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The Yandex Advertising Network/Fashion Battle — Catwalk Queen Case Study

Waterfall Optimization: The Yandex Advertising Network grows an app’s revenue by 26 percent
We recently partnered with Fashion Battle — Catwalk Queen, an online fashion show game, to increase its app’s earnings by leveraging our advertising network’s waterfall optimization capabilities. Keep reading to find out how we helped our partner monetize their product with significant results — an increase of 26 percent in revenue.

About The Yandex Advertising Network

There are many advantages to monetizing your app with us. According to an independent study*, the Yandex Advertising Network is one of the largest and most profitable networks for monetizing apps in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.

Among the key benefits:

  • You can connect and monetize apps published in different stores, including Google Play, the App Store, Huawei App Gallery, Xiaomi GetApps, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon Appstore, NashStore, and RuStore.
  • Millions of advertisers will compete for the right to display ads on your app, where Yandex algorithms analyze more than 1000 factors to select the most relevant ad for a given user. We also have our own ad acceptance service — Yandex Direct — and more than 80 partners, including other ad sources (DSP platforms).
  • Payments to partners occur monthly — and automatically if a partner has reached the minimum earnings threshold.
  • Strict moderation ensures that ads from advertisers comply with local laws and our network’s rules.

*The Apo dual Mobile In-App Ad Monetization Performance Index study for 2021 and 2022.

About the partner

As briefly touched on, Fashion Battle — Catwalk Queen is a casual online catwalk game where players choose clothing and apparel for their models based on a specific theme. Players face off against their opponents and the judges determine the winner based on who scores the highest. As players complete levels one by one with their models, the finalist gains recognition as a star in the fashion world — albeit the virtual fashion world!

The app operates on Android OS with a primarily female audience. Below are more detailed demographics:

• Top geolocations: LATAM (Brazil, Mexico), Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey), and Russia

• Audience interests: Entertainment and casual online games

Screenshots of the app’s logo and examples of game characters.

Fun facts

Holiday themes — such as Halloween, Christmas, the Chinese Spring Festival, and others — are kept up to date, including local holidays and festivals celebrated in different countries. The app is continuously updated and modified based on the user’s time zone and feedback. For a customized experience, the calendar of activities is based on users’ local holidays.

Business challenge and objectives

At the time, our partner relied primarily on advertising and didn’t have any other monetization methods in place for their app.

In regard to ad monetization, they focused on the following:

  1. Removing thresholds where the Fill Rate is less than 0.1%
  2. Increasing the threshold or eCPM* price configuration if the Fill Rate is more than 3%
  3. Setting thresholds based on the average data points from different networks

*The cost per 1000 impressions of an ad block, in which at least one pixel falls into the visible area of the screen.

Why the partner chose to work with Yandex

Many of our partner’s products had achieved good results, particularly in Russia. To make these results even better, they chose to collaborate with the Yandex Advertising Network to improve eCPM (effective cost per mille) in Russia given the network’s consistent, proven results. The partner’s goal was to maintain a strong, stable eCPM through continuous waterfall optimization.

Solution

After researching the Russian market, Fashion Battle — Catwalk Queen decided to work with the Yandex Advertising Network to achieve their business goals because of the network’s strong monetization capabilities and reliable outcomes.

Leveraging AppLovin MAX mediation integrated with the Yandex Advertising Network’s proven capabilities, the partner applied our waterfall strategy to help optimize their app revenue. Basically, waterfall capabilities refer to the «polling» of different advertising networks via mediation from most expensive to least expensive thresholds until a suitable ad is found within the desired threshold.

The Yandex Advertising Network’s Mobile Application Monetization team conducted a detailed analysis of the waterfall’s full composition and provided recommendations on the Yandex Advertising Network thresholds, which stimulated overall revenue growth from the advertising waterfall. The team:

  1. Removed non-revenue generating thresholds.
  2. Divided thresholds with multiple requests and the most revenue into several thresholds.
  3. Added new thresholds that could potentially bring revenue.

Results

Once Fashion Battle — Catwalk Queen started working with the Yandex Advertising Network, the eCPM for the Russian region rose significantly. We compared the results provided by the Yandex ad monetization team from the week before and the week after implementing waterfall optimization and found that the share from the Yandex Advertising Network grew significantly: revenue for a single app increased by 26%.

Based on the last 30 days, Yandex’s percentage of revenue in Russia increased by more than 30%. Our partner chose to integrate their product with Yandex since the Fill Rate for the Yandex Advertising Network is higher than other waterfall networks.

Partner feedback

Vice President of Game Publishing Mr. Tian Yu was satisfied with the results and said:
Mr. Tian Yu and Ms. Li Xinyue
Vice President of Game Publishing and Director of Monetization
Collaborating with the Yandex Advertising Network will no doubt lead to continued positive outcomes for our product in Russia. The Yandex team promptly addressed our needs, and their proactive problem-solving skills are truly commendable.

Furthermore, the partner noted several key benefits and useful tips for working with Yandex tools, including:

  1. Integration with latest updated SDK version
  2. Timely adjustments to the configuration of waterfall floors
  3. Being able to communicate issues at any time

Our team’s feedback

For those seeking to monetize their apps, two of our managers Elvina Martynova and Kirill Afanasiev recommend carefully monitoring the indicators for thresholds, including eCPM, Impr, Fill Rate, and revenue, along with the overall configuration of the advertising waterfall.
Elvina Martynova
 
We’re very glad that our partners benefit from our expertise and that we can help them grow their metrics. Melodong is always open to testing new ideas and taking an active role in the monetization process — as are we, and we’ll continue to do so!
Kirill Afanasiev
 
The app’s business model is built on advertising monetization (Ad Monetization), and like any other, requires continual updates and improvements. For this project, waterfall optimization was the most important component of working with advertising monetization — in addition to being one of the main drivers of revenue growth. If you’re looking to increase your earnings, the first step is to optimize your advertising thresholds (CPM) in the advertising waterfall.

Connect with us

Want to collaborate with us and monetize your online game or app? Connect with us to learn more about the opportunities available to you via the Yandex Advertising Network. Click here for more information.

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