Reaching god mode (and why you need to know IPM to do it)

As the game market has become increasingly saturated, competing in the UA space has become increasingly important. And marketing strategies and campaigns have become more sophisticated as a result — from robust creative soft launches to user level ad revenue measurement and dynamic bid optimization.

This sophistication and complexity rest in part on greater access to and utilization of data, yet the more data available, often, the more confusion that is created, and there are still metrics which are crucial to evaluating marketability which many UA managers aren’t utilizing. One of these is IPM, a metric central to evaluating the marketability of a game.

What is IPM?

IPM, or installs per mille, measures the number of app installs per thousand ad impressions. The metric is calculated by multiplying the number of campaign installs by 1000, and then dividing that number by the number of impressions i.e. for every thousand ad impressions, how many installs did you have. There are several things which impact IPM, from ad creatives to app store optimization, fraud, different ad units, different supply sources, etc.

At ironSource, we’ve broken IPM into a few levels. The highest possible level is GOD MODE, meaning the campaign has generated the maximum 1000 installs. The level below is Optimus Prime at 200 installs. Read on to learn how to reach god mode IPM.

Why IPM matters

IPM is critical for understanding how user acquisition campaigns are performing relative to the market at large, and therefore, whether user acquisition can scale for a specific game - ultimately representing your buying power.

In order for UA managers to successfully crack UA at scale, they must influence their position in the waterfall. A campaign’s position and competitiveness within the waterfall is based on eCPM which is IPM multiplied by the CPI bid, as well as machine learning algorithms and predictions. Once they see how they stack up, UA managers can start working to increase their eCPMs, thus becoming more competitive and gaining access to more impressions.

Taking the formula for eCPM into account, there are two variables to play with: CPI and IPM. Influencing your CPIs can be incredibly challenging, as they tend to depend on cash flow and LTV. LTV is probably the hardest metric to increase as it ultimately requires you to release a new version of your game to the app stores, which is a long and hard process that doesn’t guarantee any specific outcome. Therefore, focusing your efforts on increasing IPM is the best way to cost-effectively scale your campaigns and increase your position in the waterfall.

While it’s a very challenging mission to double your LTV, doubling your IPM using creatives is completely doable. We’ve seen the IPM of games within the same category range significantly — with some running with an IPM of 2 and others with an IPM of 70. This huge scale demonstrates the huge potential for improvement when it comes to IPM.

Let’s try and break this down: Imagine a UA manager bids $5 on Campaign A with an IPM of 10, therefore generating an eCPM of $50. They also bid $25 on Campaign B which has an IPM of 2 due to a less effective creative, driving an eCPM of $50 as well. It’s clear from this example that even by making low bids, it is still possible to generate extremely competitive eCPMs — making your overall budget go further.

How to increase your IPM

There is, of course, a secret to doing this well. While there are many tactics UA managers can deploy to increase their IPM, the simplest and most effective way to make an impact is creative optimization. With the advancement in the capabilities of interactive ads, UA managers are able to deploy more sophisticated creative optimization than ever before. Our reason for this? In-ad data.

While the most basic forms of creative optimization consist of simple tactics such as changing the color of CTAs, UA managers can leverage the many numbers of touchpoints within playable or interactive ads in order to make smarter business decisions that will result in a higher IPM. For example, shortening the length of the ad based on where it is displayed (i.e. within an interstitial vs. rewarded video), or increasing or decreasing its difficulty based on the type of audience we’re targeting (experienced vs. new players) are some of the factors that can have a direct impact on a campaign’s performance, and therefore IPM.

On the flip side, UA managers must be wary of ad fraud, as fraud is the number one IPM killer. In order to ensure that your IPM on legitimate sources remains high, it is crucial to make sure that the channels you’re buying from aren’t stealing credit for organic or even paid installs from other networks.

For example, let’s say a creative you’re running on a legitimate channel has an IPM of 10. Then you turn on another channel — unknowingly one that is driving fraud. The legitimate channel’s IPM drops because the installs are being stolen by the fraudulent one. This drop in IPM, and therefore ultimately eCPM, lowers your position in the waterfall of the legitimate channel, diminishing your chances of scaling your campaign as much as you could have. In turn, you end up missing the opportunities of acquiring more users that could have ended up generating significant revenue for your app over time.

It is important to keep in mind that you might make the wrong creative decision based on a low IPM due to fraud. You may think that your playable isn’t working, but in reality, you’re just not seeing the installs you’ve generated because they’re being attributed to fraudulent channels. In order to avoid becoming a victim of fraud — and of a lowered IPM — it is imperative that UA managers turn off all channels that aren’t increasing installs over time or non-incremental channels.

Wrapping up

Savvy UA managers know they must rely on data and metrics for their campaigns to succeed, but in the era of ad monetization, it’s just as important to look at your UA campaign from the perspective of the ad revenue it’s generating as the installs it’s driving. IPM is a critical metric for bridging the gap between ad monetization and user acquisition, and UA managers ignore it at their peril.