#Shananigans Marketing & Online Advertising Talk Techconnect 2016

25th May 2016
Jamie McCormick
(c) 2016 Jamie McCormick - Presented at
TechConnect Live & National Sales & Marketing
Summit

(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
Across five
separate
international
markets.

A Long time ago…
Budget divided
between over
a dozen
advertising
suppliers each
Each with their
own product
mix
Across five
separate
international
markets.

A Long time ago…
Combined spend
of per
month
Budget divided
between over
a dozen
advertising
suppliers each
Each with their
own product
mix
Across five
separate
international
markets.

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”…
Our
Relationship
•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.

Our
Relationship
• 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.
TheirPromise
• 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.

OurRelationship
• 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.
TheirPromise
• 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.
TheAgreement
• 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
Countries
7 Days Target
CPA

Great Expectations..
Actions
Time
Register Activate
Download 5gb
Install & patch
Login
Play
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 | Jamie@advancedmarcomm.com | @DublinJammers
Want to learn more about Chrysalis Audits? Email techconnect@advancedmarcomm.com

#Shananigans Marketing & Online Advertising Talk Techconnect 2016

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#Shananigans Marketing & Online Advertising Talk Techconnect 2016