Imgur, founded in 2009 and listed in the Comscore Top 100, is the easiest way to discover and enjoy the magic of the internet. It’s where you’ll find the funniest, most informative and inspiring images, memes, GIFs, and visual stories served up in an endless stream of bite-sized fun. Powered by a passionate community of 250M+ people from all around the world, anyone can join to share cool stuff and vote the best to the top.
Imgur was looking to fully control their own programmatic stack and monetization rules. They were looking to partner with a transparent and independent ad tech platform with the goal of improving global monetization performance.
The Challenge
- Imperative to keep or improve capabilities
- Lack of internal tech resources
- Comprehensive activation of user data
- Perceived operational issues/difficulty in switching
- Concerns of revenue loss
- Concerns about difficulty in migrating to a new solution
- Time constraints
The Solution
- Forecasting: Smart enables real-time monitoring of the impact of campaign modifications
- Format template library
- Smart enabled new app products – including a new interstitial
- Template customization
- Open platform with a robust set of available APIs
- IP targeting capabilities
- Audience targeting capabilities for RTB and direct campaigns
Smart Delivered
- High level of support – Smart teams 100% engaged and responsive
- Proactive KPI monitoring and frequent customized business reviews
- Progressive ramp-up to ensure operational integrity
- Shared interest business approach with unbiased and agnostic unified auction
- Campaign activation/modification in real-time to enable immediate troubleshooting and ensure no revenue loss
Transferring a company’s online ad inventory, digital products, and workflow from an old ad server to a brand new one is always a scary proposition. Fortunately, Smart’s account and technical support was incredibly strong and our transition went faster and more smoothly that could have reasonable been expected when we began the process.
Adam Carey, Head of Advertising
The Results
- Smart is managing an average of 250M impressions per month
- Operational migration completed in 5 weeks with no loss in revenue
- Since 2019, existing revenue streams are maintained 100%
- Established new revenue streams for in-app
- Direct in-app rich media campaigns
- Incremental in-app RTB revenue via Smart SDK integration through Mopub
- In Q1 2021, in-app revenues represent 75% of their overall revenues (direct + programmatic)
- New revenue stream for video based on the outstream video player Smart helped build
- In Q1 2021, outstream video revenues grew 10x
