Vungle (now liftoff): Monetization Manager (case study in progress)
VUNGLE WAS A B2B AD NETWORK PLATFORM THAT ENABLED APP DEVELOPERS TO MONETIZE AND GROW THEIR USER BASE VIA AD DISPLAY IN MOBILE APPLICATIONS (GAMING & BRAND)
Vungle was a mobile ad platform helping app developers promote their apps through in-app ads. It enabled developers to earn from their apps by adding video ads that showed up while users used other apps, designed to be engaging and unobtrusive, sometimes with user rewards. Vungle's platform let advertisers create, manage, and track video ad campaigns, reaching specific audiences based on criteria. Their goal was quality user-oriented ads, enhancing experience and revenue for developers and advertisers.
Vungle (now Liftoff), Ad Network
Main Objectives
Old Internal Monetization Dashboard
New: Monetization Manager Reports page. Inspired originally by the Ads Manager
In the background and context of Vungle, the primary method of monetization involved having specific apps choose to display ads. This was facilitated through a managed service, although the internal user interface (UI) was outdated. However, the company decided to shift its business strategy away from this approach. Around the latter part of 2017, the initial stages of design work commenced, partially driven by the ongoing development of the Self-Serve Ads Manager. This effort involved incorporating existing Symbols from Sketch and UX, which had been previously established. Concurrently, a new feature called "Placements" was in the process of development. This marked an innovative addition to Vungle's offerings. The organizational structure also experienced changes, with reorganization impacting both the engineering and product teams. Moreover, engineering operations on the applications side were transitioned to the China office.
Overall ISSUES paralleled the ads manager:
The UI's appearance was outdated in comparison to contemporary design patterns.
Editing options were confined to internal users, and finding accessible content necessitated extensive internal training.
The codebase was outdated and lacked scalability, as it was based on a bootstrap template rather than React.
UI patterns and workflows were absent, incapable of accommodating scalability, such as paginated tables or customizable table content.
Copying or pasting the UI externally was unfeasible due to the aforementioned limitations.
Self-Serve Monetization Manager: A unified and comprehensive solution for Vungle's Monetization clients.
Empowers clients to oversee app monetization efficiently.
Covers integration, placement setup, and performance tracking.
Simplifies the monetization process.
Gives users the authority to make well-informed choices.
Aligns choices with app objectives and target audience preferences.
Early design Explorations
Below are some early explorations of the Monetization Manager that paralleled a lot of the same traits that the Ads Manager had in the explorative & discovery phases of Product Development.
Alpha <> BETA Designs
Below are some instances of the eventual product that came to be for the initial MVP (Alpha <> Beta) releases.
Beyond Alpha <> BETA Releases
Over the years, while I was at Vungle (now Liftoff) I over-sought feature development of the Monetization Manager as a design manager, with mentorship and guidance on building out additional feature sets for the existing product. Below are some instances of additional feature development that followed the initial release.
