When deciding whether to work with a mobile DSP, it’s critical to undertake an in-depth review of its capabilities and unique advantages. While some DSPs take a general approach to in-app advertising, other DSPs — like LifeStreet — are more specialized to the growth needs of specific apps, such as mobile games.
Below, we tackle what to look for in a potential DSP with a focus on the needs of mobile games in the post-iOS 14.5 age.
The importance of working with the right partner post-iOS 14.5
Since the introduction of stricter privacy rules under Apple’s ATT Framework with the rollout of iOS 14.5, in-app advertising for mobile games has gotten more difficult. For players, this means greater power and a more privacy-compliant consumer landscape. For advertisers, this means needing to be savvier with campaign budgets. In the post-IDFA age, advertisers have to deliver campaigns that are not just engaging but ATT compliant — all while efficiently managing their budget to keep from overspending.
How can this be done?
By creating close collaborations with specialized, in-app advertising experts who can spell the difference between success and failure.
What is a DSP and how can it help with my growth marketing?
A demand-side platform (DSP) is a system that advertisers can use to purchase and manage digital ad inventories from multiple ad exchanges through a single interface. In mobile, a DSP partner helps apps deliver in-app marketing campaigns through a number of different tools.
First party data
Depending on the DSP’s breadth of knowledge and industry experience, it can provide advertisers with large amounts of anonymized data. If the DSP is more specialized, its data might be sector-specific. The quality and availability of a DSP’s data affects its targeting. For game apps, working with a DSP that has data that is more tailored to their audience — in this case, mobile gamers — could help drive consumer interest through more effective targeting.
Real-time bidding (RTB)
DSPs use automated, real-time bidding (RTB) technology to serve ads. The whole process, which includes bidding on a piece of inventory and competing in an automated auction, takes less than 200 milliseconds (quite literally, faster than the blink of an eye, which takes approximately 300 milliseconds). Advertisers can attain greater audience reach through the streamlined process and targeting abilities of RTB. In this way, using a DSP, advertisers can access a wider variety of ad inventories without adding any additional management burden.
The value of working with a specialized DSP
The mobile gaming ecosystem is unique. Of course, omnichannel DSPs can cover the basics: campaign management, analytics, bidding optimization, and access to high-quality, scalable inventory. However, in a post-iOS 14 world, the role of the DSP has evolved as historical data and learnings become more important to campaign success. That means choosing to work with a specialized DSP that has industry-specific data that is relevant to your audience can make or break your campaigns.
Key offerings of a DSP
Creative Innovation and Support
Since the rollout of iOS 14.5, ad creatives have become a key lever of control for advertisers to improve their campaign performance. An optimal DSP partner should provide creative services, whether they be in-house or through an external agency. They should also provide creative testing.
At LifeStreet, we offer an in-house creative team and testing for five key areas of creative performance: graphics, copy, layout, animations and templates. Through this approach, we ensure ads are personalized and relevant to specific player segments. We also undertake ongoing research of market trends to leverage ad formats and designs that are at the forefront of the industry.
Machine learning and model testing
A competitive DSP must have the capability to power and test models using contextual signals (versus deterministic signals from device IDs) in the post-IDFA age. These signals drive the probabilistic models that are the foundation of bidding strategies. Specialized DSPs will also be able to weight signals accordingly to drive ROAS-positive bidding models optimized to a specific audience.
As a specialized DSP, LifeStreet has machine learning expertise that is specific to the mobile gaming sector. Over the years, we’ve collected player data and built our bidding models to work with non-personalized traffic (e.g. not dependent on the demographic data provided by device IDs). This allows us to adjust bidding and targeting decisions based on historical learnings. Furthermore, we continuously build and test new prediction models to ensure we are always using the best configuration to serve the right ad to the right player at the right time.
Transparency and control
Transparency sits at the heart of any good DSP’s client relationships. A DSP should provide your team visibility on all bidding strategies as well as easy-to-understand and regular updates on campaign performance.
As LifeStreet, we recently launched our Nero platform to respond to the needs of advertisers when it comes to transparency. Through a single user interface (UI), Nero gives advertisers complete and comprehensive visibility on the combination of variables involved in a programmatic media buy. We’ve also built Nero to have the capability to accommodate the future needs of our clients, as more game apps move media buying in-house. With Nero, advertisers can build their own programmatic strategies and directly access the full suite of data needed to manage their own campaigns.
Flexibility and support
Advertising and app growth — like life — can be full of unexpected changes. Whether it be operating system updates, policy changes or unforeseen technical breakdowns, a good DSP will accommodate the needs of its partner by being flexible, supportive and guiding.
At LifeStreet, our customer service managers (CSMs) are uniquely positioned to provide flexible support because of their extensive data science experience. This allows them to evaluate, optimize, and tweak models to improve ROAS on the fly. As mentioned above, at LifeStreet our goal is to be a helpful app growth guide to our partners. With that said, even as we onboard more clients to our Nero platform and give them a greater share of control, our CSMs will always be expert partners there to help.
Looking to grow your game app?
In a post-iOS 14.5 world, working with a specialized DSP like LifeStreet, with historical learnings and first party data on gaming audiences is key to campaign success. Reach out to us for support planning your game app’s mobile marketing strategy in H2 2022 and beyond for maximum performance.