June’s Journey Case Study: Podcast Influencer Marketing

CASE STUDY

Overview

June’s Journey is a hidden object mobile game with millions of players around the world.

Developed by German developers Wooga, this detective themed game set in the 1920s has a passionate community of players around the world.

Since 2022, Media Bodies has been working with Wooga on YouTube, Instagram, and Podcast Influencer Marketing campaigns for June’s Journey, delivering over 300 integrations across platforms over the years.

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Challenge

We had been working with Wooga on Influencer Marketing on YouTube and Instagram for June’s Journey for over a year.

As we refined the targeting strategy on these platforms, we had to find new ways to diversify the marketing mix and acquire new high-value users to prevent oversaturation of YouTube and Instagram creators..

Evolving Podcast technology, particularly features like niche targeting combined with the similar relationship , suggested great for a new user acquisition channel.

Our challenge was to work alongside Wooga to test, optimise, and scale this new UA channel by identifying and booking optimal ad spots on the top Podcast shows with suitable audiences of females aged 35+.

Our target KPIs?

Target and acquire high-value users

Produce positive ROI and increased LTV

Optimise and scale sponsorship across multiple shows

Solution

As a first step, we defined the entire campaign roadmap for the client.

We laid out the following steps:

Outlining the Brief – understanding the target audience and objectives

Finding the right influencers

Outreach, Negotiations, & Managing influencer contracts

Creative briefing

Draft Management

Live monitoring

Reporting & Analysis

Next, we put the plan into execution.

Our performance data from having executed over 200+ integrations for June’s Journey across YouTube and Instagram provided us with unique consumer behaviour insights to help shape our Podcast marketing strategy for the game.

These gave us a great foundation to understand audience interests and identify key Podcast show niches we could start testing with, like True Crime and Society & Culture.

Analysing key competitor data like competitor spend across verticals and shows, competitor ad placement, and ad creatives using our unique Podcast Analytics tools helped refine the targeting strategy further.

Having specified initial content verticals, we reached out to our vast network of Podcast Publishers to find suitable shows within their catalogues that fit the required specifications.

Of those whose listenership matched Wooga’s core target audience of 35+ y/o females in the US, we leveraged our analytics tools to examine data like ‘renewal rates’ and ‘direct response %’ to understand performance of ads on those specific shows.

These ensured our podcast advertising strategy was optimised from the outset with a selection of shows where the ads would be most effective.

Strategic agreements we have developed with publishers and tactical negotiations helped ensure we secured these shows and the target impressions at the desired CPMs.

Using a mix of host-read and programmatic ads across the selected shows helped us gather further data on the performance impact of these different creatives to inform our strategic optimisation for future iterations.

Having secured the target shows, vetted audio ad drafts, and decided key flight timelines, our team maintained critical synergy with both the client and publisher teams, assisting in the set-up of the key tracking pixels to allow reliable, click-free measurement and attribution.

Live checks and monitoring helped ensure the purchased impressions were delivered to the specific Geos as agreed.

Results

Our meticulous, data-led strategy, vast publisher networks, and hands-on execution helped maximise ROAS and ensure the campaigns produced a consistent ROI and LTV well above target.

Since our initial test of podcast ad campaigns for June’s Journey, we have continued working with Wooga’s Influencer Marketing and Performance UA teams through 2023 and 2024 to scale the Podcast ad strategy.

This has included a variety of host-read and programmatic Podcast ads across:

300+ shows

14 Verticals

16 Publishers

A thorough quarterly analysis allowed us to optimise strategy with every iteration to ensure consistent positive ROI. This analysis includes a close examination of metrics like ROI, instals, CVR, CPI, CPMs, and ARPU across verticals and publishers

This consistent process of testing, optimisation, and iteration has helped us produce an annual ROI 36% above target, scale budgets by over 400%, and establish Podcast advertising as a profitable, reliable, and scalable part of Wooga’s user acquisition strategy for June’s Journey; ultimately proving the potential of the Podcast advertising as a strong performance marketing channel.

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300+

Shows

Verticals

36%

Above Target ROI