Case Study: OMD & Yaqoot

Yaqoot is a digital platform that aims to spread happiness through SIM cards by allowing customers to download an app and to send special gifts to loved

ones. Zain Telecom, the parent company of Yaqoot, launched Yaqoot to target a younger audience, in particular digital native users. Yaqoot is a purely digital package and services, which is not available on physical stores – everything is digital. To become a subscriber of Yaqoot, users download an app and order a SIM card via the app. Once users activate the SIM card, they can invite their friends and gift them internet packages for apps.

About OMD

OMD, the media agency behind Yaqoot’s marketing, combines innovation, creativity, empathy and evidence to make better and faster decisions on behalf of their clients. With more than 13,000 people working in over 100 countries, OMD is the world’s largest media network. Named Adweek’s Global Media Agency of the Year 2019 and 2020, OMD currently holds the top ranking in new business values by the Convergence Report.

Cost-efficient user acquisition is challenging, especially in a saturated landscape like Telecom. In May 2019, OMD and Yaqoot teams were tasked with the challenge of growing Yaqoot’s market share in the Middle East. They started using Adjust for the sole purpose of measuring the number of installs coming from various channels. Later, they started to track which channels were key in driving the most purchases.

The OMD and Yaqoot team had two challenges.

• They were working on a Cost-per-Purchase (CPP) trading model but the advertising channels were struggling with conversion
• Lack of sales meant a lack of data; since sales weren't coming through, data was not readily to make informed decisions on their optimization techniques.

For user acquisition campaigns, data fuels decisions. And without data it’s impossible to see which channels deliver high-value users.

Since the campaign’s initial setup of relying on purchase data for optimization wasn’t delivering, they needed to shift their CPP model. Getting users to complete a purchase was asking a lot, purchases are at the end of the app user funnel and only a small percentage of users would ever really make one. Instead they changed the payout model to be targeted to users completing a registration. They implemented the ‘registration’ event with Adjust so they could track and optimize towards registrations. Events are actions performed by users within an app, such as completing a level or making a purchase. Any action within an app can be defined as an event. For OMD, tracking registrations also meant moving from Cost-per-Purchase to Cost-per-Registration.

After shifting their buying model, OMD was able to gather more data, including everything that was happening throughout the entire app funnel. As a result, they have been able to make more informed decisions about their optimization strategies. This increase in data also helped the advertising channels they work with to improve their own algorithms and find higher quality users who would make a purchase. After initially switching to a cost-per-registration model, OMD then switched back to a cost-perpurchase strategy with their ad partners. They were able to do this because they were tracking more data points throughout the whole app funnel and could optimize their results throughout the lifecycle.

Their efforts resulted in:

• 90% decrease in overall cost-per-Purchase
• 3X average month on month increase in sales
• 6X increase in registrations