How We Outperformed the ROAS KPI in 3 Weeks for Goddess of Victory: Nikke

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Results at a Glance

Campaign Goal

The ultimate goal of the campaign was to acquire users for the game, with ROAS-based and eCPI KPIs in place. The key challenge of the campaign was to identify audience segments with a higher probability of converting into paying users.

“Despite operating across different time zones, Persona.ly consistently provides prompt support. The team offers valuable insights and strategic advice to help us achieve our goals and KPIs. They are an excellent partner and one of our highly recommended DSP solutions.”

Wen Huang – COO at FreakOut Japan
Raul Chan – Account Manager at FreakOut Japan

Programmatic UA Strategy 

When we started running the campaign for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, our initial approach was to target contextually similar placements where the publisher’s audience can be found.

Our ML-driven programmatic DSP uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) models to measure the distance between app descriptions. This approach disregards the store category, which is often manipulated by app developers to improve ASO. Instead, by converting app descriptions into their vector representation, we are able to measure the cosine distance between them and identify the most relevant placements for the promoted app.

This approach allowed us to surpass the ROAS-based KPI by the third week of the campaign. As soon as our programmatic DSP gathered a sufficient amount of data to identify audience segments with the highest potential to convert into payers, a custom ML-model to target those segments was created.

Over the course of the long-running campaign, we have managed to consistently outperform the ROAS-based KPI by multiple times, turn into a strategic UA partner for Freakout, and continue our successful collaboration.

Success Factors in Programmatic UA for Tencent’s Level Infinite

ML-driven Targeting

Persona.ly’s programmatic DSP utilizes a proprietary machine learning algorithm to run and optimize campaigns from the initial stages. We are integrated exclusively with tier-1 ad exchanges, giving us access to high-quality premium inventory outside the walled gardens* of tech giants like Google and Meta. Processing over 4 million ad requests per second, our bidder analyzes over 80 data points before serving each impression. Based on the ROAS and LTV predictions calculated by our ML algorithm for each ad auction, the bidder then determines whether to bid and at what price.

*”Walled gardens” refers to the closed ad ecosystems of major tech platforms.

The application of ML allows us to analyze various combinations of signals and aggregate multiple data-points into a single feature to deliver exceptional performance for multiple app verticals. This capability is especially valuable in the mobile gaming industry, as our platform can identify the audience segments with the highest potential to become paying users.

Contextual Placements

When it comes to user acquisition in a privacy-centric environment where user data is not exposed during the auction, the ad placement itself becomes a crucial characteristic for running successful campaigns. Having access to a vast pool of contextually relevant placements allows us to avoid model overfitting and effectively scale the campaign. As shown below, in addition to the obvious manga-related placements that would be a perfect fit for Goddess of Victory: NIKKE, our platform identified that the audiences of anonymous chat apps and certain contextually adjacent casual games had the highest potential.

Contextual Bandits Creative Selection

We utilized the contextual bandits to reach the next level of campaign optimization. By displaying the most relevant audience-specific creatives to different segments based on various contextual signals, we managed to substantially boost the IPM (installs per mille) and subsequently drive higher ROAS.

Our contextual bandits creative selection algorithm leveraged reinforcement learning to analyze both positive and negative user interactions. By processing multiple contextual signals—including predicted demographics and ad placements—the DSP matches creatives with their ideal audiences, achieving precise targeting.

This advanced approach allowed us to boost performance even further throughout the long-running campaign.

“Our strategic partnership with FreakOut in the Japanese market represents a significant milestone. We are proud to collaborate with an innovative team that shares our vision, and we are particularly honored to support the iconic mobile game, Goddess of Victory: NIKKE.” 

Elina Watanabe – Head of Business Development, Japan at Persona.ly

About Level Infinite

Level Infinite is Tencent’s global games brand, dedicated to delivering engaging and original gaming experiences to a worldwide audience, whenever and wherever they choose to play. The brand also provides a wide range of services and resources to a network of developers and partner studios around the world to help them unlock the potential of their games. Level Infinite is both publisher of breakout hit games like PUBG MOBILE, Honor of Kings and Goddess of Victory: NIKKE and a collaborative partner in games such as Dune: Awakening from Funcom, Path of Exile 2 from Grinding Gear Games and many more.

About FreakOut

FreakOut is an innovative marketing technology company in Japan that specializes in digital advertising solutions. Using advanced machine learning technologies, we develop proprietary platforms designed to enhance marketing effectiveness across multiple industries. Our solutions help businesses increase brand awareness, stimulate customer demand, acquire new customers, and optimize promotional activities. By continuously evolving our digital marketing technologies, we aim to address comprehensive marketing challenges for diverse sectors.

About Persona.ly

Persona.ly is a mobile-first DSP operating worldwide. Using our proprietary bidder and machine-learning algorithms, we offer transparent, performance-driven, highly targeted UA and retargeting solutions at scale with access to over 4 million ad auctions per second. We are trusted by Nexon, NextNinja, Papaya Gaming, Rapido, Games24x7, Ubisoft, Tilting Point, and many others.

Persona.ly strives to be more than just a vendor for its partners, but a partner that helps generate actual value, growth, and broad marketing insights that can be used across channels.