Success stories
The Supersonic team uses Meta solutions and hybrid model to support growth
April 21, 2021
7 min read
Supersonic Studios is ironSource’s hypercasual game publishing solution backed by years of user acquisition and monetization experience. Working between offices in Tel Aviv, Kyiv and Minsk, in their first year of business, they published 20 games and scaled up to a nearly 100 person team while the COVID-19 outbreak happened in the background.
The studio has had numerous successes, with 14 out of 20 games published with Supersonic - including Sort It 3D, Stacky Dash and Join Clash – ranking in the top 10 most downloaded on either the App Store or Google Play during 2020. In addition, Join Clash was the most downloaded game worldwide in Q1 2021 according to Sensor Tower and App Annie.
1-100%
employee growth
700M
plus worldwide installs
7-10%
uplift in LTV since integrating IAP
Challenge
The studio sought a partner who could provide end-to-end support throughout their publishing funnel: from running tests very early on in the prototyping stage to understanding marketability, testing creatives for game launch, and landing on the right monetization mix.
Having experienced the complexity of managing dozens of waterfalls, the Supersonic team was looking to save time and maximize ARPDAU and CPMs by implementing app bidding into their monetization activities.
Additionally, they were developing an automated self-serve platform that would enable a high volume of developer-submitted games to be tested at scale, based on predetermined KPIs. To achieve this they needed support in connecting all aspects of the testing process, like automation and API calls, to their Facebook account.
Solution
Working with Facebook Gaming on the user acquisition side, and Meta Audience Network for monetization, the studio received the end-to-end support they needed for a holistic approach.
Bidding
From the start, the Supersonic team adopted in-app bidding with Meta Audience Network and mediation partner ironSource, which opened up significant opportunities for efficiency.
User acquisition
Next, working closely with the Facebook Gaming team, they built their self-serve platform and incorporated Facebook’s Marketing API, using a custom automation solution. This enabled them to receive and test a high volume of games at scale at the prototyping stage, and identify which games should move onto the next phase of testing.
Going beyond a ‘targeting broad’ strategy, which is the default for hypercasual user acquisition, Facebook’s Custom Event Optimization solution has enabled the Supersonic team to leverage more downstream events to target specific cohorts of engaged users.
Creative testing
Facebook has also become their primary channel for testing creatives, as it:
Enables high-speed testing of dozens of new videos at the same time
Allows for creative testing based on specific rules
Offers insight into audience allocation per creative and helps identify which audiences to focus on
Monetization
In partnership with the Meta Audience Network team, ironSource’s Supersonic monetizes most of their users with ads. But they’ve also found that some users are willing to pay a bit more for a no-ads experience or to get virtual goods within the game. As such, their team regularly runs A/B tests to see how users react to new ad placements and meta-features.
In almost all cases, they've observed that integrating meta-features benefits game KPIs — engagement, ads and IAP performance, retention, and playtime — and so they aim to include as many as possible. Examples of meta-features include: incorporating a coin system in the game economy, increasing the pace of the game chapter, or giving avatars a different look/skin.
[Meta] Audience Network was our first bidding partner, which opened up significant opportunities for us this year. They helped us automate waterfall management, which is especially important for a studio like us with 20 games and dozens of waterfalls.
We've seen great performance, super-high CPMs and good fill rates.”
Igor Bereslavski, Director of Growth (UA and Monetization), Supersonic Studios
Results
Meta has played a pivotal part in Supersonic’s incredible first year of growth.
Facebook Gaming’s partnership in setting up automation - prototyping, testing and marketability evaluation, creative testing and user acquisition, and implementing app bidding with Meta Audience Network - helped the 100-person Supersonic team to achieve growth at the scale that they did.
Thanks to the support they received from Meta Audience Network, they no longer have to manually manage hundreds of waterfalls per game and group of countries, which enables them to generate substantial incremental revenue with almost no work.
They’ve already tested 1,500 games through their new self-serve platform, and in 2021, they plan to increase this number. Automation has been a key to help Supersonic scale, but working with an innovative partner has been equally important. Meta has helped them stay on top of the latest technological developments so they could continue to improve performance.
Over their first year of business, key results include:
From 1-100 employees
Over 750M installs worldwide
7-10% uplift in LTV since integrating IAP
Topics:
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Meta Audience Network empowers app developers and publishers to deliver a great user experience while growing a sustainable business. With Facebook demand from millions of diverse global advertisers, publishers can expand their app’s reach, keep users engaged, and monetize globally.
