Opera Mediaworks: most of our advertisers believe that the price for CPI traffic can be approved

What is Opera MediaNetworks’ main traffic source today? How much traffic do you currently have in Russia and other countries? How is it distributed between iOS and Android?

Dmitry Lyulka

Our main source of traffic is a network of more than 14 thousand partners of mobile services and sites, as well as from Opera mobile browsers.

And if you look geographically, is it Russia and several other similar countries, or do you have a wide range?

It’s a global presence. There is traffic coming from Opera mobile browsers — these are the countries of the rising market, that is, Russia, India, South Asia and Africa, Latin America, etc. And the network of our direct publishers mainly provides traffic from Europe and America. So we cover the whole world. At the moment, it includes more than 700 million monthly users — this is a fairly large network.

And if you look at iOS and Android by proportions and ratios, what percentage of traffic do they have? Android probably dominates?

Yes, Android really dominates. iOS across the network as a whole gives about 20%. But if we take only the United States, then we have 80% smartphone coverage there.

We have a fairly strong position in America. As for the separation by platform, naturally, we focus more on Android, because it is a more open platform. And now it is developing very well.

How did you manage to build this network? How did Opera motivate 14 thousand publishers to work with you?

In addition to the fact that we collected this network, we have a company AdMarvel, which provides publishers with mechanisms for placing advertising itself inside the application and services. Accordingly, we entered this market already prepared.

What advertising models do you have? For example, I am a publisher, how can I move forward? CPC or CPM?

Basically, we have all the models. These are mainly CPC, CPM and CPI.

Top Free Apps in Opera Mobile Store (Android)

In what form does this product exist? That is, I come and they tell me that for some country, for example, the USA, the installation costs a fixed price? Or is the auction principle used?

This is a very good question, because most of our advertisers believe that the price for CPI traffic can be approved. That at some rate you need to get a certain amount of traffic.

In fact, the situation is a little different. The auction system is used by all partners who buy traffic from a certain publisher. We can only approximate the compatibility of this product for those publishers who think that this product will be successful. At the same time, each of them has its own auction.

Based on this, we already recommend a price at which we can try to work. And only after the test for 1-2 weeks we will understand how well this product is going and what price will work for it.

Does this model pose a threat to the system itself? Is there no risk that you will always miss and get into the money? That is, for example, you promised the client an installation for $ 3, but it turned out to be 5. Or do you have these risks sewn into the model and the advertiser understands this?

As I said, we are conducting a test and initially recommend a price for it. Thus, we are looking at how relevant this product is to these sources. Accordingly, we see the conversion, and then we decide how and at what price it is better to turn it. The price can change both in one direction and in the other. But more often, of course, to a large one, because all customers have a limited range of users focused on their product.

Therefore, we have to carry out serious work on searching and scrolling this advertisement at a certain time, taking into account other points. All this determines the final price.

Do you have to use manual labor for all this?

Yes, basically we do everything manually.

This leads to the following question: I’m walking around the site and I don’t understand why the product is closed to me. That is, there is no interface so that you can register and log in. There is a stub on the site, some contact forms, but why don’t you have some set of tools? Or did I just not look through your site to the end?

We work with the largest representatives of the ecosystem, and usually they either turn to us themselves, or we knock on them. Therefore, the scheme of working through the site is not very effective for us. Plus there are different sites.

We have quite a large number of offices, and we prefer to work directly with clients. If you contact our Odessa office, the guys will immediately explain everything. In addition, they will tell you what to expect from our network in general.

That is, do you communicate with clients by mail, skype and in person meetings? In fact, is this an agency?

Yes, it is.

Opera MobileNetwork probably has some targeting: can you list the most basic of them or those that exist?

We have targeting by country, by platform, and in some cases by operating system versions. In principle, we can use more subtle settings, it all depends on the campaign budget and the interest of the parties.

Why is there a dependence on the budget? For example, I want to spin an ad for $1000 for boys only.

Imagine what kind of work the operating team needs to do in order to find boys of a certain age somewhere for $1,000. Sometimes we are asked to broadcast ads to housewives from 18:00 to 20:00 for one dollar per installation. This is simply unrealistic, because the work is quite painstaking and energy-consuming. Plus, we still need to find suitable publishers. It’s just not possible.

Recently, the news slipped that Opera is acquiring AdColony. A deal with an insane amount of numbers. I have one question: what is the point of such a purchase for Opera? Will there be any integration with the main network?

Opera Mediaworks is constantly expanding marketing tools, they allow us, our developers, publishers and advertisers to reach a growing mobile audience. Thanks to the acquisition of AdColony, advertising in HD quality video format will be available to work with the entire audience that we provide. This will happen next year.

AdColony Interface

This will be integration with the main grid, right?

Yes.

Let’s talk about the Mobile Store. First of all, I want to ask you about positioning. There are two giants: the App Store and Google Play, and Opera is also a fairly decent player in the market. Why is Opera trying to stand out from these major markets?

Opera Mobile Store is one of the tools of Opera Mediaworks — our network. And it is interesting primarily to developers who want to get users in developing countries. This is the audience in our store the most compared to the rest. And if we take into account that the number of applications we have is much less than in the same Google Play, then, accordingly, the competition is lower here.

That is, in some countries you overtake large markets?

There are no reliable figures right now, but based on the fact that Opera is a mobile browser that saves users money and time by compressing data, then we own an impressive share. This is especially true in developing countries with a fast-growing market. There people have to pay quite a lot of money for Internet traffic. This is what makes our browser popular. For example, in India we are just store No. 1.

Name a couple more countries?

Indonesia, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Mexico.

It turns out that the very fact that you have an audience should attract mobile developers.

Naturally.

Tell us about the distribution of Android, iOS and other platforms in the context of the Mobile Store?

We cover all platforms, but Android is in the lead at the moment — 60% of app installations occur from it. Java also has an impressive share — 29%, but now it is on the decline. This trend is observed all over the world. 7% belongs to Symbian. Everything else falls on iOS and other platforms, such as BlackBerry. The latter still exists, and we support developers who are working in this direction.

Let’s talk about logging into the Opera Mobile Store for a simple developer. How does the work begin, what steps should the developer take, what conditions and commission will you set for him? And who is already working with you from major publishers?

After our store became large and gained popularity, we began to cooperate with Mobile Games, Gameloft, Electronic Arts. They work with us in different directions. This list can be continued for a long time, there will be up to 50 large companies and developers who are interested in our traffic.

The standard conditions are 70 to 30, just like everywhere else. That is, a person comes to the developer, just uploads his content and puts it out. This is a scheme for paid applications. For free, they just upload their content and get access to the audience.

As a developer, I want to understand what the store can give me, whether it can conditionally pour me free traffic. Is there any newbie bonus? Does the store help a developer who does not have a budget, and how?

The new application, which is uploaded to the Opera Mobile Store, falls into the TOP of the “New” section.

Section with new apps on Opera Mobile Store (Android)

And how long will my application be there?

Until someone uploads a new one. The frequency may vary within one or two days, but it all depends on the circumstances.

But all the same, during this time it is possible to gather some kind of audience, which is measured in thousands of people, am I right?

Yes, that’s enough time.

Your store probably has a feature editor’s choice, right? The question is as follows: how to get a pencil to the editor, who to write to? Do you explain to developers how to get into this “editors’ choice”? How much traffic will I get in the end, if I am still zaficher?

There are various feathering tools. One of them is placement in the top, and the second may be the page of your product that opens as the first page of the store.

I didn’t really understand what is placement in the top?

There are application tops — TOP10, TOP20, TOP50 and TOP100, you can get into them. You can make the product page itself open directly when you log in to the store. All this also works according to different models — CPC, CPI or CPM.

So you can buy seats from you?

In fact, yes.

This is an interesting approach. And how to get on the pencil to the editors? Is there a certain section “editors’ choice”? That is, can I be on the main page for free?

Yes, we have an unspoken competition in the store: we look at which applications by the number of downloads aroused the greatest interest among the audience, and highlight them by posting them on the site. For example, we say that certain applications were the most popular, we send some prizes – all this happens in different ways.

The point is to mark high-quality applications that the public likes. 

The same Google representatives go to different conferences, write articles, give developers almost a step-by-step guide on how to get into the “editors’ choice”, that is, interact with them. Do you have it somehow adjusted?

It all depends on the popularity of the application itself.

So you’re only looking at downloading the app?

By and large, yes.

Do you have postmoderation or premoderation?

Recently, we switched to pre-moderation due to the increased number of spam, fakes, plagiarism, etc. The average application moderation time does not exceed three days. Applications are often posted the very next day.

By what other criteria can I be refused? For example, from the point of view of ethics, illegal content, piracy. What else are you looking at?

Naturally, we will not allow all this in the store. There is no censorship itself, but there is strict adherence to international legislation and a complete absence of adult content.

So casino games won’t pass moderation?

Why? If casino applications are not prohibited by the legislation of a particular country, then they will successfully pass moderation.

You said that there is such an interesting factor in ranking as buying positions, that is, buying clicks from the first places. And how does this happen from the point of view of mechanics? What buttons should I press to buy and how much does it cost?

There is an independent purchase in the Opera Mobile Store — through the card you can purchase a certain amount of traffic according to the CPC scheme. We already choose the inventory ourselves according to the budget and the number of clicks that was ordered for a certain amount of time. We have our own auction system in the store, everything works automatically.

If the customer contacts us directly and says: “We need such and such traffic there and there,” then we look at which traffic will fit this request, and we can already use both the mobile TOP applications and placement on the first page of the Opera mobile browser (we have banners there). There is also a so-called “smart” text that translates with a link to some partner site or service, or to the application itself. We choose the tools ourselves, we have a whole team of optimizers who do this. They are already based on specific conditions.

What do you mean by CPC in the store? This is when a person clicked on a specific application, his card opened, and at that moment I was being billed, right?

No. He clicks directly on the “Install” or “Download” button. That is, when he is already interested, has read what this application is about, has seen screenshots, clicks on this button, and it will be counted as CPC.

There is also a translation of the Opera Mobile Store itself to Google Play, for example. Some customers are interested in downloading directly from there. We have such a mechanism that transfers users to another market. But usually we count everything either according to the CPC or CPI scheme. It depends on the customer himself, his downloads and the campaign as a whole.

In one of the interviews with your colleagues, I heard such a thing: they talked about a certain thing called “social exchange when ranking when recommending new applications” What is it? What will it look like? And will it appear in the Opera Mobile Store?

This very interesting feature should appear in the near future. It is connected with the fact that most people get part of the news and content from social networks, and there the level of trust is many times higher — the opinion of friends is always more important than the editorial office of any media resource. We also wanted to get into this niche.

Integration with other social networks will be available to users who want to share useful applications with their friends. Users of social resources will be able to view the collections of their friends’ apps through our store, install them in one click.

This is a cool thing, because I have encountered the problem of many markets and often ask a question about cataloging. That is, you go to the main page of the store, you see there three classic tops — free, paid, cash. You see some kind of TOP, some kind of Genius, when they recommend applications based on download history and that’s it. There may also be a choice of editors. I miss these opportunities, and when friends recommend it to me, it becomes much more interesting. Can there be any other ways? Do you see for yourself how else you can rank apps to find cool games for a user or apps for his child? Do you think everything will be based on recommendations in the future?

Yes, the team is working in this direction. In order not to reveal all the cards, we will present many other functions of the system later.

And what is not a pity to tell? Maybe something is being prepared in the near future, some features or features, both in Opera MediaNetworks and in the Mobile Store? Maybe something will appear this fall?

Opera Mobile Store is closely integrated with Opera mobile browsers, and this forms its ecosystem, which develops simultaneously in several directions.

For example, during the search in Opera browsers, applications from the Apple store may appear in the list of sagests. The App Store and Google Play are too big to pay that level of attention to app developers and end users. But our team is also working in this direction.

For example, we always explain very clearly to the developer the reason for the refusal to publish the application. Account managers personally assist developers in managing application promo campaigns, effective targeting, increasing conversions, and optimizing the marketing budget.

The last question: I am a Russian developer and I want to understand with whom I communicate in Opera from the point of view of both the mobile network and the store — who should I write to, where to find your contacts? How does the interaction happen?

The entire technical team and support of Opera Mobile Store is located in Odessa. You can also write to support apps.opera.com , there is an address there.

As for Opera Mediaworks, we have representative offices all over the world, including in Russia. No matter which office you contact with questions, you will receive the same service everywhere. We are in the same time zone with Russian advertisers, we know many and already work with many, we will be happy to help.

Thank you for coming and answering our questions.

• You can listen to the original version of the interview here.
• The report of Sandra Ilyina from Opera at the Winter Nights 2014 conference can be viewed at this link.