Higgs Studio is a puzzle game developer that aims to provide players all over the world with enjoyable, challenging puzzle games.
Read how Higgs Studio used ironSource in-app bidding together with Facebook Audience Network to boost Tile Connect’s ARPDAU 10% in the US and save valuable time.
Missing out on revenue
We have more than 40 games at Higgs, and much of our team’s time is spent manually optimizing all their waterfalls - adjusting all the CPMs, moving each network’s position, and talking to our partners. Not only were we spending too much time constantly making sure each waterfall was optimized, but we were also likely missing out on potential revenue. Since we could only focus our attention on a small percentage of our waterfalls, not all of our waterfalls were absolutely optimized.
We’d heard a lot about in-app bidding and the benefits it brings games companies, and were eager to try it out. Since Facebook Audience Network is a key network for us, it was great to see that they were available for us to test as a bidder on ironSource in-app bidding, without needing to go through any approval process.
Testing ironSource in-app bidding
Before going all in with in-app bidding, we wanted to be completely sure it was the right strategy for us at Higgs. So we decided to run an A/B test on our game Tile Connect. We used ironSource’s bidding test tool to run the test - one with Tile Connect’s worldwide waterfall, and one with its US one. It took just a couple taps to set up, much simpler than optimizing a waterfall manually.
"That jump in revenue, combined with the fact that we saved a chunk of time on manual operations, gave us the confidence to transition the rest of our titles over to ironSource in-app bidding"
The test split our traffic in half, with 50% running on the waterfall, and the other 50% on in-app bidding. In the in-app bidding group, we ran bidders from both ironSource and Facebook Audience Network.
Boosting ARPDAU
We let the test run for 15 days before analyzing the results. In the worldwide test, we saw that the ARPDAU of the in-app bidding group was 9% higher than the waterfall group. Meanwhile, in the US, ARPDAU increased by 10%.
What’s more, our interstitial ARPU on the worldwide waterfall increased by 4.3% with in-app bidding. This jump meant more profit for our game, giving us additional spend to pour into our user acquisition strategy.
That jump in revenue, combined with the fact that we saved a chunk of time on manual operations, gave us the confidence to transition the rest of our titles over to ironSource in-app bidding. Clearly, in-app bidding was the right move for our growth strategy.
Throughout the entire process, we were impressed with the support we received from the highly experienced ironSource team. By providing us with quick advice on our monetization setups, it was clear ironSource fully understood our needs.
