App Samurai

App Samurai (AppSamurai) is a mobile app growth company that operates a single platform combining user acquisition, retargeting, OEM/on-device app discovery and rewarded monetization. It began as a self-service mobile advertising platform that let businesses of any size create, manage and measure mobile ad campaigns to acquire users, with campaign types spanning acquisition, video and boost campaigns, budget controls, and reporting on in-app events and app store metrics.

The current product set is organized around gaming and non-gaming customers. For games, the company offers rewarded user acquisition and AppsPrize, a monetization product that rewards players for time spent in an app. For non-gaming apps, it offers a demand-side platform for programmatic user acquisition and retargeting across mobile inventory, and an OEM app discovery product covering pre-install and on-device placements through carriers and device makers. Earlier, the company's portfolio also included Interceptd, a real-time mobile ad fraud detection and prevention product, and Storyly, an in-app engagement solution.

The company also maintains content and community resources including a blog, success stories, playbooks and eBooks, an AdTech leaders' insights series, and "All About Apps," a podcast featuring conversations with founders, marketers and product leaders on mobile growth, distributed on Spotify and YouTube.

Founding story

App Samurai was founded in June 2016 by five entrepreneurs: Emre Fadıllıoğlu, K. Soner Şensoy, Şeyhmus Ölker, Selin Ezer and Mehmet Bilgin. Emre Fadıllıoğlu serves as co-founder and CEO and Mehmet Bilgin as CTO. The stated aim of the San Francisco-based company was to help apps increase downloads.

Business model

App Samurai sells advertising and growth services to app publishers and brands through a platform covering user acquisition, retargeting, OEM app discovery and rewarded monetization. Its historical payout model for acquisition campaigns was cost-per-install, supported by an optimization engine that targets users based on post-install events such as level achievement, purchase and registration. On the monetization side, app publishers earn ad revenue by integrating rewarded playtime offers.

Advertisers fund campaign budgets set between defined start and end dates, with acquisition priced on a CPI basis; publishers integrating the rewarded monetization product generate ad revenue measured in eCPM and ARPDAU.

Traction

Reported 240 percent year-on-year growth in 2019, and its Interceptd product blocked over $10 million in potentially wasted ad spend that year. By January 2018 it reported reaching more than 1.2 billion mobile users through 50,000 publishers and over 1 million sub-publishers. Current platform figures cited by the company include 80,000+ app integrations and 2 billion users reachable via its DSP, and 800 million active devices and 1.2 billion monthly active users reachable through OEM app discovery. Customer case results cited include 119% long-term ROAS, 45% higher D1 retention, 2.7x higher eCPM, 1.6x higher ARPDAU, 230% DAU increase, and $180K+ in ad revenue.

Latest developments

The company currently markets four solution lines — rewarded user acquisition and AppsPrize monetization for games, and a DSP plus OEM app discovery for non-gaming apps — and highlights ISO 27001 certification for information security management. It publishes the All About Apps podcast with mobile growth practitioners.