Josh: Hi Tanner, thanks for joining me! Can you introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?

Tanner: Hi i’m Tanner Hanson. I'm the President of Revue. So right now, I've really been focused on offer walls since that's our main product. And I'm focused on the product itself and kind of continuing to develop mainly the back end to kind of really make sure that we have the tools to support advertisers and publishers in all verticals.

And that's been really fun. I've also focused on growth. So leading our sales team and working really closely with the marketing department to make sure things get done, and make sure that we're attending the right events, like Gamesforum.

And then also overseeing our account management, which we're really starting to expand as we grow. That that was kind of my bread and butter at my former job. So really, really excited to be getting to kind of build that team from the ground up, and you know II also love managing accounts myself. Since I've I've done it for so long. And so it's been just something I enjoy is, you know, really chatting with and working with advertisers and publishers and understanding what they need. So I actually think that's been great really ties into the product side. So it's great to be, you know, at a small company and kind of

Chatting with advertisers and publishers on the day to day, and then able to directly go back to the product things that I work on and make sure those are taken care of in the roadmap, and, you know, really prioritized correctly to make sure that we are continuing to to develop our product in a way that supports you know, really, all media types, especially our focus has been on mobile gaming in the mobile app space recently

 

Josh: Can you tell us a bit more about RevU. What is your MO?

Tanner: RevU is an offer wall platform. So we focus on offer wall for advertisers, we're really only selling incentivized media. Whether that's clicks installs, or mostly what we focus on with the mobile gaming space is going to be CPE campaigns. So full offer wall, been our bread and butter. It's actually an 18 year old company. So we've been around quite a while. We really got our start in the desktop space originally, providing a lot of the demand sourcing for some of the original offer walls that were in the Facebook gaming space when that became a growing industry.

And so from there RevU kind of maintained their bread and butter with  desktop and web offers and over time mobile publishers actually started finding RevU as they were losing the ability to run app campaigns on iOS, and so provided a really good opening for RevU to kind of start adjusting our product to really fit these mobile publishers that are reaching out to us and realizing that we're able to drive just very high CPMs for publishers who had lost a lot of revenue on iOS side of the business, and so ended up being serendipitous that the product that didn't, you know, actively, didn't completely go after apps. And didn't really drive into apps as the app offer wall business was growing, but really stuck in the   web space.

This ended up working out really well for us to get into the app monetization space because of the changes on iOS and the fact that we have so many offers and so much long term demand that we've been running that is viable on an iOS app.

So overall RevU has always been an offer wall. With really strong brand partnerships. I'm able to just bring in really high paying offers because we have been running this sort of web, and non app service campaigns. In an incentivized manner across all platforms really.

 

Josh: What led you to join RevU?

Tanner: It definitely leans into the product and similar to what I was saying, working in the app focused offer wall space. I was there when Apple made us shut down all of our iOS campaigns, and, you know, crying a single tier as I'm pausing all of my best iOS CPE campaigns.

We definitely felt that at my former employee, we felt that for both our publishers and advertisers where we lost this great channel. And so we actually started to hear more about RevU, as some of those mobile publishers started to find RevU and integrate it. Ut started to pop up on my radar and as I researched it more, it definitely made sense as a product, and seemed like something that was kind of missing from the space.

So, I felt like the conversations that I had with RevU were really great.

We're kind of small team and definitely able to be very nimble, which I liked and I think for me a huge thing was being able to influence the product, and like I said this is a big part of my job right now, and something that I wasn't able to do before.

So switching to RevU was just a logical and fun choice for me to expand what I'm doing and really be able to dive into more of the business side of the product itself rather than I was really focused on like account management before. So for me, it was just a really good opportunity to, bring over the knowledge that I had in the app based offer wall space to a company who is incredibly knowledgeable in the desktop and web space. And I think combining those two knowledge sets with a small team where I'm able to work on the product and influence that product in a way that benefits publishers that I've known for years.

 

Josh: How are the team of RevU leveraging desktop users and redirecting to mobile campaigns?

Tanner: That's one of my favorite features. I think we've developed that over the last year. It existed in some forms, but we've really seen the quality that this drives and we continue to develop that out. It's actually super simple, technically if the users on desktop, we're able to show mobile offers and we just show that user a QR code instead of  linking them directly to the store. When they scan that QR code it knows what device they're on, it sends them to the right OS and the right app store for that OS, and with a track link to that exact campaign. So we're able to both track it and use the incentivization to get a user to actually put in the work to go from their desktop on their mobile phone. And it's been just the most interesting data to me because the players and the users that we acquire when we're going from desktop to Mobile, the retention is really unlike anything else that we see in the CPE space.

Everyone knows with offer wall and incentivized media a lot of the users are just there for the reward, and they're not going to be retained. But it's all about capturing those high value users. Right? If you can still retain 5 or 10% of those users. It's a great deal. And with CPE and offer wall, you're not paying for a lot of those users who aren't retained

So seeing the numbers that are generated, as far as you know, return on ad spend and retention when we're pulling people from a desktop game or a shopping site on desktop into a mobile game has been incredible.

We’ve integrated into a few well known MMO’s and RPG’s on desktop and when you put a user from that into a mobile mid core game that they can play anywhere, even on their commute. You're really unlocking just a whole other screen for that user. So you're not competing with their current favorite game, right? A lot of the apps we are in are titles where the user base has been playing like that same game for 10 years. So it's a really good opportunity to find people who are currently loyal to a certain mobile game, and they're never going to stick around in the new one. It's a good way to actually expand the number of games that that user is playing by getting them playing games on a second screen, and then with a shopping kind of vertical that we monetize a lot on web as well, you've got a lot of customers who aren't brand loyal right? They're on these sites because they know they get some cash back and to see that they're able to get a good deal on, but that creates a customer that has the intent to make a purchase without real loyalty to a certain purchase. Right. They're shopping around, but not necessarily in need of something. And so you basically have a customer with their credit card in hand, and maybe some time to kill. And so when you put them in a game that you know, is slightly interesting to them. It's a really good mindset to capture a user in and have them quickly start becoming a payer and start continuing to play that game.

 

Josh: What is the most common challenge you're seeing from your advertising partners at the moment?

Tanner: So there's a few challenges I think that most advertisers face. The first one that that I always see and really like to talk about. And I'm actually seeing some positive changes in this and definitely platforms starting to support it. Is the cost model that you're buying on is just really critical when you're thinking about your analyses. So you're not able to evaluate a CPE campaign in the same way that you evaluate your CPI video traffic right? The metrics look completely different. And you also need to use a new set of metrics with the way that you install cohorts are looked at and many BI systems that advertisers have spent countless hours building out their proprietary in house kind of BI systems.

A lot of those are really made for CPI buying, because that's the bulk of it. But CPE is a great channel, and can definitely be a solid chunk of your portfolio and it it's not able to be perfectly put into the exact same lens that you're looking at CPI campaigns with. Just mainly because the way the cost is incurred right with CPE. You might get an install on day 0, and incur the cost of that on day 30. And so unlike a CPI campaign, where the cost and install are completely aligned.

So I think even outside of CPE if you're buying on CPC the cost comes in on the click, and then the install might come in 3 days later. So it's really critical that I think teams understand the cost model and are able to be flexible with their BI systems. And the way that they're analyzing campaigns and making sure that you are not forcing certain media types to be looked at through your standard CPI lens or whatever tools you have set up there, it can be done, and you can get some insights from it. It's not the worst thing you could be doing. But it's definitely something I see a lot. And just because people spend so many hours building a BI system. For 80% of their spend, which is that CPI spend but you know, definitely thinking about that extra 20. And if you are able to evaluate it right, I think it could really stop you from making bad bidding decisions. There are definitely times when you could see something like great and really increase your budget only to find out that now an extra, 500% of spend comes in that hadn't before, because the latency on that event. And so you know, if you're able to evaluate a CPE campaign right? And really understand how that cost model different differs from CPI. Then you're able to make correct decisions and accurate decisions and that's something's really important to me. Cause I think we know we always want a long term evergreen campaign that's profitable for everyone. And sometimes looking at the data wrong can trick you into overbidding or under bidding. And that is not a kind of a sustainable solution for us. We definitely want to retain partners, and build out long term advertising relationships with people that we're working with.

 

Josh: What can our audience expect to hear from you at Gamesforum Barcelona in February?

Tanner: Well, shockingly, you'll hear me talk about offer walls. I think we understand why. It's definitely been my bread and butter for a while, and something I'm super passionate about. So have to make sure I can keep it within that time slot. I'll be talking about are definitely some data examples of you know, the way that the cost model affects how you need to analyze a campaign. So I have some fun slides to show how you can kind of fall into data that looks great and over bid or data that looks very bad and under bid and so make sure that we cover that, and then other things that I really like to touch on is both the history of incentivized media. As you know, it's definitely had an interesting past. And it's in a completely different space than you know right now than it was, you know, 5 or 10 years ago. I always like to touch on how that's evolved. And then for me, I think one of the huge benefits that I like to show is how you can use offer wall, to really expand your audience, especially for legacy, titles, or where you know you spend so much that everyone in the world has seen the ad on Facebook or the add on every other game.

CPE is still a great chance to acquire users who've seen your ad a million times didn't install but if your game is great, you know sometimes that in that incentivization gets the user in the game and they fall in love with it. So you're able to with the incentivization and the reward aspect of CPE, you're able to get users who really didn't want to download your game into the game and show them that it is an awesome product that you have. So I really love CPE for keeping user bases up on some older games. And putting a great product into the hands of people who weren't swayed by the video ads.

 

Josh: Speaking of Barcelona, what are you most excited to do (other than Gamesforum!) in the city?

Tanner: first I have to worry about my presentation, so I'll be spending the first few days freaking out, practicing, being stressed out. But then I definitely plan on staying a couple of extra days. I'm super into architecture, so I'll probably wander around. But I'm also not that into tourist traps, as I live in San Francisco and you know, I tend to guide tourists that I know away from most of the mainstream tourist things. So for me, whenever I travel I just really love to attempt to see what the nightlife is like, and what's kind of a day to day of somebody. I always like to find whatever hole in the wall spot somebody recommends.

Places that are a little bit more interesting, a little bit more authentic than I think what I can find on my own. So I'll definitely be open to recommendations. And really, I just enjoy wandering around cities and seeing what it has to offer. I have never been to Spain so definitely looking forward to getting that trip both business wise and for you know, a few personal days there. So should be a really fun time.

 

Josh: Hypothetically, every time you walk into a room a song plays. What song plays for you and why?

Tanner: Oh, God! That's a terribly hard question, Josh. I can't pick one. I think would be a song called Bip by Sophie. It sounds like a robot is malfunctioning, really and like sometimes I just embody that spirit and so, you know not that pleasing of a song to hear, but you know, definitely sounds like work is being done. And it keeps me motivated to keep working. So I think if I need to keep myself motivated, and I walk in a room, and I hear that I will be ready to open up an excel spreadsheet and solve some problems.

The other side of it kind of going completely differently if you want to keep making your playlist weird would be. This must be the place by Talking Heads, because one, it's my favorite song in the world and 2, I'm pretty certain it's like physically impossible for somebody to not be both happy and peaceful when they hear that song. And so when I walk into a room, if that's the energy. I'm finding I would be very okay with that every time. So I'll have to go with 2, because that is an impossible question to narrow down to one but I gave you polar opposite. So I think that'll make your playlist even weirder.

 

Josh: Incredible! I will have to check those out. Thank you so much for joining me today Tanner and I look forward to seeing you in Barcelona!