Gunosy is a leading Japanese news and information app, one of the largest in the region. In order to retain its market share and continue its growth, the app needed to reach and acquire new, high-quality users.
Gunosy typically relied on digital marketing platforms and networks, reaching users through channels like display and search ads. Recently, however, they found that they weren’t meeting their ROAS targets using only these channels - the market was tougher to compete in and the cost of running campaigns on these advertising platforms was increasing.
That’s why they started leveraging Aura from Unity, a marketing solution that enabled them to run cost-effective campaigns which delivered consistent returns.
Hear from Tsuyoshi Watabe, from the marketing team at Gunosy, how his team used Aura from Unity to grow their user base and stay competitive while meeting their ROAS goals.
A low-risk, unique solution
“We were already working with Unity LevelPlay and approached the team looking for a new and cost-effective way to grow sustainably over the long term. It needed to be a marketing solution that enabled us to increase our scale and reach new users while maintaining our ROAS targets. The team at LevelPlay suggested we try Aura, an on-device advertising solution that would allow us to reach users at the moments they were most likely to engage.
"From the moment we understood the capabilities of Aura, we knew it was a perfect fit"
It was Aura’s fixed CPI model and innovative means of acquiring users that impressed us. Thanks to this model, Aura would be able to provide us with a new way to reach users at a stable rate. From the moment we understood the capabilities of Aura, we knew it was a perfect fit.
We started running on Aura’s on-device placements, primarily their App Discovery Unboxing experience - enabling us to reach users as they turn on their devices for the first time and choose the apps they want. Aura also made sure the users that we were reaching were the right ones for our app, segmenting users who were the most likely to engage and giving us the best chance at acquiring them cost-effectively and precisely.
Exceeding our expectations
We gave the team at Aura our two main KPIs: ROAS and CPD7 (an internal metric we used to judge the cost-effectiveness of our user acquisition). They continually optimized our campaigns to make sure we were on target for these KPIs, adjusting the bid by audience, region, and device.
"This ultimately resulted in us exceeding our KPI goals and achieving 150% of the target CPD7 and 130% of our target ROAS"
Together with the expertise of the team, the App Discovery Unboxing experience resulted in us getting in front of users at one of the most impactful moments of the device lifecycle - as users set up their devices. This ultimately resulted in us exceeding our KPI goals and achieving 150% of the target CPD7 and 130% of our target ROAS.
A proven partner for the future
Aura has proven to be an essential part of our marketing strategy. With Aura, we’ve found an expert partner that enables us to cost-effectively meet and surpass our goals. And it wouldn’t have been possible without Aura’s experienced team and know-how, enabling them to optimize our campaigns effectively.
We’re happy to say that we’ve now added their scale optimizer to our campaigns and we’ve seen impressive results in both our CPD7 and ROAS. Aura is now one of our best performing channels - we look forward to seeing even greater growth with them.”
