Mana Games is a popular game publisher responsible for the hit game Fairy Town. They had never monetized with ads, so they were looking around for an ideal partner to start this process. Unsuccessful with other platforms, they finally connected with the team at ironSource, who gave useful suggestions – and eventually welcomed us to their monetization platform, and much more.
Wang Xuesong and Zhang Yingchao, Overseas Monetization and User Acquisition Optimizer at Mana Games, detail how monetizing with ironSource LevelPlay, optimizing user acquisition with the ROAS optimizer, and utilizing ironSource Luna helped increase ARPU by 300%, double installs, and drive growth and scale profitability. The use of all of the products simultaneously allowed Mana Games to achieve healthy growth across all KPIs.
Trying out ad monetization
Most of our games depended on in-app purchases, but we wanted to increase their longevity and ARPU. That’s why we decided to create more games with ads - like Fairy Town - but we had very little experience with ad monetization. Once we connected with the experts at ironSource, they provided very helpful optimization suggestions to get us started.
Even though we were still using an external mediation, the ironSource team shared waterfall setting recommendations to best organize eCPMs. They also provided recommendations about capping and pacing according to our ad placements at the time. Eventually, we decided to integrate the ironSource LevelPlay SDK and commit exclusively to their mediation platform.
Adopting the waterfall model
Once we integrated the LevelPlay SDK and Fairy Town went live, our ironSource account managers set up our waterfall according to the recommendations they provided. They continued to communicate with us to understand our performance trends, closely monitoring our metrics. Along with providing waterfall best practices, they gave detailed suggestions about how to optimize our results. These suggestions were a major help - ARPDAU improved significantly, increasing by 18% on iOS and 12% on Android versions of Fairy Town.
Utilizing the ROAS Optimizer
Following the successes on the monetization side, we were excited to learn that ironSource also had great products for improving user acquisition. We wanted to give our ad monetization a boost, but once we understood that monetization and user acquisition are paired by a growth loop - trying out ironSource’s ROAS optimizer was the natural next step.
Before onboarding it, the ironSource experts manually optimized our campaigns to gain insight into the best strategy and provided recommendations for initial goals. They suggested that we should go live with a lower ROAS goal and then increase it gradually.
Once we launched the optimizer, the ironSource team provided continued support with adjusting KPIs based on weekly results. Because we had consistent help, we felt confident that both the scale and the ROAS would increase. Soon, we saw retention rate improve significantly, with retention increasing by 10% and D7 ROAS increasing by 5-10%. Eventually, the results spoke for themselves - with the optimizer, Fairy Town installs doubled and D7 ARPU increased 300%.
Exploring creatives with Luna
We found so much success with ironSource products that we decided to explore how ironSource Luna could help with our user acquisition. We wanted to encourage users to click on our Fairy Town ads and expand the game’s creatives, so ironSource Luna developed two interactive end cards for our game.
With ironSource’s support, we got a deeper understanding on how to implement ad monetization and optimize it in a unified way. This support allowed us to explore their suite of other products, which only helped us to grow - both our monetization and user acquisition.
The ironSource team always develops a comprehensive plan and gives very effective suggestions. We are very satisfied with ironSource’s products and services, and even agreed to an exclusive deal. We look forward to continuing our partnership and growing both our monetization and user acquisition together.
"With ironSource’s support, we got a deeper understanding on how to implement ad monetization and optimize it in a unified way."
- Wang Xuesong and Zhang Yingchao, Overseas Monetization and User Acquisition Optimizer at Mana Games
