#shananigans marketing & online advertising talk techconnect 2016

25th May 2016

Jamie McCormick

(c) 2016 Jamie McCormick - Presented at TechConnect Live & National Sales & Marketing

Summit

Once upon a time..

There was a relationship between a Marketing Manager and an advertising supplier.

The Marketing Manager wanted to drive registrations, players and ultimately sales and had $20,000 to ensure this would happen.

The unscrupulous advertising supplier sold him a campaign which ended up, being incentivised.


A Long time ago…

The year was 2010, and an international team of Marketing Managers were covering a portfolio of products.


Across five separate

international markets.

A Long time ago…



Each with their own

product mix



A Long time ago…



Budget divided between over

a dozen advertising

suppliers each

Each with their own product

mix



A Long time ago…



Combined spend of per

month

Budget divided between over

a dozen advertising

suppliers each

Each with their own product

mix



There was a game…

• A Korean, free to play, action roleplaying game on PC released in 2009.

• Launched in EU English, French & German markets.

• The first major product expansion was backed by a six figure launch budget, disseminated across three months.


There was “HonestNet”…


Ou

r R

elat

ion

ship •A Year, and $30,000, developing the

relationship building a foundation of trust.

•Met in person at GamesCom, Europe’s largest video games industry event.



Ou

r R

elat

ion

ship • A Year, and $30,000,

developing the relationship building a foundation of trust.

• Met in person at GamesCom, Europe’s largest video games industry event.

Thei

r P

rom

ise • Supplier to all of our top

competitors.

• Years of experience in our sector

• Large volume capacity.

• Lots of publishers.

• Ability to generate large numbers of CPA leads, within a short period of time.



Ou

r R

elat

ion

ship • A Year, and $30,000,

developing the relationship building a foundation of trust.

• Met in person at GamesCom, Europe’s largest video games industry event.

Thei

r P

rom

ise • Supplier to all of our

top competitors.

• Years of experience in our sector

• Large volume capacity.

• Lots of publishers.

• Ability to generate large numbers of CPA leads, within a short period of time.

The

Agr

eem

ent • So we got back to

Dublin, had Skype calls.

• Got insertion orders signed.

• Provided links, assets, and eagerly awaited the launch date to come around

Ominous Tones..


$20,000 Wishes13,000 Leads

Double Opt inBasis

Targeting a Dozen

Countries7 Days Target

CPA

Great Expectations..


Actions

Time

Register Activate

Download 5gb

Install & patch

LoginPlay

Level Up

Click

The Big Day Arrived..

Thursday:Servers Go Live

Many terrabytes of patching from our existing user base.

Producer green lights Marketing Campaign.

Friday:honestnet; “the campaign is live!!”

Their reports confirm a burst of new registrations; and we agree – “Great!”

After a long week, and with PR in full swing, advertising live, and the servers hopping, our fearless marketing manager adjourns to the local watering hole.


Disaster…Monday:

10,000 leads from HonestNet stats platform.

3,000 more filtering through.

Enter Producer.


“Where the ‘heck’* are my

players?”

Disaster…Monday:



Enter Producer.


“What do you mean? We’ve just sent 10k

this weekend”

Disaster…Monday:



Enter Producer.


“I was expecting to have a doubling of our

CCU’s, all I see is my normal players”

Disaster…Monday:



Enter Producer.


“You’ve seen no impact at

all?!?”

Disaster…Monday:



Enter Producer.


“Significantly less than &*%€ all”

Disaster…Monday:



Enter Producer.


“Ok, I need to do something about this immediately!”

Emergency Brake Applied…


Hi can you please pause the Dragonica

campaign? Something’s not

right

Sure, can you elaborate?

The Plot thickens


Data Analysis Clicks, Registrations &

Activations

Player Behavioural

Analysis

Level Attainment

The Horrific Truth…

Total of 11,000 leads:

• 90% activated their account (therefore triggering the CPA pixel)

• less than 1% hit level 1


I need to talk to you about our

recent campaign, we’re not happy






We’re sorry to hear that, but our contract wasn’t for players, it was for leads who would fill in a username, email address, password, and activate their

email address.






We hired you for players, you met us at a games conference, and promoted yourselves as

one of the largest drivers of gamers in the

industry.






We repeat, we’re sorry you don’t have players, but you

hired us for double opt in leads on a CPA basis. The fact that

they didn’t turn into players is your problem.

Where is the happily ever after??


Advertisement budget funnelled into Facebook game offers

Honest Net 30%

Our competitors 70%

Kids Get free credit to play a different game

And we Got to Pay the bill

The Silver Lining Appears…

Using some advancements on the same Analysis, we identified three other ad and affiliate networks showing a similar pattern.

Luckily, with these, incentivised traffic was strictly prohibited in the program terms.

We recovered €50,000 in funds already spent

Cancelled €30,000 in current liabilities

Redistributed €40,000 to suppliers that were actually performing as expected.


The Moral of the story… Fool me once!

1. Don’t only trust supplier stats. Unless you have your own data to cross reference it against it is impossible to truly understand performance.

2. Have tools to enforce your insertion orders. You can then hold suppliers to their contracts, without any ambiguity. It’s your money, they have to earn it, so ensure they are responsible.


Like a Moth to the flame.. Project Chrysal.is


Happily ever after exists…

My experience with this costly lesson led me to design an integrated software solution to identify such performances anomalies.

Chrysalis affords those using it the opportunity to avoid this problem to begin with:

• Facilitates the opportunity to effectively challenge suppliers with better data than would otherwise be provided.

• All affiliate and adnet relationships have client <-> network <-> publisher relationship, enforced by corresponding contracts.



The simple fact is, if you don’t have the tools or data comprehension skills to enforce these contracts, then will happen.

It seems that there are few people making a solution to reduce marketing spend built on Marketing, not Advertising experience, as so many people in the advertising ecosystem feed on the money trickled through the stakeholders and a counterbalance is missing..

It is inevitable that invalid or fraudulent traffic will haemorrhage your marketing budgets, while corrupting your metric performance.



Chrysalis Outputs include:Audit granular performance across multiple channels.

Rapidly identifying forced traffic.

Distinguish bot traffic.

Identify when publishers are clicking their own ads.

Facilitating proof in order to successfully challenge such traffic and recoup the corresponding financial liability

And a host of other Shenanigans…


Jamie McCormick | [email protected] | @DublinJammers

Want to learn more about Chrysalis Audits? Email [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]