The Importance of Benchmarks
By Sivan Dotan, Customer Success Manager
“There’s power in numbers and working together to set and achieve benchmarks is the best way to utilize that power“
The Importance of Benchmarks
By Sivan Dotan, Customer Success Manager
We all strive to grow and set industry standards. There’s no better way to achieve our goals than to set benchmarks. Benchmarks help us understand the playground we operate in so we can strategize our game plan. They not only increase our chance of success but can also shorten our time to get there.
There’s power in numbers and working together to set and achieve benchmarks is the best way to utilize that power. Whether it’s an initial partnership with a client or trying a new vertical with a long-standing partner, we can manage and exceed expectations through benchmarks.
A benchmark in our industry is a standard that can be used to analyze the success of an activity. Multiple benchmarks can be used to analyze how an activity is performing compared to market trends. Our goal is to figure out how an activity is doing stand-alone and how it compares to other similar activities such as:
To get the full picture, we aspire to analyze two types of benchmarks:
Benchmarks can be CPI, ROI, or any other KPI that is important to the client. Sharing what ROI other vendors are reaching does not disclose any sensitive information such as budget or even strategy and is completely anonymous. We need these benchmarks to know where we need to place ourselves in the overall rank. When we understand where we are in comparison to others, we can estimate our mutual growth as well as identify new opportunities.
Some partners can be hesitant when it comes to sharing their vendor’s performance, but once it becomes clear that there is no reason to abuse that information rather than to use it to reach success, it becomes part of the standard workflow.
Once the client shares with us their benchmarks we can plan the right media strategy that is ambitious and yet realistic.
For example, say a client shared that they are running with four other vendors of similar nature, on a similar scale, and we ranked in the top 3 in terms of ROI D7. This information would send us investigating on how we can optimize towards a higher ROI D7 while keeping all other KPIs in check. Improving our performance is the path to mutual growth and building a stronger relationship.
Not all DSPs are born equal. Even if all DSPs had the same abilities, each has a different media buying strategy. In addition, when comparing DSPs we sometimes require a normalization when the scale of the activity is different.
Bigabid, a 2nd generation DSP, aims towards the highest value users, which in turn can have a different effect on the expected KPIs. Hence, transparency from both sides on what to expect will set the stage up for success.
Read more about 2nd Generation DSPs in The Modern Age of Mobile DSPs.
Read more about Bigabid’s core values and commitment to Transparency in Partnering with Transparency.
Bigabid’s media buying ability is based on machine learning, where we input a specific target for each statistical model. This way we can modify each activity for any given app. A target is based on KPI goals we get from the client. When we know the benchmarks, we can adjust the models to reach the short-term KPIs as well as the long-term KPIs.
Benchmarks give us the ability to finetune the models. They ensure we can plan for the right combo of CPI, retention rate, CTR, ROI depending on the metrics that matter most to any given advertiser.
Since each app has a different game economy and monetization strategy, each app requires a dedicated media plan. Once we have the benchmarks, we know where our clients feel comfortable or when to raise any red flags. Other than receiving relevant information from our partners, we start every new venture with an internal analysis to understand the relevant market and user journey.
Conclusion – The Benefits and Importance of Benchmarks
Sharing is caring might be a cliche, but it doesn’t make it wrong. Transparency is a key factor to a successful partnership. Once a partner sees firsthand how we use the information they shared with us, it adds another layer of trust. The more we learn together the more we can optimize towards greater and greater goals. Bigabid seeks out long-term partnerships that can grow with us. Please get in touch with us to learn more about where to start.
