Pop ads case study with 74.48% ROI on Gambling offer in Japan

Why does the advertiser choose RichAds traffic for tests?

Our team is working on promoting a specific casino brand and we are focused on various DSP platforms. I continuously explore new DSPs and advertising platforms. By testing these new options, I can replace underperforming DSPs with more profitable ones.

We tested at least 5 of them and decided to test RichAds too in September 2023. Initially, I was unsure about the RichAds DSP platform, so I decided to test it out with a $3,000 investment. Previously I worked with push and pop ads so I was going to test both of them to see what works better.

One aspect that stood out to me was the swift response from my account manager, Valeria. She has been incredibly helpful, offering a variety of options for me to try. What impressed me the most was her dedication to optimizing my advertising costs. Valeria’s support has been invaluable, and I genuinely appreciate her efforts.

This review is not influenced by any compensation; it is purely based on my positive experience with Valeria and the RichAds DSP platform. Maybe you can name me as a Marketing Expert from X Casino in Collaboration with RichAds Specialists, lol

Сhallenge

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So far, our Casino primarily focuses on Japanese users. While we do have some players from Europe and the US, their numbers are too small to be significant. From my previous experience working on other projects, I have also engaged with markets in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and China.

Among these, China was the highest-spending country. However, due to strict government regulations, revenue from the Chinese market has been shrinking, making it unprofitable in the long run. In comparison, other markets like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand generate only about one-tenth or even less of what China used to contribute. So now we focused on Japan market and tried different ad platforms with push and pop traffic.

We started our first tests in September. Valeria and I have experimented with various methods to determine which works best for our platform. This extensive testing is reflected in the numerous paused and active campaigns you see below.

We tested all ad formats RichAds offered: push, in-page push ads, popunder ads, and even native and direct click ads. I can say that we tried all possible ways to understand what works better: we launched Performance mode ad campaigns and Manual CPC and CPM ones, we tried New subscriber options on push ads and much more before we chose the 2 most profitable ways to set up ad campaigns.

The testing period varied for each campaign. We typically test new campaigns for at least 5 days. Sometimes, we resume these campaigns after a few weeks or months to see if any new publishers have been added, based on suggestions from my account manager or myself. Most of the time, we paused campaigns because we were spending too much with very low or no results.

From all these testing campaigns, I can confidently say that popunder ads yield the highest conversions, while push ads bring the best quality traffic.

Solution

In this case study we are going to explore the period when we finished our main tests and found the approaches that worked for us. In other words it will be a popunders case study for Gambling.

At the beginning of the period, we still run 2 push ads campaigns. As I have mentioned before while push ads bring the best quality traffic but popunder ads yield the highest conversions. So we decided to stop push ads campaigns in February and focus on popunders. We won't count down the conversions and spend for that ad campaigns in our results.

This case study focuses on four pop ads campaigns that we ran from January 1 to May 31.

Setting up campaigns

Basic Campaign Setup

GEO: Japan

Ad format: pop ads

CPM: $2,6

CPA goal: $90

Devices: Mobile + tablet

Targeting options: iOS versions 8-17, Android versions 2-12, all browsers, browser language - Japanese

Daily Budget: $420

Creatives: 2 LP

Visits cap: 1 visit per day

Subscriber Lists: RON

We started with 1 ad campaign with an average CPM for this Geo - $2,6 and ran RON campaigns with a CPA goal $90 and spent 70$ budget to test 1 site.

Initially, I chose mobile devices for our campaigns because, based on my past experience, they provided the best conversions. However, during the process, my account manager suggested trying out desktop devices for 1-2 weeks. It quickly became apparent that this was not an effective strategy.

We used wide target options: tested all browsers and all popular OS. Set up Japanese as a browser language.

Depending on the day, my daily budget varied between $420 and 450 dollars.

I tested two landing pages for our campaigns. The first one directed users straight to our main site, providing a direct way to drive traffic. The second landing page explained the site and its benefits with a single clickable button that ultimately led users to the main site as well.

The main campaign was testing the first lending page. One more ad campaign with the same setups was launched to test the second LP. From these tests, I found that directing users straight to the main site is the best choice for them to learn about our platform.

Each week I sent reports from the Voluum to Valeria and she set up optimization tools for me.

After a month we got 295 registrations and spent $11 096. ROI of this ad campaign was 110% which was fine.

Campaign Optimization

All ad campaigns for this pop ads case study were optimized by my manager Valeria. Every week, I sent her reports and screenshots so she could make optimization decisions. I told her to focus on zones and publishers that bring deposits but I know that she was also looking at the sources that bring registrations too.

As a result in February, we launched one more ad campaign on pop ads with a personal whitelist of zones that worked for me. It was a list of zones that were bringing conversions which means that from week to week they bring deposits. We set up $3 CPM for it and a bit smaller budget $200.

Then we launched one more ad campaign with the whitelist of publishers created by Valeria based on the data from Voluum. We set up $4 CPM for it and a $120 daily budget.

What is more, Valeria set up Micro bidding for specific sources to make the most of them.

Automated rules was also set to blacklist the websites with poor results.

Results

We continued to optimize the campaigns but made only minor changes as far as the main work was done in January, February and March.

What is important to mention in this pop ads case study is that from time to time I paused ad campaigns. What is more in April we faced some troubles with deposits with fiat currency. They were limited due to low quotas set by merchants, and many users are not yet familiar with crypto payments. Moreover, bonus abusers spreading false information have also impacted our brand's performance.

I mean that the results of popunders case study could be much better but still, they are very good.

We counted ROI based on registration, not deposits, so maybe counting based on them would change the final numbers.

We received 1 196 registrations from 4 pop ads campaigns. Affiliates who received $90 per registration would generate $107 640 in revenue. It will generate a profit of $45947. The average ROI for 4 ad campaigns for 5 month is 74.48%. However, I work for a direct advertiser, so our profits are counted differently. For affiliates who are still unsure whether pop ads are appropriate for their campaigns, this is a great case study.

We’ll continue to run this 2 ad campaigns and will see how many registrations and deposit it will bring to us.