We partnered with Neowiz to retarget churned users of Cats&Soup, a casual simulation game, on iOS in the US. Cats&Soup is a top-grossing game that has exceeded 80 million downloads worldwide and is available in 192 countries. Known for its charming visuals and relaxing gameplay, the game has cultivated a passionate global player base.
Results at a Glance
20%
ROAS D0 above the KPI on week 1
>100%
Campaign recoup from week 1
2.8x
Campaign scaling by week 16
Campaign Goal
The campaign’s main objective was to re-engage lapsed players of Cats&Soup to bring them back to the game to make additional in-app purchases. We received a ROAS-based KPI to measure the success of the campaign.
The core challenge was identifying and reaching the highest-intent segment within the audience.
“Persona.ly demonstrated strong early optimization capabilities in identifying and retargeting high-value users, achieving SKAN ROAS exceeding 200% during the initial launch phase of the Cats & Soup retargeting campaign. Even over more than four months of long-term operation, re-engagement CPA remained stable, effectively driving existing users to re-engage. As we were able to continuously target our core user base, we look forward to further collaboration ahead.”
Park Yeong-ju, Marketing PM at Neowiz
Programmatic Re-engagement Process
From the start of the campaign, we leveraged first-party data through our proprietary Live Audiences segmentation engineto build segments of lapsed payers – users of Cats&Soup who had made in-app purchases but had been inactive for a specified period. A tight inactivity window was deliberately chosen: users who have churned for only a few days retain strong purchase intent and are significantly more responsive to re-engagement than those who have been inactive for longer.
Live Audiences engine, available to our clients at no extra cost, is seamlessly integrated with our programmatic DSP. It allows us to update the audience in real time and gain data-driven insights from the very beginning of the campaign.
Within a few days, we collected enough data for our ML algorithm to identify audiences that are more likely to convert by making additional in-app purchases. This approach allowed us to outperform the ROAS-based KPI by 20% and achieve D7 recoup from the first week of the campaign.
By combining first-party data with our platform’s behavioral signals, we were able to focus the entire campaign budget on this highest-value audience from the onset, enabling us to refine our targeting strategy and drive stronger performance across the audience.
From the first week of the campaign, our ML-driven bidder began accumulating positive signals from this segment. As the learning progressed, the ML model refined its understanding of which audience segments were most likely to re-open the app and make additional purchases. This allowed us to bid with increasing precision on each individual auction.
Leveraging a recent enhancement to our programmatic DSP, consolidating multiple audience signals into a unified feature, we developed a custom ML targeting model. This enables precise targeting of high-intent users and accurate bidding based on their predicted engagement level.
This enhancement allowed us to continuously outperform the KPI while scaling the campaign.
Why Real-time Audience Updates Matter
Real-time audience updates ensure users are added at the most opportune moment and suppressed immediately after reactivation – capturing peak intent and driving significant budget savings.
Campaign Results
ROAS Progression and Campaign Recoup
By prioritizing segments with the highest probability of making additional in-app purchases, we outperformed the ROAS KPI and reached campaign recoup by D7 on the very first week of running the campaign.
Precise targeting, combined with the game’s outstanding quality, drove strong progression in Cats&Soup. By targeting users who had already demonstrated a willingness to pay and re-engaging them at the right moment, we drove not just single transactions but renewed engagement with the game’s monetization loop.
Campaign Scaling
Throughout the scaling process, the campaign maintained consistent high ROAS, demonstrating that the audience and bidding strategy were robust well beyond the initial learning phase.
About Neowiz
Neowiz is a publicly listed South Korean game developer and publisher founded in 1997, with a portfolio spanning PC, console, and mobile platforms. As one of Korea’s most established gaming companies, Neowiz has built a diverse library of titles across genres, ranging from MMORPGs to casual games.
“Working with Neowiz has been a testament to what’s possible when two performance-driven teams align on a shared goal. We are extremely pleased with the results, and proud that our ML-powered DSP continues to deliver for top-grossing mobile titles in Korea.
Our presence in the Korean market is as strong as ever – and we remain committed to empowering developers here with world-class programmatic DSP capabilities to scale globally.
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.
