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How Chess.com built its Advertising Revenue Stream by partnering with Playwire

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Case-Study_Chess
Immediate
130
Revenue Boost

Chess.com saw an immediate boost of ~130% in revenue after joining Playwire.

Sustained
30
Revenue Increases

In the years since joining Playwire, Chess.com continued to see an average of ~30% year-over-year revenue increases.

Rewarded Video Ads
4
Higher CPMS

On average, Chess.com sees 4x higher CPMs with rewarded video ad units than traditional video units.

About Chess.com

Founded in 2005, Chess.com has grown into one of the world’s largest web and mobile app gaming destinations. With over 120 million registered users, and tens of millions of games played every day, Chess.com is the #1 platform for playing, learning, and enjoying chess.

https://449964.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/449964/chesscom-website-mockup.png

Untapping huge revenue potential

Prior to partnering with Playwire, Chess.com advertising represented an extremely small percentage of its total revenue. Given the company’s size, advertising was an enormous untapped opportunity. Chess.com needed a partner that could scale its ad business while maximizing user experience and product quality.
Playwire has been an invaluable partner for us, and a big reason for our success in the advertising space.
Erik Allebest
CEO

What Sets Playwire Apart

Chess.com chose Playwire for these core elements:

 

Premium user experience

Quality advertising, from non-intrusive ads, and fast load times, to brand-safe creative and relevant messaging.

 

 

Established partner connections

Playwire’s direct sales team and experienced support staff tapped relevant brand partnerships and seamlessly integrated ads into publishers’ content across numerous channels.

Accurate, real-time analytics

Playwire has worked tirelessly over the last year to develop a more streamlined analytics solution for publishers, which provided Chess.com with data transparency like they have never seen before.

Innovative Technology

Playwire's RAMP Platform, powered by our proprietary Revenue Intelligence algorithm, combines machine learning with yield optimization expertise to drive significantly higher revenue on current inventory while also finding new monetization opportunities.

 

Unparalleled partner support

Playwire’s Partner Success team has made every step of Chess.com’s advertising journey seamless, offering a constant stream of suggestions for new revenue-generating opportunities and answering every question with honest answers along the way. Additionally, the focus has always remained on Chess.com’s goals as well as enabling them with all the tools they needed to hit their revenue goals.

Playwire is a tremendous partner, and their customer care is unparalleled. Playwire is always accessible to immediately address any questions or problems we have. I’ve worked with a lot of partners in my career, and I would say Playwire is one of the best in terms of focusing on the customer.
Adam Mayer
SVP of Monetization

“ Playwire has always considered itself a partner and not just a vendor. The thinking has always been ‘what are Chess.com’s goals’ not ‘what are Playwire’s goals,’ and 'how do we make sure that we are enabling Chess.com to hit their objectives.'”

Adam Mayer
SVP of Monetization, Chess.comchess-logo-case-study-outer

How Much Return?

There were tons of determining factors that first brought Chess.com and Playwire together and kept the partnership strong over the years. But none of that would matter had there not been revenue at the end of the rainbow to illustrate the true success of the partnership.

Instant Revenue

After implementing the RAMP Platform, Chess.com saw an immediate ~130% boost in revenue before any further optimizations were implemented.

 

Steady Ad Revenue

Following those initial few months of incredible success, Playwire continued to work with Chess.com to develop the best monetization strategies for their business in order to maintain consistent growth.

The speed at which the dashboard populates our data is much better than other platforms that I’ve used where you have to wait 24-48 hours for accurate reporting. This is real-time data with granularity, which is a big help.
Elizabeth Wood
VP of Digital Ad Sales

With the implementation of Playwire’s Revenue Intelligence {RI} algorithm, Chess.com’s CPMs have continued to climb, resulting in steady year-over-year ad revenue increases of ~30%.

An exciting moment along Chess.com’s ad monetization journey with Playwire included the implementation of rewarded video ads within their web environment. Fully trusting Playwire, Chess.com became one of the first publishers to implement and test a rewarded video strategy in a web environment, something that was traditionally an app-based strategy. Even so, implementation was swift and seamless and ultimately resulted in 4x higher CPMs than traditional video ads.

I don’t see many rewarded videos on the web. I think this product is a huge win and a major revenue opportunity for web publishers that are trying to monetize their content.
Adam Mayer
SVP of Monetization

Ultimately, Playwire’s turnkey solution has ensured that Chess.com is always running opti

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