a message and time it properly to reengage that user, um mm-hmm. Knowing where he or she’s going to be next. Right. So this is very valuable, but it’s not only valuable for reengagement, I think it’s also valuable for, for new UA.
Right. So if I see affinity between a certain type of game that I’m also going to publish mm-hmm. And I know that users for this certain type of game are gonna hop onto [00:11:30] this certain type of apps. Well, I’m gonna advertise into certain type of apps to capture some market share. Right. So I love that it’s like a database, right?
Mm-hmm. It’s really easily actionable as well, and you can feel way more confident about the outcome of it instead of like, making guesses,
Um, and again, this, this report, you, you really have like, you know, clear data, manageable data, easy call to action, low hanging fruit. And it’s one of the first time that I’ve seen something [00:12:00] like this where you can really think outside our typical ecosystem,
Brian Baglow: So I’m, I’m gonna pick up on that if I can. Aman. So, and I think giving people the, the sort of, the, the insight, taking out the guesswork and, and giving the context. ’cause the industry tends to be quite insular, you know, games are everything. And I guess there is a historical, you know, reason for that, but that’s not how the mobile world works.
So, and that, where did the motivation for the report come from, and can you unpack a little for us about which methodology [00:12:30] you used and how it all came together?
Aman Sareen: It actually started out as an internal tool. So what we wanted to understand was the, the user path, like in and out of, you know, a category to start with, and then particular apps itself, if they’re big enough, okay? Mm-hmm. And what we wanted to understand was like, how does a user start their journey and end up being, you know, uh, a user of a certain category, right?
And then what happens is what happens after they, they leave that app, [00:13:00] right? Like, so that’s what we wanted to understand. And the reason we wanted to understand was to do a couple of things. One is to obviously inform our targeting layer or targeting strategies like as we go acquire new users or find, you know, existing users who have lapsed and bring them back to the original app that they lapsed from.
Second was, how do you create in context creative, which is way more powerful than random creative to just, you know, spray and pray and do machine learning, you know, on top of it works, but takes a long time and [00:13:30] also could cause lots of user, um mm-hmm. Kind of ill will if you will, right? Like the users sometimes may not like the context of the ad that they’re seeing.
Um, so, so that was the motivation. And then what I realized was, especially in North America, right, we, we thought that the education level for marketers and, you know, the appreciation for remarketing and retention was quite low, right? The, it was under indexing compared to like, let’s say the EMEA region.
Uh, so then we thought, okay, How can we now, [00:14:00] uh, enable, you know, as an educational tool for our partners to show them the power of like retention of their users? So that’s how it started. And at the end of the day, if you think about it, you know, it’s very difficult to acquire new users, but it’s actually 90% cheaper to retain those users. Okay.
And in terms of methodology, we listen to the world’s ad calls. We are connected to every inventory source imaginable.
Mm-hmm. Um, so what we, what we can do is we can in time using transient data without storing anything, create user paths of, as we listen to ad [00:14:30] calls, right? And we can create a very rich understanding of how the users are interacting with a particular ad of a particular category, what they’re doing in terms of installs, and then further, uh, you know, actions.
And then how do they then. How do we see them outside of that, you know, ecosystem? And that gives us a 360 view of a, you know, a user. Uh, and, uh, then we can, you know, enhance, uh, uh, a marketing campaign, by giving them the right context, the right targeting layer, and the right, you know, [00:15:00] creative at the same time.
Peggy: which makes a lot of sense. Brian, you know, you wanna think about where we are in the industry. You know, it’s beyond games. You’re saying yes, you know, let’s look for players in FinTech apps, so let’s look for them in entertainment apps
But what’s interesting is not just where the players are, but when you start to understand the patterns among of where they’re likely. To go next.
Aman Sareen: Yes, absolutely. So, you know, many, many, I think we saw many interesting insights which we would’ve not uncovered if like we were making [00:15:30] guesses, like Francois said. Right. So we were able to actually see this with real data. So I’ll give you one example about puzzle games and, you know, a huge overlap with something that you would’ve not thought is possible.
So puzzle game users had a 60% overlap with e-commerce apps.
Mm-hmm. Like, who would’ve known. Right. And I think our, our theory is that, you know, you know people who are shopping online, right? Like you have your phones and you can instantly buy something. Puzzle games also provide the same kind of dopamine [00:16:00] hit.
Okay. So, uh, we saw that there’s a huge overlap and I feel like now there’s a huge interesting opportunity for this category to not only have, you know, other similar apps, uh, in their targeting pool, but also, you know, e-commerce app, which actually, you know, uh, are ad supported.
And, uh, if we can craft a message, which is not a gaming message, but it’s more of an offer message, right? In an e-commerce app, like, Hey, you know what, you have a special offer for doing X, Y, and Z. I think that would [00:16:30] resonate very well with, uh, with the users and players of those games.
Francois Daoud: Yeah, it’s, it’s, I, I’ll just interject here because that was super interesting and also the food and drink. Like, there’s a lot of overlap with, uh, board and puzzle games. So, you know, I found this like super interesting and the one thing that I wanted to follow up on Aman, on what you said, like when you said it really resonates with me when you said like in America, like the use of reengagement is under index, right?
I can tell you I see it, I see it with a lot of publishers [00:17:00] and I don’t understand it, right? Because I understand that it’s an, it’s an incremental spend, right? Inve investment. And a lot of people say, well, they’ll come back anyways. ’cause if they’re engaged, they’re gonna come back. And I don’t understand how one can take that for granted.
Right? Especially in today’s world where, you know, they’ve got, you’ve got like hundreds of millions of apps, it’s so cluttered. So you want to stay top of mind, right? And as long as your dollar, um, breaks even, or is like profitable, like why wouldn’t you invest that dollar, right? To just like keep top of mind, even if it’s [00:17:30] not a churn user.
Even people who are actually engaged with your app, if they stop buying, you gotta be top of mind. You gotta let them know, Hey, we’re here and we have this special offer you can customize. And so with this study, you can actually do more of this and in a more personalized way.
Aman Sareen: I think the understanding of the power of keeping your users in your ecosystem has enhanced significantly over the last, you know, few quarters.
Um, and if you can, you know, if you add retention strategies to your UA [00:18:00] strategies, like we have seen exceptional ROI Right? And the CPIs that you get from remarketing mm-hmm. Are literally a 10th or a 20th of what the CPIs would be if you were doing a pure UA campaign.
So I think there’s huge, huge, huge benefit in doing both strategies at the same time. Yeah. And, you know, 5 to 10% of your budget in remarketing, like provides the same type of ROI as like a huge budget on UA. Like it’s the, the numbers are mind-boggling.
Brian Baglow: Get we, we hear this so often, [00:18:30] you know, we’ve had such a range of guests on the show and it’s, it, it’s, everybody says, you know, why chase the new user when you could be doing so much more with the people already playing? And how do you get that reengagement? So this is making a, a huge amount of sense. And I Francois, you’re, you’re absolutely correct.
So, um. It’s really fascinating listening to you guys talk about this, but Aman, you’re turning data into actionable advice.
So how do you as a human manage the AI to sort of [00:19:00] utilize this and, and make this happen?
Aman Sareen: you know, Brian, we believe that. Especially in ad tech where money is involved in testing and cold start and model calibration. Right. You must, everybody I’m sure talks about these terms when they talk to you.
Um, how do you use human intuition in making sure The models or the algorithms have a head start, right.
So we have a concept we call supervised AI, as we grow as an [00:19:30] industry, we need human intuition and gut to tell you when the data is low.
Because what, when the data sets are, um, just forming for the model to learn. The model can actually go and un under and overspend on things which do not make sense. But as humans, you know that, hey, you know what, I know from my past life that what the model is doing is not going to work. So could you just twist it a slight degree in the right direction and make it learn faster?
So that’s what, you know, that’s what we are trying to do here at Aarki. [00:20:00] Um, and I think we have seen great results of that, uh, especially on, you know, the remarketing type of campaigns where mm-hmm. We have humongous data sets. We have the app hive and we, we, we have done several experiments in the past on what creative works very well, right.
So we can seed all this in the beginning of time to our machine and the machine can actually start running much faster.
Peggy: AI alone is super smart, but it doesn’t pick up on all of them. That’s how humans [00:20:30] come in. Now, Francois, I wanna come to you because you’ve said before, you know, this is about not being blindfolded.
This is about having some superpowers when it comes to UA or also to reengagement. So if we look at what. This type of data uncovers,
What does that open up for you?
Francois Daoud: I think the, the low hanging fruit here is, the key word is for me is testing, right? So, um, what I thought was commoditized suddenly [00:21:00] becomes interesting in terms of media buying, but I can combine this with like super customized and precise creative and do a lot of creative testing along with these assumptions that I see, right?
And then it’s just a question of testing the entire loop So it’s, it’s interesting to say to me, what I love is that I have new avenues of new avenues of testing new, new projects, right? it’s, it’s really getting outta the ecosystem and have like a whole new testing roadmap that I can put together
Peggy: Okay. Well. [00:21:30] I was interested in the data, the whole idea of app hopping. Where are players when they’re not in the game, and how can you connect with them or reconnect with them?
So I also wanted to see how this resonates with marketers. you know, it’s fairly new information. Mm-hmm. You said yourself, Brian, probably something we certainly haven’t covered yet on the podcast. So I went out there in the wild as I’m known for, right. Going to an event and meeting up with some people.
So I’d like to, uh, share what they have to say. So let’s [00:22:00] listen in. We have, first off, Marina Hallack from Tap Nation.
Example clip: I mean, it’s a more and more competitive landscape overall for games. It hasn’t been easy. Um, so I think the more and the better you understand your audience, where, where are, where are they, what are they doing when they are with their, their phones in front of them?
So it’s, it’s thinking outside of the box and I think this is the, you know, a deeper understanding [00:22:30] of your audience behavior is actually the only way to break through so much competitiveness out there. And, and to really find, you know. The golden opportunities.
Peggy: Exactly. Looks like you nailed it pre it’s all about outside of the box.
Francois Daoud: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, we’re really aligned. Um, I think that’s the key message and the key takeaway here.
Because we’ve all been working within the same boundaries for so many, so many years. And so to have this like fresh take is, um, is definitely exciting and extremely valuable.
Brian Baglow: [00:23:00] And I, I think this is the thing for me, Peggy, it, it has to be said that, that we, we have so many guests who are talking about the user journey, the player experience, how that’s the key building the, um, credibility, building the relationship, the, the long term lifetime value But once the player leaves your game, we’ve been operating in the dark as, as both gentlemen have been saying.
You know, so, so this really does give us a new context and a new opportunity to understand what else our [00:23:30] players do.
Aman Sareen: look, I think Marina made a great point. I think to be honest with you, I don’t know who piggy backed on, who was it Francois, was it her? Um, so our goal is to help marketers operationalize these insights, right?
It’s great to have these insights, but then what do you do with them, right? Mm-hmm. And I think Francois mentioned at the top of the hour that there’s kind of two or three buckets, right? It’s, you know, your media planning, you know, or media buying. It’s the creative and it’s your strategy. So I think what [00:24:00] this report or any other such reports or personas of your, uh, of your users, what they can help, uh, the marketers do is figure out how do you create the right strategy.
Is it a UA or retargeting strategy together? Is it separate? Right. I we, we think, I hope it’s together. Uh, second thing is if you know where your users are coming and going from, you can actually create very impactful creative. I think creative is such a lost art [00:24:30] these days, right? Mm-hmm. People pay the least amount of emphasis on it, and I think creative actually shines significantly.
Brian Baglow: So the focus on content is, is a point very well made. And we hear that from a lot of people. You know, we’ve had guests on talking about the quality of ads and how badly a poor ad and poor sort of creative can damage you.
So that low-risk testing, I think is, is a key here. So how do you actually implement that kind of testing? Make sure you have that quality without, you know, burning right through your budget.
Aman Sareen: [00:25:00] Yeah, great. Very good question right now, of course, you know, uh, for, for performance marketers, ROAS is everything, right?
Mm-hmm. So this budget has to be minimally used for testing um, to all marketers, what I say is you should select a partner wisely, right? Dollars are mm-hmm. Limited to begin with, right? And you don’t want your dollars to shrink when it goes from you to the end, you know?
Uh, ad slot. So you have to make sure that you actually work with a real platform, not middlemen. [00:25:30] That’s number one. Uh, make sure that the technology layer or partner you’re using has their own technology, right? They’re not borrowing it. Because if they borrow technology from somebody, then you are paying a markup.
And finally, um, I think, uh, if we focus on just one aspect, which is creative testing, uh, like choose a partner which provides creative services, right? Because most of, most app marketers, while they have huge creative departments, they’re more focused on assets, right? They may not be focused on actually creating ad content, [00:26:00] right?
So like we at RT for example, we have a full-fledged creative team. We offer that service for free to our advertisers. The reason being, uh, we feel that if we added that value, uh, to our advertisers, we can actually enhance their performance significantly,
Francois Daoud: Yeah. I mean, I think for me, the key word here and, and you, you touch upon it a little bit, it’s, it’s collaboration, right? So I, to your point, like you need to go with like a credible partner.
They know their inventory, they know their audience [00:26:30] better than I do. Right. And they know what works. They have like a plethora of customers and so they have a ton of data and they can really guide us, right? So I have objectives right to hit. I have goals to hit and I can share that with them and uh, uh, um, in collaboration with them.
We can set a strategy, we can set a roadmap of testing. I can tell them what my budget is. Mm-hmm. They can tell me, okay, well, you know. This is how we should deploy it, or can you do a little bit less? Can you do a little bit more? And, and [00:27:00] ultimately it’s all about the results,
Peggy: and surprisingly also looking not just at testing other approaches and being more effective in the testing, And I have, uh, spoken with Bruno Balistrieri from Qualy and uh, he told me what he was doing to extend to other audiences.
Example clip: We have to understand you compete with every single app in the world, right? And we would like have our advertising, uh, within these FinTech apps or these [00:27:30] different genres, apps, which are not the only gaming related, and bring them to our, uh, to our portfolio as well.
So, uh, it’s, it’s interesting to understand how these users perform in our apps and how can we monetize with them. Normally we go, go for apps that they’re gaming only, and given that we’re trying the new approaches with different users from fintechs, for Then, uh, yeah, it makes sense for us to test this out, to test this audience and find something [00:28:00] new.
Aman Sareen: I think, uh, Bruno is absolutely right. You’re competing with every app available yeah for Mindshare, right?
It’s a game of how do you get the mindshare Um, so I think, uh, the best things the marketer can do, and I’ll go back to creative, is like having a much broader creative strategy. Having non-intrusive ads, which do not interfere the user experience for an e-commerce app, or, you know, a FinTech app, right?
And then giving them the [00:28:30] opportunity to try out, you know, something new right in the right moment. I think that’s, that’s, that’s my takeaway from what Bruno mentioned.
Francois Daoud: But if I can take out a little bit of the guessing game, like, well, should I try FinTech or should I try e-commerce? Right. And then when I have a report like this, I’m like, well, okay, well, you know what? I thought FinTech was gonna work. I thought, well, not actually, maybe it’s not gonna work for my type of game, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna try.
Right. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you’re refining it, you’re refining the testing for sure. Yeah.
Aman Sareen: So, and, and I think, uh, I think what, what both of us are trying to say is that, you know, [00:29:00] this report doesn’t really just tell you where the users are. It has, you know, it has several business implications, which, you know, transcend different categories of things you can do, such as creative media buying, media planning,
Brian Baglow: Well, I, I think this is the thing, you know. As you rightly point out, chaps, we’re in a war for attention.
You know, the, the, the cost for somebody moving on, um, not just to another app on their mobile, another game, their mobile, but all of the other demands in their attention. You know, the tv, the streaming services, streaming audio [00:29:30] services, going outside in the fresh air and having a walk going to a pub, which is quite popular here in the UK.
Um, there are so many other things that your player will have and will be doing with their life. So taking that guesswork out, as you say, Francois, is hugely beneficial to anybody who’s trying to keep that player engaged and, and keep them within your world.
Peggy: And, and you made a great point about that as well, Aman, that it’s also not just reaching them, but it’s engaging them. That comes down [00:30:00] to the creative and that comes down to really understanding the player
And this is what came through in my third and final interview. ’cause I was chatting with Betul Ozdemir at Product Madness, and this is what she had to say.
Example clip: This shows a lot about the user, so you can be a little bit more creative. You, you can also look for what they’re doing, to get these users.
Uh, and you can also maybe tweak your, uh, ads a little bit, uh, to reach,those [00:30:30] audience better, better fit because, uh, this also shows you, uh, like, allows you to bring those users a little bit cheaper CPIs, you know? Mm-hmm.
So, uh, uh, understanding these personas is like, uh, super important.
Peggy: Cheaper CPIs. That’s always good news. What do you make of that? Aman? Francois?
Aman Sareen: So I think, look, uh, at the end of the day, everybody wants cheaper CPIs, right? Like [00:31:00] that’s, uh, Francois would love the lowest CPI possible, and I think. Uh, the way you can achieve it, as I mentioned before, is like, let’s make sure you blend your user acquisition campaign with knowledge like, which, not just educated guesses, but real data-driven remarketing campaigns.
Understand when your users will churn, right? You can do that easily. There’s sophisticated modeling for that and be ready to give them the right offer at the right time in the right context. Be it in [00:31:30] a gaming type of environment, right? Where hopefully you will find majority of your users, but also maybe you will find them in e-commerce app or food and beverage apps or FinTech apps,
Peggy: I’m just curious, we’re hearing about all the opportunities, all the different flight paths where you can find your users for UA as well as for retention.
But, um, how do you, as a marketer, how should a marketer still keep a sharp focus? Sharp.
Francois Daoud: ultimately for me, it’s all about [00:32:00] ROAS, right? So this is how I keep my focus. I need to hit my goals and, uh, I will say that I’m, Aman, I, I don’t be care about CPI to a degree, right? I mean, all things being equal, great.
If it’s slower, of course. But if you gimme a CPI, that is high, but I hit my target because it’s a quality user. Because I was able to contextualize the creative perfectly. And, uh, I found that user, uh, to have to be like on a, on an app [00:32:30] that I didn’t think about. But there’s like super high affinity with my game.
I’m definitely willing to pay a premium as, as long as it gives me my role as right. And so I think that’s my focus.
Aman Sareen: You’re right.
And I I I, you know, when, when, when you know smart people like you talk about CPI, I automatically convert that into ROAS, right?
Francois Daoud: I wanna score the illusion,
Aman Sareen: right? So, so, you know in what I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll tell you something, right? What we have noticed is that. Cheaper. Like [00:33:00] CPI actually always correlates to higher ROAS, right?
There’s a huge correlation between if you can cut your media cost down by many strategies, right? By getting a better offer in, by putting the right context when you, when you lower your CPI, your ROAS goes up, but at the Yes you are, right? At the end of the day, we live and die by os.
Brian Baglow: for me, I think it’s, it, it’s still coming back to the fact that you know your players better. You can serve them better. You know, it’s like you’re, um, you’re not confined to this is what I know about them from the [00:33:30] massive amounts of data in the game.
But it just gives you that context and it lets you figure out exactly where to meet them.
So, so, so let’s kind of dive into this and, and it’s like rattle through some of the, sort of the key findings. Um, so first of all, uh, Aman, creative, tailored by app category.
You found boosts engagement rates by up to three times.
Aman Sareen: Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s right. you know, once you have your user mapped out, right? Mm-hmm. Once you have your user journey mapped out, uh, and you [00:34:00] focus on, you know, picking the best, like, let’s say five biggest categories of your user leakage and you, you tailor your creative appropriately and your, your algorithms are able to distinguish between these users and these categories.
And on top of it, your, uh, creative team is able to rapidly iterate. We have seen massive improvements, uh, in, in ROAS, not just CPIs in ROAS. Right. I, I should use the right terms, otherwise I’ll get in trouble with my French baguette.
Uh, so [00:34:30] yes, absolutely. I think that that has been an crucial finding for us and we are operationalizing it, every day with our clients.
Brian Baglow: Okay, let’s keep this going. So, uh, Francois coming over to you. Campaigns that combine user acquisition and reengagement see 40% higher retention.
Francois Daoud: Yeah, absolutely. Not surprised there, because this is something that I’ve experienced for a very long time, right? So we’ve, we’ve launched new titles, we’re doing pure UA, and we’re looking at multiples over time, [00:35:00] right? Mm-hmm. Like the LTV, like how does it accelerate over time? And then at one point, we combine it with reengagement, right?
So 10% of the spend, we started getting like reengagement opportunities. So we start spending on reengagement and we combine the two and then suddenly and, and, and, you know, every single time, right? Without a fault, every single time. Those multiples, um, improve drastically over time.
[00:35:30] So my LTV improves because the retention is much better. And so, mm-hmm. Of course they stay in the, in, in the ecosystem much longer and they spend more. And so the tail is much longer. And so, you know, when I want to target like D7 ROAS and I’m gonna break even by D365, I look at those multiples D7 to D365, right?
So, so it’s systematic. Systematic. And it allows me to be more aggressive on UA as well. Mm-hmm. Right. So, uh, not surprised here. And, um, but I, I think, I think, yeah, it’s [00:36:00] important to let the community know about like this, this, bit of a gem, because it does really help the long term LTV and ultimately don’t be afraid to invest in re-engagement. Right. You’re gonna recoup that money.
Peggy: So I’d like to round out our rapid fire here with the don’ts, right? Um, what is the common misstep that marketers should avoid and what comes through in this report? I’ll start with you Aman.
Aman Sareen: First is, I don’t think your UA strategy should be [00:36:30] copy pasted to your retargeting strategy. I think those are two different things. And, uh, uh, but once you have both the funnels working, I think it works beautifully, right? When you’re doing user acquisition, you’re going after the unknown in the very beginning of time, right?
Mm-hmm. So you have to have a very different strategy for them. But, but as you acquire users, you start getting the persona and then you can have a much better retention strategy, which can then impact your user acquisition strategy, right? Mm-hmm. So that’s a very important thing. Mm-hmm. Second is, mm-hmm.
Um. Context matters, [00:37:00] geographies matters, right? Regions matter. So you cannot have the same strategy in North America than in APAC, right? APAC is a very different market. Uh, your creatives have to be very different. It’s very value-driven, right? They look at offers and discounts, and the messaging has to be very, very specific to these offers and discounts.
Whereas in North America, it’s a very different immersive market, right? It’s not about the offers, it’s about the experience. So I think all these things, um, matter where you don’t copy paste, uh, uh, you [00:37:30] know, one strategy from another. Right. And you have mm-hmm. Specific strategies, and you work with the industry leaders in those categories to, to have a robust, uh, acquisition retention strategy.
Francois Daoud: I think overall, I would say just holistically, it’s like, just don’t underestimate the impact of, of, uh, reengagement.
I, I go back to what Aman was saying at the beginning of, uh, of the podcast, right? Where it’s under-indexed in, uh, in America, right? And I, I said it earlier, I see this in publishers. Like they, they underestimate the, uh, the [00:38:00] power of reengagement and the impact of reengagement.
So a lot of people are like, oh, well, they’ll come back, you know, if they’re whales, they love our games, so they’ll come back.
And there’s so many instances where like, even if they’re whales, like, you know, VIP programs is a form of re-engagement, right? I have somebody who messages with our best customers, our best, biggest users and, and some other big spenders. We don’t, we don’t tend to them. And you see a difference just because you tend to those people, right?
And you tend to their needs. Um, and so it’s the same on the larger scale as well, [00:38:30] right? So even if they’re engaged with your, with your game mm-hmm. Keep them engaged, invest that extra resources. Don’t just like target churn users, right? Keep people engaged, more engaged over time. ’cause it’s so cluttered out there.
Brian Baglow: This, this has been fascinating. And you know, Peggy, we, we hear this in different contexts all the time. Yes. There’s no one-size-fits-all anymore. You know, you can’t treat all your players alike and you can’t treat your creatives or the platforms they appear on alike.
Peggy: You know, there’s a lot to learn. [00:39:00] From non-gaming apps. They have their loyalty programs. They have their, you know, bronze, silver, platinum, gold. Maybe that’s the way the player experience needs to be recreated and rethought. You know? Absolutely.
Francois Daoud: We, we’ve been experimenting with this a lot, like the VIP programs, uhhuh, and, you know, absolutely. And there’s so many examples out there, right? This was my, uh, inspiration is to see other VIP programs out there.
Brian Baglow: Um, it has been genuinely fascinating. I think there’s so much our listeners are gonna take away from this, but before we [00:39:30] let you go, uh, there are a couple of questions that we ask all of our guests.
Um, first is, what are you playing right now? What’s fascinating you, what’s keeping you from your work? And then secondly. Favorite game of all time. So, uh, Aman, let’s, let’s come to you first.
Aman Sareen: Sure. So, uh, you know, recently been playing a game called Matching Story by a company called Gluon.
Uh, very addictive game, obviously. Um, and I think all time favorite game, like. Uh, I think maybe, maybe [00:40:00] I’ll say two or three of them, um, in no particular order. First one is Clash of Clan. Uh, Supercell was my very, very first client in 2012, believe it or not.
Francois Daoud: Oh, wow.
Aman Sareen: Mm-hmm. I think we were their first kind of UA partner, and they were that, you know, the first dollar spent with us.
So I kind of became crazy about Clash of Clans. Uh, I love playing Candy Crush, and now it’s, you know, mm-hmm. Summertime, like Pokémon Go, uh, would be back in action. Right. So, so these are my kind of top three. [00:40:30]
Brian Baglow: Beautiful. And, uh, Francois?
Francois Daoud: Yes. So, okay. I mean, it’s, it’s a shameless plug, but it’s true though.
I’ve been playing a lot of pool masters and, and it’s just like pretty addictive. So I’ve been playing a lot of pool. Um, uh, you know, uh, summer is out, so yeah. Pokemon Go is one, but I, I prefer Dress for Live. I’m on. It’s, uh, it’s pretty cool. Um, best game of [00:41:00] all time for me, I have to say Clash Royale.
Hmm. Wow. When Clash Royale came out, I was just, I had my, he was like six months old, my kid, and I was just totally absorbed and addicted to Clash Royale and playing it all the time. And my, my wife was yelling at me. It’s like, okay, it’s your turn. I was totally, totally, mm-hmm. Addicted and, and, and, and cut up in that, uh, and that world.
So, Clash Royale has always been a big one for me [00:41:30] still today. Um, Candy Crush, of course, I like, I like rudders. I like Subway Surfers, I gotta tell you. Oh yeah. Oh, I played a lot of that. I played a lot of that.
Peggy: Yeah. Classic.
Brian Baglow: You see some very strong choices and you lose no points for picking a console game or indeed your own game.
Um, and as you said at the top of the show, Peggy, I think we do need to ask them back at some point in the near future and find out more about how this is going in, how it’s helping the, the, the mobile game sector and the wider mobile world change, evolve and [00:42:00] adapt to, you know, the future.
Peggy: It’s been a masterclass, I think, in understanding UA re-engagement in games, but more importantly outside of games, understanding what players are doing outside of their game.
And yes, I agree, Brian, we will have them back and I think there’s gonna be another report at some point. So we will be back to deep dive into that one as well. Thank you both so much.
Aman Sareen: Thank you Brian and Peggy really was a great conversation. And Francois, thank you so much for making it fun and you know, [00:42:30] you are a rockstar.
Thank you.
Francois Daoud: Ha. Thank you so much everybody. Thank you for having us. It was very, very fun.
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