We worked with Nexon to run a retargeting campaign for their top-grossing MMORPG gaming title Mabinogi Mobile (마비노기 모바일) on Android and iOS. Nexon is a global leader in online games owning over 40 gaming titles, including MapleStory, Dungeon&Fighter, and Sudden Attack.
Results at a Glance
15x
Campaign Scaling in 8 weeks
25%
Outperforming of Re-attribution Cost KPI at a 15x scale (week 8)
3x
Growth in Re-attributions per Mille by week 8
Campaign Goal
The ultimate goal of the campaign was to re-engage churned users and bring them back to the game to either make their first IAP (in-app purchase) – for users who hadn’t made any purchases in the past – or make additional IAPs (for users who had already made in-app purchases in the past).
The cost per reactivation was set as a KPI.
“The Mabinogi Mobile retargeting campaign performed better than we expected from the start. The ML-driven targeting aligned really well, allowing us to scale the campaign smoothly while keeping performance steady. We were also impressed by the improvements in user re-engagement and retention, and collaborating with Persona.ly played a big part in that.
We’re excited to keep building on this momentum together moving forward.”
Seungbin Bae & Kyungpyo Brian Hong – UA Managers at Nexon
Programmatic Re-engagement Process
When we started running the campaign for Mabinogi, using Live Audiences – our proprietary audience segmentation engine available to our clients at no extra cost – we quickly generated an audience of users who had been inactive for over 7 days.
At the initial stage of the campaign (learning phase at a low scale), our Machine Learning-driven programmatic DSP gathered insights into the features of audiences that were more likely to return and play the game. The initial campaign setup, which generally targeted churned users, already put us well ahead of the KPI, as our targeting algorithms quickly found the most opportune combinations of user characteristics, time, creatives, and placements for re-engaging users— driving engagement costs down rapidly.
From the very beginning of the campaign, we outperformed the Cost per Re-engagement KPI by 4x, re-engaging users at a quarter of the target cost.
Campaign Results
Campaign Scaling and Cost Per Re-attribution
At the initial stage of the campaign, running at a low scale allowed us to gather insights into the most prominent user segments for re-engagement. Once we had collected enough sample data for our ML models to classify audience segments as likely to convert (by reopening or reinstalling Mabinogi), we scaled the campaign 15-fold within 8 weeks while outperforming the re-engagement cost KPI by 25%.
Re-attributions CVR and D7 Retention Growth
The main challenge of the campaign was to maintain performance while scaling, focusing only on re-engaging users with the highest potential to reopen and reinstall the game.
By accurately targeting specific segments within the audience of churned users, we not only maintained but improved the D7 retention rate and tripled the re-attributions per mille by week 8 compared to week 1.
About Nexon
NEXON is a global leader in online games with long-standing IP franchises and unmatched expertise in live-operations which can add decades to the lifespan of a game. Founded in 1994, NEXON manages more than 40 live games in multiple genres, and operates in over 190 countries.
Nexon’s iconic games – including MapleStory and Dungeon&Fighter — have shown consistent growth over an extended period of time.
“Nexon has been a valued, long-standing partner at Persona.ly, and we’re thrilled to deepen our collaboration with yet another title. Our teams share seamless synergy, forged by mutual commitments to transparency and data-driven excellence.
We’re eager to extend this partnership, delivering superior UA and retargeting results for more of Nexon’s standout titles.”
Rachel SEO – Business Development Director, Korea at Persona.ly
About Persona.ly
Persona.ly is a data-driven product company specializing in mobile user acquisition and retargeting, powered by proprietary machine learning algorithms and a robust first-party data management platform.
We help leading mobile companies including King, Tencent, Papaya, NextNinja, Tilting Point, Nexon and many others reach and exceed their growth goals by accurately predicting which users are most likely to engage and convert. Our machine learning models are optimized to target high-value users based on predicted LTV, driving strong ROAS and long-term user quality.
Our in-house programmatic DSP is directly integrated with top-tier ad exchanges and OEMs, processing over 4 million ad requests per second globally.
By combining real-time predictive analytics with programmatic scale, we empower our partners to unlock smarter growth, higher LTV, and measurable incremental impact.
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Galia Lahav
Digital Marketing Manager at Persona.ly. Can talk for hours about comedy series, can't live without her morning coffee, has a superpower of being in three places simultaneously.
