Audiomob forms exclusive partnership with Voodoo on audio ads

Audiomob, the creators of audio ads for mobile games and apps, announced an exclusive partnership with mobile game publisher Voodoo.

It’s a big deal for Audiomob, as Voodoo is an app and game publisher with more than seven billion downloads to date. This deal marks a significant milestone in the mobile gaming industry, enhancing user experience (because the ads are “non-intrusive”) while increasing developer revenues.

Under this partnership, Voodoo has selected Audiomob to become the exclusive audio partner for the top 50% of Voodoo’s ad inventory. This collaboration aims to integrate skippable and rewarded audio ads seamlessly into Voodoo’s popular game titles, providing an enriched gaming experience that benefits both players and advertisers. Thanks to the effectiveness of its ads, Audiomob has raised over $20 million to date and it is valued at $100 million.

“We are excited to partner with Voodoo, a pioneer in the mobile gaming space,” said Wilfrid Obeng, cofounder of Audiomob. “This exclusive deal allows us to bring our cutting-edge audio ad technology to millions of players worldwide, enhancing their gaming experience while providing advertisers with a highly effective and engaging platform.”

The partnership is a long-term exclusive agreement between Audiomob and Voodoo to provide audio ads in mobile gaming and apps. Audiomob will serve as the sole audio ad provider for the top 50% of Voodoo inventory, or its most popular games.

And Voodoo will incorporate skippable and rewarded audio ads, offering players the choice to engage with ads without disrupting gameplay and earn in-game rewards. The companies argue it’s a better experience for players.

Baptiste Durif, lead monetization manager at Voodoo, said in a statement, “Our decision to exclusively partner with Audiomob is a testament to their global footprint and the growth of in-app audio advertising formats. By integrating skippable and rewarded audio ads, we can offer a more immersive and enjoyable gaming experience, while also providing a valuable opportunity for advertisers to connect with our vast player base.”

The integration of Audiomob’s audio ads is expected to drive significant engagement and revenue growth, benefiting both companies and enhancing the overall player experience. This partnership represents a major step forward in the evolution of in-game advertising, setting a new standard for the industry, Obeng said.

Voodoo was founded in 2013 and it has 800 employees and 150 million active users. Audiomob is working with over 80 game developers, and its ads will be in 46 Voodoo games.

The founders started creating audio ads in 2020 as they started the company. Mobile ads were annoying, particularly video ad that would automatically play. They asked themselves if there was a better way to monetize and a better value exchange where developers could still make money and the user experience was good. They integrated an audio ad into a hypercasual game, where gameplay is fun but short.

They did A/B testing with audio ads to see if retention was better compared to rewarded video ads. Over a 30 day period, Audiomoby found that using rewarded audio would allow them to actually have greater monetization, increasing lifetime value (LTV, or the total earnings from a user over the lifetime of the app) because the users were staying in the game longer.

“That’s where like the relationship with Voodoo really started,” Obeng said. “Since then, we have been expanding our relationship with them and expanding along with other publishers like Tap Nation, Lockwood Publishing” and others.

Audiomob found it had better ad rates because it filtered for quality. Before it sent any ads to a device, it would ensure the device volume was turned up above 10%. It also offered skippable ads and rewarded ads. In one game, the user can listen to an audio ad and it collects all of the gems on a level so the user doesn’t have to spend a lot of time running around the level picking up the gems. But first it detects whether your volume is enabled on the phone. It gives you the option to turn it up and then that triggers the ad to play. That ensures that more people are likely listening to the ads.

“We qualify the user first” because that separates it from banner ads or other ads that are easily ignored, Obeng said. “That’s why we’re able in the market to command the highest CPM (ad rates) than a lot of our competitors.”

The company has patented the technology around the volume detection on iOS and Android.

“It basically means we’re able to measure this. And also we’re measuring things like, how many users have their volume up. We know from our session data that about 75% of users on our network have their volume set for at least 10%.”

The company also has rewarded and skippable ads, which are consistent with offering a good experience for users. Audiomob has offices in London and New York, with engineers in the United Arab Emirates. Overall, it has 36 people. The UAE workforce came with subsidies for office space in Abu Dhabi. The visa process was also easy to handle in the UAE, Obeng said.

The company is also moving into non-game apps as well as podcast audio advertising. The beauty of audio ads is they can be measured better than the old radio ads of years past, where no one really knew who was listening. Audiomob can measure volume levels and user engagement, without infringing on user privacy, Obeng said.

Obeng said the company is working with the Internet Advertising Bureau and Interactive Advertising Bureau to make its audio ads into a standard.

“We want to create a better user experience while also allowing the game industry to make money,” Obeng said.