Underdog

Underdog Fantasy achieved efficiency and scale with AppDiscovery

Underdog partnered with AppDiscovery to run mobile and CTV campaigns and unlocked a new high-volume, high-value marketing source beyond search and social platforms.

Marketing Objective

User Acquisition

Underdog

Background

Underdog Fantasy is one of the fastest-growing sports gaming and media companies in the country, and was founded in 2020 to build games and content to make sports more fun for fans in America. The company offers fantasy sports games; licensed sports betting; and a diverse and highly successful sports media content network.

Location

Brooklyn, NY

Company Size

400+

Founded

2020

Underdog

The Challenge

Growing beyond search and social to gain a competitive edge

Leading up to the NFL season — a pinnacle in the American sports calendar — Underdog aimed to test new customer engagement channels to reach incremental audiences and gain a competitive edge in the industry.

Before making any new channels a permanent fixture of their marketing stack, Underdog needed to ensure they were cost-efficient and scalable. The challenge was to identify which channels would effectively complement their existing strategies and attract ready-to-play customers within their cost goals.

The Solution

Underdog ran mobile and CTV campaigns on AppDiscovery to efficiently engage with the right sports fans

They initially partnered with AppLovin to run a Cost Per Event (CPE) mobile campaign. AppLovin’s renowned AI engine made all the programmatic decisions necessary to engage the right customers across its network of 140,000 mobile apps.

Building on the success of the mobile campaign, Underdog tested a CTV campaign to reach sports fans on the largest screen in the household. AppDiscovery’s performance pricing model allowed them to explore this new medium while only paying for successful results, as tracked by their third-party MMP. Using the same dashboard as their mobile campaigns, Underdog evaluated the CTV campaign results on a CPE basis.

The Results

AppDiscovery became a top-performing channel for its efficiency and scale.

Underdog achieved their CPE goals on their mobile and CTV campaigns right out of the gate.¹ This exposed two new sources for engaging customers at scale. As AppLovin’s AI engine learned the type of sports fans who engage with Underdog, it was able to drive improved efficiency, reducing CPE by 26% over only two months.

In Summary

Underdog hit their CPE targets with increasing efficiency

AppDiscovery’s AI advertising engine, with its precise targeting and rapid learning capabilities, allowed Underdog to optimize engagement and drive CPE down by 26%. ¹

CTV emerged as a key component of their marketing strategy

Underdog achieved their cost goals on CTV, encouraging them to continue investing in the channel. AppLovin's extensive CTV reach, covering over 170M+ households, offers significant growth potential for the app.

AppDiscovery delivers efficiency and scale that rivals social platforms

At Underdog, we constantly seek new ways to scale and engage sports fans. AppLovin not only has a wide imprint but also rich data insights needed to help us efficiently get our games and content in front of sports fans at scale, matching the performance of top social platforms.

Kevin Yiu
Head of User Acquisition

¹AppLovin: iOS campaign March to May, 2024 ²AppLovin: iOS and CTV campaigns March, 2024