Ad operations has been flattening out for years. Bidding took over most of the waterfall, ad quality and UX are most of the time out of the publisher’s control and the list of levers you can actually pull by hand keeps getting shorter. That is not a bad thing in itself, but it changes the job. The leverage moved from managing line items to deciding what each user should see, and most studios do not have the tooling to make that decision.

Over the summer I talked to ad monetization people across the gaming industry and the same topic kept coming up. More and more studios are looking at solutions like Loomit, Metica and similar ones to push optimization further.

1. Origin and positioning

What led you to build this product? What gap did you see in the market?

Mobile advertising is one of the few (if not only) ecosystems where the sellers allows the buyers to run the auction (without real audit capabilities). This flows through to the incentives setup and I’d argue explains a historic lack of innovation in supply-side adtech. We initially experienced this while working for a studio, and ultimately decided to fix it. When everyone is monetizing from demand, someone needed to build for the people actually creating the audience.

In one or two sentences, how do you describe what you do to a publisher hearing about you for the first time?

In the short and medium term, we build adtech to put ad monetization in service of LTV. This means improving the strategy around how an impression is sold (ie. CPM lift), but extends to how a studio decides when to show each user an ad, in which format, with what stack, all done through seamless A/B testing and with outstanding client service. In the long run? This evolves into LTV optimization in general, touching on anything from IAP, xpromo, UA, etc. Yes, we’re ambitious and just getting started.

Where do you sit in a publisher’s stack (on top of mediation, replacing it, alongside it)?

We sit on top of mediation. Think of us as the adtech internal tools and team you wish you had. We are the strategy layer in your stack.

2. Core value and main features

What’s the single capability you’d say defines your product?

Infinite setup flexibility paired with outstanding support and 100% alignment. We don’t know the best setup for a specific app, but we have the tools and the experience to help you find it. Strategies today are worth more than just the tech.

Beyond the core, what else is in the box (segmentation, A/B testing, reporting, cross-promo, demand, etc.)?

The list is long and the relevance varies by client. Think prebid support / metamediation, mediation routing, ad quality metrics and “template” management, full flex format swapping, predictive segmentation, machine learning automations, UA audits, a buffer enabling smart real-time decisions on loaded ads, IAP promotion strategies, native integration to 3rd party solutions, and more. It really is hard to pick just one; this is probably one of the most comprehensive adtech platforms ever built.

What’s something you offer that publishers are often surprised to learn is included?

Our predictive capabilities are strong and growing. Be it because it allows us to identify potential payers faster than our clients or because we can anticipate changes in ad quality, user ad tolerance and more. There are diminishing returns to trying to find the setup that delivers the highest CPM in an auction. We certainly handle all of that, but we go beyond those strategies and really invest in paving the way towards smart, dynamic, user-level setups.

3. Ideal fit

What kind of app or game developer gets the most value from your product?

Ad monetization should always serve LTV, regardless of genre, geo split, etc. If you use ads, this is for you. If you don’t, you probably should consider including some format, for some users, some times (this brings in much more than just revenue). If anything, what changes is the focus: IAP focused studios want access to an experienced team and top tech without the burden, ensuring that the ads they show don’t hurt their main monetization strategy. IAA focused studios on the other hand are more hands on and really appreciate how Loomit allows them to seamlessly test setups without needing product or engineering to get involved. We clear their testing backlog in record time.

Is there a sweet spot in terms of scale (DAUs, monthly revenue, impression volume) where you really shine?

Once clients exceed $50k in monthly ad revenue, we can get to work. The more volume, the better of course. Finding the optimal setup requires testing, and volume allows us to test faster. We work with several very large clients, but the tool is built to serve everyone. We have small clients as well, we just don’t promote them as much. 🙂

4. Getting started

What does it realistically take for a developer to try you out (integration effort, minimum commitment, pilot options)?

We launched our AI assistant for the SDK integration this year and it’s worked wonders. A Turkish studio literally produced a working build within 4 hours of starting, with the Assistant doing most of the heavy lifting. We typically ask clients to send us the build before launch so that we can review it, then we do a controlled release followed by an A/A. If everything runs smoothly, we’re typically ready to start testing within a few days.

During the testing phase we offer full access to the platform for free, including our managed service team that will directly create the setups, implement and report back. Clients are as involved as they want to be, but it depends entirely on them.

What’s the fastest a publisher has gone from curious to seeing results?

It really depends on what we’re testing. If the initial tests focus on format swapping, multiple ad units and/or dynamic floors, we can typically show results within a few days (though we encourage clients to leave the test running until the results are conclusive). Our trials tend to last 30 days, but by week 2 they’re already looking at results. Testing longer term metrics, of course, takes longer.

5. The market view

How do you see the yield optimization / mediation space evolving over the next year or two?

A seismic shift is happening in the industry and not everyone is aware of it. We are, at most, 2 years away from the whole industry moving toward user-level monetization setups. It’s hard to argue that monetization will continue to be the only vertical in app production that is not user aware, or that crafting granular strategies won’t drive improved KPIs. This requires the right tools, decision models and guidance. We aim to deliver all three in a cost-effective, stable way.

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Ignacio Ortiz Freuler is Co-founder and co-CEO @ X3M at Loomit, an adtech platform that sits on top of mediation to run ad monetization strategies at user level. You can reach him on LinkedIn.