Mobile app marketers have relied heavily on walled gardens like Google and Meta for user acquisition for years. While these platforms may feel like a safe and familiar option, they come with limitations — restricted reach, fierce competition, and a lack of transparent reporting. But what if there was more beyond these walls? For marketers, the solution lies on the open internet.
What are walled gardens and open internet?
Walled gardens are controlled environments where platforms such as Google and Meta serve ads on their owned and operated inventory. These ecosystems define their ad auction dynamics and have specific standards for creatives and measurement.
In contrast, the open internet is an interconnected ecosystem with millions of independent apps, platforms, ad networks, partners, and demand-side platforms (DSPs). The open internet offers immense, incremental scale and, when leveraged effectively, presents significant growth opportunities.
The benefits of advertising outside of walled gardens
Traditionally, many marketers have relied mostly on walled gardens for user acquisition. However, there is a staggering mismatch between where users spend their time and where mobile app marketing budgets flow. According to Statista, 66% of user time is spent on the open internet. Yet, only 40% of budgets are allocated outside walled gardens, which means many marketers are missing out on a significant opportunity. Moreover, as brands demand higher growth and more tangible ROI, marketers need incremental opportunities now more than ever before.
Users are spending most of their time outside of walled gardens, presenting a tremendous growth area
Source: Moloco
For marketers, venturing into the open internet might seem daunting, but with the right advertising solution, it’s easier than you may think.
Machine learning is the key to winning on the open internet
The open internet is a diverse ecosystem and various players are all interconnected, leading to multiple competing bid requests for a single ad impression. To achieve incremental growth on the open internet, it is essential to cut through this clutter and identify the most efficient path to serve an ad by predicting a user’s potential value, the bid price to win an impression, and serving the highest-performing creative.
Advanced machine learning (ML) automates and enables key aspects of this optimization process — across targeting, bidding, and budgeting — allowing marketers to focus their efforts on more strategic priorities beyond manual optimizations.
Furthermore, a dynamic ML system is vital — for each specific app, ML can continually learn and adjust in real time to adapt and capitalize on ever-changing user behavior.
Moloco’s reach on the open internet
Source: Moloco
Specifically designed for the open internet, Moloco’s advanced machine learning (ML) leverages the same caliber technology as the walled garden but applies it to the open internet. With access to more than 40 exchanges that are connected to 3 million apps and 6.7 billion devices in more than 190 countries, Moloco offers a single buying door into the entire open internet ecosystem. Our machine learning technology automatically leverages this vast inventory to optimize performance, ensuring marketers can reach diverse audiences efficiently outside of walled gardens.
Flexible service model coupled with unparalleled transparency
While machine learning is key to driving performance on the open internet, human expertise remains essential. At Moloco, we provide marketers with a flexible service model, offering a range of options spanning fully managed to self-service support — all at no additional charge. This allows marketers to choose the partnership approach that best suits their business needs and available resources.
Moreover, in an era where walled gardens are moving away from transparent reporting, we believe in taking the opposite approach. Marketers deserve access to granular reporting to validate and feel confident that their marketing dollars drive real business growth.
All brands who use Moloco can access reporting down to the log level to deeply understand performance trends, conduct bespoke analyses to inform future campaign strategies, and even derive insights on user behavior that can be applied to their broader app growth strategy.
How mobile apps are driving success
To see examples of how machine learning is transformational for mobile apps, consider how three of our customers grew their users by leveraging machine learning:
Pure, a dating app emphasizing honest connections, respect for personal boundaries, and freedom from judgment, sought to acquire new users beyond walled gardens. Pure conducted a test with Moloco compared to a self-attributing network, and the results speak for themselves: Pure achieved a cost-per-install (CPI) of $2.44 with Moloco — nearly four times lower than the $9.43 CPI from the self-attributing network.
South Korea’s leading financial investment company, Samsung Securities, looked to increase account openings and implement effective user acquisition and re-engagement campaigns. By leveraging Moloco’s advanced machine learning technology, Samsung Securities increased installs by 10X, account opening costs decreased by 1.5X, and account openings rose by 42 percent compared to other channels.
More than just a rewards app, Fetch is focused on building the world’s most powerful consumer engagement platform. Their primary goal was to drive installs efficiently while maximizing the return on their ad spend. Using Fetch’s first-party data and contextual insights, the Moloco team found that highlighting the app’s ‘inflation-busting’ benefits boosted campaign performance. By leveraging external factors like viral trends and incorporating A/B testing results, Fetch achieved a 40 percent lower cost-per-install compared to their initial target.
Embracing the open internet for mobile app advertising success
As mobile app marketing becomes increasingly competitive, it’s crucial to diversify channels and find new avenues for growth. Embracing the open internet is no longer an option — it’s now a necessity for long-term success in the dynamic world of mobile app advertising.
Don’t miss out on incremental growth that lives beyond walled gardens. Connect with Moloco to learn more.
