How Clegames Boosted Ad Revenue by 26% with AI Ad Monetization
Clegames has a simple mission: make games that are easy to pick up and hard to put down. Midcore hits like Soul Seeker and Reign of Empires have already racked up millions of downloads and impressive revenue. But even seasoned studios face roadblocks.
For Clegames, that roadblock was interstitial ad monetization—specifically, how to grow revenue without hurting retention. Sound familiar?
Enter Airflux, an AI-powered ad optimizer designed for casual and midcore mobile games. With Airflux, Clegames saw a 40% lift in total LTV (including IAP) and a 26% jump in ad revenue.
We caught up with Brad Kim, UA Performance Marketer at Clegames, to find out exactly how they pulled it off.
Inside Clegames: Casual Gameplay, Serious Scale
Q: Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at Clegames.
Hey, I’m Brad Kim. I lead UA performance at Clegames. That means I’m responsible for acquiring new users, making our ad spend work harder, and turning player data into actionable insights across the team.
Clegames has been around since 2013. We’ve launched games like Soul Seeker (10M+ downloads, approx. $23M in revenue) and Reign of Empires (approx. $11M global revenue), and we’ve served over 30 million players worldwide.
Our goal is to build games that are fun, lightweight, and replayable—no friction, just fun.
Q: What kind of UA campaigns are you running?
We rely heavily on Google Ads. It’s where we see the best performance, especially across YouTube and search. We also run social campaigns on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, but Google Ads drives the bulk of our UA—both domestically and globally.
Why Clegames Chose Airflux: 40% LTV Uplift
Q: How’d you first discover Airflux?
Funny enough, it was at G-STAR last year. I met Noel, the data science lead from the Airflux team, who gave me the full rundown right there—what it does, how it works, why it matters. It immediately clicked.
A few weeks later, we started testing Airflux. It’s been about four months now, and it’s honestly become a core part of our monetization stack.
Q: What were you struggling with before?
We had two casual games—Space Marine Defense and Zombie Hunter D-Day—that lean heavily on in-app ads (IAA). That meant forced ads were part of the experience, and getting those right was a real pain.
We were manually deciding where to hardcode forced ads in the gameplay funnel. We'd test placements, pull the data, run the analysis ourselves, and if something wasn’t working, we’d update the app and repeat. It was super manual, required constant updates, and burned a ton of internal resources. Not ideal.
Q: How big was your monetization team?
Just two of us—me handling UA and one teammate focused on monetization. Without a dedicated data analyst, it was all hands on deck when it came to in-depth analysis—just the two of us making sense of the data.
Q: Any mistakes or missed opportunities from doing it all manually?
Of course. When you’re trying to optimize something as nuanced as ad delivery, there’s always trial and error. We ran a lot of test campaigns, which meant sometimes we’d overspend on experiments that didn’t pan out. But we knew that finding the right ad logic would more than make up for it. So we just kept trying, relentlessly, to identify that sweet spot.
Q: Had you used any other ad optimization tools before Airflux?
Nope. We weren’t really aware of tools that could automate this kind of optimization. Airflux was our first, and it’s changed how we work.
Q: What was the biggest change after you brought in Airflux?
It’s the hands-off automation. Once we integrated the Airbridge SDK and set up Airflux, we didn’t have to touch it. No more manual testing. No more guesswork. Airflux just runs—predicting, testing, and optimizing ad delivery using AI and real-time player behavior.
That freed up a ton of time. We could reallocate resources to other areas, and our overall ops became much more efficient.
Q: Any features that stood out?
Definitely Airflux’s ability to detect ad resistance points. That’s one of the hardest things to identify manually—figuring out when an ad push might tip a player into churn.
With Airflux, it’s automatic. You connect the API, and it starts finding the optimal ad timing for each player segment. No constant updates. No disrupting the game flow. It keeps both our dev team and players happy.
Q: Let’s talk numbers—what impact did you see?
Post-Airflux, our overall LTV (including IAP) increased by around 40%, and ad revenue went up by 26%. Even retention improved slightly.
What’s crazy is that Airflux only optimizes interstitials, but that one change improved the entire monetization mix. When the player experience improves, revenue follows.
Q: Has it helped with your global monetization strategy too?
Absolutely. Different markets respond to ads in different ways. Airflux helps us pinpoint which markets respond better to ads vs. IAP and lets us adjust strategy accordingly.
One cool example—we ran a U.S. campaign and found that optimizing for IAP was way more effective than going heavy on ads. But in other markets, the opposite was true—ad revenue scaled better, and CPI costs were lower.
Airflux made it easy to localize our strategy without spinning up tons of custom workflows.
Q: Will you use Airflux for future titles too?
No doubt. Optimizing interstitial ads is non-negotiable now. And Airflux is the easiest and most effective way to do it.
What’s Next for Clegames?
Q: Got any new games in the pipeline?
We’re currently working on a new title based on the Yulgang IP. Think colorful SD characters and over-the-top action. It’s still in development, but we’re excited to bring it to market soon.
Q: Anything you’re hoping to see from Airflux next?
Honestly, I’ve been super impressed with how committed the Airflux team is. They’re clearly thinking long-term. I’m really looking forward to whatever new features or upgrades are coming next.
With Airflux’s AI-powered ad monetization, Clegames improved ad performance, increased LTV, and made their ops more scalable—without annoying their players.
Wondering how to make ads work harder—without working harder yourself?
