Expert Series: New and Unique Rewarded Ads with Evgeny Bagaryakov

adjoe’s product portfolio goes beyond traditional rewarded formats, such as offerwall or rewarded video. It has brought several other ad formats to the market that are not typically found on other ad networks. Product Lead Evgeny Bagaryakov is actively working on developing unique rewarded ad formats. These formats provide a premium user experience and also deliver strong potential for growth and monetization.

Tell us about Playtime and adjoe’s other rewarded models.

Our flagship format Playtime focuses on rewarding users for the time they spend playing an advertiser’s game. What’s different is that users begin earning and accumulating rewards instantly and continuously – just by playing. 

As we studied the gameplay of different verticals and the needs of advertisers, we became aware of the challenges hypercasual games pose. This vertical needed a custom rewards logic to match the rapid engagement of users. We launched Advance to solve this problem. 

Advance rewards users for every level completed in a game. Its model increases how long and how often hypercasual gamers play. Our most recent release combines the benefits of continuous rewards with specific actions completed within a game. We call this rewarded engagement model Advance+.

How do these rewarded models meet advertisers’ needs? 

Of our advertisers, 80 percent are currently taking a hybrid approach, launching campaigns across each reward format to better connect with users who best suit a particular engagement style. After all, we’ve seen that some users are about instant gratification; others are about later gratification with a lump-sum reward.

“We’ve seen that some users are about instant gratification; others are about later gratification with a lump-sum reward.”

Evgeny Bagaryakov

For example, Advance+ is popular with users who are committed to earning larger rewards for reaching a certain engagement milestone. They might make it to Level 10 and receive 200 coins and then 200 more when they make it to Level 20. Some core users come from Playtime’s time-based reward model. This is a format that attracts users because they earn small rewards instantly by the minute and play over long periods of time to earn more.

How do these continuous rewards influence users’ behavior?

We’ve recently found out in our report with Appinio that over two-thirds of German users prefer having the option to earn in-app currency with rewarded ads. Not only do rewarded ads offer users a strong alternative to in-app purchases – they positively impact their playing behavior. Around 40 percent of these German mobile gamers say that with the help of rewarded advertising, they play more frequently. And over 25 percent of them play longer. 

“Not only do rewarded ads offer users a strong alternative to in-app purchases – they positively impact their playing behavior.”

Evgeny Bagaryakov

So, imagine these stats when you bring in continuous rewards, which enrich a user’s in-app experience. We’ve found this model to be beneficial for both the advertised app and the publisher’s app, as users will explore new apps while accumulating in-app currency. Meaning, that your users are always connected and returning to your app even when they are exploring new games.

What do you think is important to know about adjoe’s SDK? 

If I were to break down the key USPs of our SDK, it would be these:

• It’s a lightweight SDK: adjoe offers a lightweight, agile, and easy-to-integrate SDK, which requires less system resources and helps publishers better harness the power of a seamless rewarded ad experience without slowing down their app. 

• It values ad relevance: adjoe’s SDK captures first-party data to ensure that every user is being served personalized ads, with which they can better engage. That’s why our SDK was designed to analyze a user and profile them by age, gender, and mobile interests. Our campaign distribution is powered by this data, which leads to higher user conversion rates and maximum ad revenue for publishers.

• It’s a customized experience: Customization is necessary to match the look and feel of the publisher’s app, without looking out of place disrupting the app’s user flow or interfering with the user’s interactions. 

With these reward payouts, how do these products help publishers maximize profitability?

We can safeguard a publisher’s reward economy because we designed our platform’s algorithm to ensure a healthy margin. Even during special promotions like double-rewards weekends. By calculating the necessary reward amounts, we help publishers maximize their earnings while minimizing risks. 

Fraud prevention is also crucial. That’s why we consider it our top priority to maintain the quality of our user base and prevent any fraudulent activity. Our robust anti-fraud solution identifies fraudulent users and prevents them from receiving rewards. 

“We consider it our top priority to maintain the quality of our user base and prevent any fraudulent activity.”

Evgeny Bagaryakov

We also continually improve various anti-fraud protection indicators, like VPN detection methods, to ensure that fraudulent users cannot access campaigns. As a result, publishers’ revenues won’t be negatively affected.

How do you help publishers monitor their app’s performance on every channel?

To give our partners the greatest insights, our dashboard focuses on mapping the user journey. This is from when they open the publisher’s app and are served ads to when they initiate the rewarded ad experience by clicking on our ad formats’ placements.

As part of the Product team, we always ask ourselves “What do publishers need to know, why is it important, and which action can they take from this data?” That’s why our dashboard helps our publishers identify:

• where users interact with ads the most
• which placements convert the best and deliver the highest eCPMs 
• how promotions in the app can impact ad revenue and drive the highest install and revenue activity in a certain period

What is the next big thing on your product roadmap?

We’re planning to roll out a new version of our Playtime design. We believe this update will give publishers and users even more flexibility in terms of reward preferences and improve the UX. This will lead to greater revenue for publishers. 

In addition to this, we’re also exploring the potential of mobile web solutions as our next big thing and are striving to improve our existing solution. We believe that Playtime Web will expand the reach of our platform and provide even more opportunities for our publishers to maximize their revenue.