By identifying untapped opportunities, Kohort helped 52 Entertainment achieve a 13% lift in ROAS

52 Entertainment, the global evergreen games leader, partnered with Kohort to optimise UA across their gaming portfolio. Having previously worked together on a due diligence exercise, 52 Entertainment sought Kohort’s expertise to refine their UA strategy, improve spend efficiency, and scale high-performing campaigns.

80% of campaigns failed to reach ROAS targets, and these campaigns only delivered 75% ROAS, leading to $6m a year of unprofitable UA Spend

The first priority for the 52 Entertainment team was to understand what % of their UA spend was not meeting their ROAS targets, and if there was any opportunity to increase revenue from within their current UA spend portfolio.

By using Kohorts platform, the 52 Entertainment team were presented with a breakdown of their current UA spend portfolio. The team could see their UA spend portfolio broken down by segment, so they could easily identify networks and campaigns which failed to reach their ROAS target.

Examples of inefficiency:

1. The UA team were spending on D7 campaigns under the assumption it was performing in a similar way to Google based on extrapolated performance curves. Once plugged into Kohort, they were able to see the extent of the inefficiency by looking at their true predicted gross margin. This gave the team confidence to pull back spend on the d7 campaigns to a breakeven level.‍
   

2. Using Kohort’s prediction engine, 52 Entertainment’s true projected D730 gross margin was analysed, revealing that:
   • Some campaigns were materially unprofitable over a two-year period. Early predictors of good performance had previously been used to validate that spend was justified, whereas in-depth models of cohort-based forecasts showed revenue degrading over time with successive cohorts.
   • Spending adjustments would therefore be necessary to ensure campaigns met long-term profitability targets.

The 52 Entertainment team have now started re-balancing the campaigns that failed to reach their ROAS goals. This is an on-going exercise that will continue to deliver better ROAS.

Key steps included:

• Reducing loss-making expenditure by reallocating budgets within the existing UA portfolio
• Giving confidence to scale high-performing campaigns where additional spend drove measurable revenue growth
• Using segment-level predictive analytics to monitor future revenue potential, ensuring long-term profitability rather than relying on short-term ROAS assumptions

To continue to measure and validate these optimisations, the 52 Entertainment team make use of Kohort's persistent forecasting platform to:

• Monitor the effect of budget reallocations in real-time
• Track long-term ROAS improvements and profitability trends
• Make proactive adjustments based on early modelled data, rather than waiting months for historical data and delayed reports

Kohort provides us with three key advantages: predictive tools that help us cut unprofitable campaigns and scale winning ones, expert support in interpreting predictive data, and financial forecasting that gives us long-term strategic clarity. This level of insight is transformative, and we’re committed to continuing to invest in understanding their model fully to unlock its full potential.

The collaboration between Kohort and 52 Entertainment led to clear, quantifiable improvements in UA performance:

Key steps included:

• +13% Increase in ROAS in just 4 weeks: Achieved through waste elimination and strategic budget reallocation.
• 3.5x Improvement in campaign efficiency: Increased the percentage of campaigns hitting D730 ROAS goals from 20% to 70%.
• Significant revenue growth at minimal additional cost: Revenue increased substantially with only a marginal increase in UA spend, driving higher gross margins.