IronSource helps game devs improve user acquisition with new tool

IronSource launched an updated ROAS Optimizer, a tool that helps app and game developers track the progress of their user-acquisition campaigns over time.

Tel Aviv, Israel-based IronSource said the tool gives greater visibility into campaign performance for ROAS, or return on ad spend, a key metric for making money on mobile games and apps.

IronSource is in the process of merging with Unity Technologies in a $4.4 billion deal. One of the reasons is that IronSource helps game developers make money, and it is also profitable itself.

Optimizing ROAS isn’t a nice-to-have for mobile game developers, it’s an absolute must, said Nimrod Zuta, senior vice president of product at IronSource in an email to GamesBeat.

“It’s what answers the question of whether your company’s user acquisition spending is getting you the high-quality players that you need, at the right scale,” Zuta said.

When IronSource first launched its ROAS Optimizer Tool it was groundbreaking because — put simply — the algorithm worked out the optimal bid for the game developer and automatically updated it across thousands of sources. King, Zynga, Big Fish … everyone was utilizing it, Zuta said.

The update also offers something new for the platform.

“Any customer using our existing ROAS Optimizer will be able to access a new dashboard that displays a trend visualization of ROAS over time — as opposed to a limited and static view,” Zuta said.

Developers can toggle between different time frames, country groups and campaigns, and no longer need to build their own graphs or involve their business intelligence teams to understand ROAS performance dynamically. With this visibility and accessibility, a developer can learn from campaign performance, see how they’re over or under shooting on their ROAS goals over time, and use that knowledge to more accurately adjust their ROAS goals to keep growing sustainably, Zuta said.

IronSource said it is the first company to provide an area on its platform fully dedicated to ROAS optimization data, which provides app marketers with a trend visualization and daily breakdown of their goal against ROAS performance over time.

The ROAS Optimizer allows app marketers to set a target ROAS goal, and then leave the engine to drive the highest scale possible while achieving the ROAS goal, saving hours of manual work. This latest update gives marketers the ability to get a visualization of the results of their campaigns over time, and the control to readjust their goals based on that data.

This visibility into installs, spend, eCPI, current ROAS goals, effective ROAS goals over time and more, arms marketers with insights enabling them to learn from their campaigns’ performance and improve their user acquisition strategy, the company said.

“Automated optimization is key to scaling in today’s competitive UA market, which is why we’ve built numerous optimizers in different areas of our platform, be it for in-app advertising or on-device advertising,” said Zuta. “We also believe in arming our customers with as much information and visibility as possible, and this combination of automation and transparency is key to how we build our technology — it’s why we’re constantly working on adapting our platform to deliver more data in a way that’s insightful and actionable.”

The update also includes self-serve capabilities, which allow marketers to optimize their ROAS goals and adjust campaigns directly on the platform. This update is one of many for the ROAS Optimizers, whose engines are updated almost every week, making them smarter and more efficient in helping advertisers increase the scale and quality of their campaigns.