We continue to summarize the results of 2021 together with top managers and experts of the gaming industry (and related ones). Next up is an interview with Valeria Alfimova, Chief Revenue Officer at Appodeal Stack.How did 2021 go for the company?
2021 once again turned out to be a record year in terms of revenue growth, but most importantly — in terms of getting closer to fulfilling our mission.
Since the first day of the Appodeal Stack foundation, we have been helping to create and grow profitable mobile businesses. As part of this mission, in 2021, graduates of our accelerator OpenMyGame and NewPubCo have multiplied their incomes and hit the top charts in their categories in record time.
This happened thanks to a new platform for growth with its advanced business analytics and forecasting of key metrics. Among its other features are automatic bid management and creatives for purchases, as well as strong mediation aimed at long—term growth of retention and LTV (and not just a temporary boost of ARPDAU). Together with others, it allows you to close the full cycle of mobile business development. In addition, our bidding advertising network BidMachine has become part of the monetization stack of most major publishers from the top 100 DAU in the USA.
We have strengthened the top management team by inviting Randy Barenscott (Kwalee, former vice president of ZPLAY) and James Hritz (MAX, former head of the advertising department of Grindr). We also supplemented the offices in Barcelona and San Francisco with a new hub in Warsaw, relocating the team from Minsk, and significantly increased the average revenue per employee.
What event or trend of 2021 do you consider central within your niche?In addition to iOS 14, I would note the global consolidation of the market at the level of all components.
Apart from associations in the publishing segment, there is an obvious strengthening of companies that operate at the junction of advertising technologies and gaming, have deep insights and have an obvious advantage over developers. Publishers are beginning to take a more thoughtful approach to choosing service partners to whom they trust their data, and the conflict of interests becomes more obvious.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2022?We plan to develop an accelerator and a platform for growth.
They are aimed at developers and publishers of any level — from those who just had the idea to create a mobile business, to those who occupy leading positions in stores. In addition, we place great emphasis on the development of independent mediation with open source. This decision will make the developers’ income more transparent and provide full control over the auction participants, which, unfortunately, is not a given for our industry yet.