Panda Studio, a mobile game development company based in China, was looking to scale up their biggest hit, Battle Bingo. They saw other top casino games increase installs with Unity LevelPlay mediation, so they decided to give it a try - and test out the ironSource Ads ROAS Optimizer.
Damon Sun, CEO at Panda Studio, explains how connecting their monetization and UA data with LevelPlay helped them scale their user base - and boost their ROAS 222%. Let’s dive in.
Migrating to Unity LevelPlay
“We wanted to grow Battle Bingo’s user base, but weren’t able to reach our growth goals on our previous mediation platform. To get some new inspiration, we analyzed other successful developers in the same genre and noticed one common thread - Unity LevelPlay mediation.
We reached out to the LevelPlay team, who helped us understand the potential our game could reach with the platform and its suite of tools. We were particularly interested in using their CPM buckets and the ROAS optimizer which uses monetization data to optimize toward better UA activity. So we decided to get started.”
Setting our performance up for success with CPM buckets
“First, the team at LevelPlay analyzed Battle Bingo’s historical data to give us some initial waterfall recommendations - like adjusting instances based on their bid potential.
Using Unity LevelPlay’s real time pivot reports, we analyzed different ad networks by splitting our waterfall into CPM buckets, or price ranges. This way, we could better understand which networks were driving impressions and revenue, and find the networks with the highest bidding potential - then we added new instances accordingly.
Then, we A/B tested our new setup to confirm that our new instances would boost ARPDAU. With the highest performing waterfall setup, we could be in the best position to scale up.”
Utilizing the ironSource Ads ROAS optimizer
“Next it was time for the main event: scaling up with the ROAS Optimizer. The optimizer automates UA campaign management - so we knew it could save us valuable time and resources.
To collect sufficient performance data for the optimizer to run, we started by manually optimizing at the app level - adjusting the price on each app, based on our historical ROAS performance. This way, we could increase bids on high-performing apps.
Once we had sufficient enough data, we set a D7 goal based on performance, and activated the optimizer on our US campaign. Following the Unity team’s recommendations to optimize performance, we A/B tested new creatives and made adjustments as needed."
Watching our KPIs grow
“After turning on the ROAS optimizer, our D7 ROAS jumped 222%. D7 ARPU, or average revenue per user, increased 152%, while our cost per install (eCPI) dropped 21%.
Compared to our previous mediation platform, we saw a boost in both ARPDAU and revenue - 17% and 23%, respectively. Not only did we scale up, but we gained high-value users - and increased our revenue at the same time.”
"Not only did we scale up, but we gained high-value users - and increased our revenue at the same time.”
- Damon Sun, CEO at Panda Studio
“Working with the Unity team has been a win-win - we set our UA campaigns up for success, and by automating our campaign optimization, saved hours of manual work in the process. Not to mention, we formed a collaborative and supportive partnership in the process.
We look forward to seeing how this partnership, and Unity LevelPlay, will help us scale up next.”
