AdColony differentiated itself from its competitors early on by setting out on a mission to elevate the entire state of mobile advertising. Now, they are one of the most trusted and largest mobile advertising platforms in the world with a total reach of more than 1.5 billion users globally. This year, after partnering with Apptopia, their average monthly SDK integrations increased 12% and they were awarded “Best Mobile Ad Network” in the 2019 Adweek Readers’ Choice: Best of Tech awards."

As a leading ad marketplace, AdColony serves as a key intermediary between advertisers and publishers, a role that requires a thorough understanding of the mobile landscape. To elevate their industry knowledge and solidify their position as one of the best monetization tools on the market, AdColony sought to level up the tools they rely on.

In an interview with AdColony’s Senior Director of Global Marketing, Jonathan Harrop, we learned how vital mobile intelligence tools are to their work and why they chose Apptopia as their go-to provider to better serve their clients, partners and themselves.

Challenge: Guaranteeing high-quality app partners

As an ad network, one of the key functions of market research is being able to guarantee brand customers that their advertisements are being placed in high-performing apps.

To uphold that hallmark, Harrop and his team tried a number of other mobile intelligence providers before landing on Apptopia. However, each of those providers struggled to supply accurate and comprehensive app-performance data at a competitive price.

Challenge: Uncovering viable sales opportunities

Understanding the market is not only essential for retaining customers, but for earning new ones as well. However, too often, SDK companies do not know the extent of their or their competitors' footprints. Compounding the situation, information on breakout apps (potential leads) tends to live in a black box, as there are few tools that track emerging players.

With no easy way to easily access this information all in one place, AdColony’s sales team resorted to manual data collection and time-consuming research strategies, pulling information from disparate sources to surface leads and identify up-and-coming apps.

After “getting by” with other intelligence providers, AdColony discovered that Apptopia had what the others were missing— real solutions for growing the breadth and strength of their business. While their team opted for access to our entire webtool, it was our Report Builder feature and Custom Reports service that quickly became AdColony’s bread and butter.

Solution: Apptopia Sales Prospector - Report Builder

Using Report Builder, AdColony began creating hyper-specific reports based on criteria such as downloads, IAP revenue and current SDK installs. These reports have allowed them to keep tabs on current and potential app partners, simultaneously scaling their sales pipeline and strengthening their customer services.

“The morning we signed our contract with Apptopia, a massive brand advertising client asked us what apps their ads were running in. Apptopia was on the phone with our team 15 minutes later showing us how to look it up, showing us where to go. As someone who works with a lot of external vendors, that was super impressive to me. I don’t think a lot of other companies would do that,” said Jonathan

The AdColony team also took advantage of Apptopia’s alert feature. Now, they get automatically notified when an app reaches a performance milestone that qualifies it as a
potential opportunity. Plus, they’re alerted every time an app installs or uninstalls them or a competitor, making lead capturing that much easier.

Solution: Apptopia API - Custom Reports

To access more specialized information, AdColony requests Custom Reports through their Apptopia customer success manager. This service provides AdColony with the flexibility needed to conduct all of their mobile data research in one place.

In addition to ad hoc reports, AdColony receives a custom monthly report designed to give their team an ongoing, in-depth look at the competitive landscape.

The relationship between AdColony and their customer success manager has also helped them discover other uses for the Apptopia tool.

“I’m really enjoying pulling specific apps to support our PR efforts. After signing a reseller agreement in New Zealand, I was able to include data from one of our custom reports in the announcement press release.” - Jonathan

In speaking with Harrop and working with his team, it quickly became clear that AdColony is composed of a talented pool of people. However, even the most talented teams are at a
disadvantage without the right resources.

AdColony’s average number of total monthly SDK integrations is 12% higher since working with Apptopia. As the team continues to maximize their time and talent using our mobile intelligence
platform, that number is only expected to increase.