Comment & Opinion

In-App Bidding: Boost your bottom line

AppLovin MD of Europe Daniel Tchernahovsky talks us through the company's in-app bidding solution MAX

In-App Bidding: Boost your bottom line

Daniel Tchernahovsky is managing director of Europe at AppLovin.

If you're looking for a sign - this is it. While there have been whispers of in-app bidding for quite some time, we're finally at a point when it is here and it's delivering real results for mobile game developers across the world. It's time to make the switch and start with in-app bidding for your mobile games.

Last week at Pocket Gamer Connects, I had the opportunity to discuss how in-app bidding can boost your bottom line, but this technology didn't come out of nowhere and it is already driving incredible results for devs.

What is in-app bidding?

In-app bidding can be seen as the mobile evolution of header bidding. Header bidding, which is an advanced programmatic advertising method, started as a bidding method for desktop web advertising that allowed publishers to work with third-party header bidding providers to implement code in a web page's header.

In-app bidding moved to the mobile space because these same basic bidding principles can increase CPMs for mobile publishers like header bidding did for the web. But, in-app bidding has some key differences from the traditional programmatic method, which is known as the waterfall.

Rather than consecutively asking ad networks in a cascading order based of eCPM, in-app bidding allows publishers to have networks auction their inventory in real time against each other for the highest bid. This means the inventory that publishers place with various ad networks can be bid on simultaneously to achieve the highest possible CPM.

It's time to be done chasing waterfalls

Mobile game developers of all sizes can always use more time to focus on what's most important to them - creating great games. A successful monetization strategy is vital to keeping a gaming business profitable, but maintaining complex waterfalls can easily take up a lot of time.

The more games you have to run, the more time you have to spend strategically monitoring your waterfalls - this can easily end up taking hours of you and your team’s day.

In-app bidding can not only increase your bottom line by driving more competition and higher CPMs for your ad requests ensuring you're making the most revenue possible, but it can also reduce the overall time needed to maintain your monetization strategy.

The additional revenue and time allows game developers to worry less about monetization and focus their energy on creating the next hit game.

What other results will I see from in-app bidding?

Last year we launched MAX by AppLovin, our in-app bidding solution, and we've successfully helped developers all over the world revolutionize the way they monetize. MAX allows mobile game developers to reduce their workload and real-time results allow them to ensure they can see what's working and adjust accordingly. MAX's header bidding technology reduces latency, ensuring quicker fill on every request and higher impressions per daily active user as a return, which is an additional revenue driver for developers.

"With the help of MAX by AppLovin, we were able to significantly increase advertising revenue on many of our products," said Dmitriy Yaminskiy, CEO of Azur Games. "With MAX, Stack Ball, one of our projects, was deservedly the top downloaded game on Android worldwide in the second quarter of 2019."

By switching to in-app bidding, the entire mobile app ecosystem benefits. Consumers see more relevant ads, advertisers can better attribute every dollar they spend, and publishers see higher CPMs. We cannot wait to see how in-app bidding continues to increase transparency and make more money for mobile game developers.

Daniel Tchernahovsky is responsible for growing AppLovin’s presence across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Daniel began with AppLovin in 2015, initially focusing on Eastern European growth. Prior to joining AppLovin, Daniel worked at Succevo, where he played a key role in launching the company’s mobile business. Daniel holds a Masters in International Management from ESCP Business School.


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