41:08Austin 2026
Miami 2025
AppLovin Ecommerce Advertising with Gareth Domingo and Nick Shackelford
Gareth Domingo and Nick Shackelford discuss AppLovin’s mobile-game inventory, BRĒZ’s testing experience, creative adaptation, and measuring a new acquisition channel.
Watch it. Put it to work.
ABOUT THIS SESSION
Meet customers in a different moment.
Gareth Domingo and Nick Shackelford discuss AppLovin’s mobile-game inventory, BRĒZ’s testing experience, creative adaptation, and measuring a new acquisition channel.
For ecommerce media teams evaluating a new channel and adapting existing creative to it.
- Speakers
- Gareth Domingo
Director of Ecommerce, AppLovin - Nick Shackelford
Head of Retention & Subscription, BRĒZ - Recorded at
- Miami 2025 ↗
April 2025
Speaker roles and platform examples reflect the session’s original context. This is an archived conversation.
TAKE IT BACK TO YOUR DESK
Ideas to put to work.
- 01
Understand the placement before the creative
Review the actual ad experience before deciding which assets to bring into the test.
Read this part · 01:20 ↓ - 02
Define what the test must prove
Set a new-customer objective and decide how you will evaluate it before launching.
Read this part · 05:32 ↓ - 03
Make the budget and learning window explicit
Agree on a test budget, review point, and decision criteria with the team and channel partner.
Read this part · 14:03 ↓ - 04
Adapt the message to different people
Test distinct customer motivations rather than only reusing the single best ad from another platform.
Read this part · 16:18 ↓ - 05
Give the ending as much attention as the opening
Include the end card and destination in the creative test plan.
Read this part · 23:29 ↓
READ THE SESSION
The edited transcript.
A condensed, edited reading version based on the YouTube captions and session chapters. Repetition and unclear audience audio have been removed; the discussion is paraphrased for clarity, rather than presented as a verbatim transcript. Timestamps refer to the original video.
Original recording on YouTube ↗Understand the placement before the creative
The session explains advertising within mobile games, including formats where a viewer spends more time with an ad before returning to play. That is a different context from a quick scroll through a social feed.
Gareth connects the inventory to the moment a person is receptive to an offer. The takeaway for a buyer is to understand what the customer is doing around the ad, then design for that experience rather than assume every placement behaves like the channel already familiar to the team.
Define what the test must prove
Nick describes holding the BRĒZ test accountable to new-customer growth. The question was whether the channel could contribute useful acquisition, not merely report conversions from people the brand already reached elsewhere.
That objective gives the test a clearer basis for evaluation. Agree on the measure of success and the information needed before spending. A new channel becomes easier to assess when the team knows what business result would justify continuing.
Make the budget and learning window explicit
A test uses money that could be allocated somewhere else. Nick discusses that tradeoff and the importance of communicating how much the brand is prepared to spend while learning.
The amounts mentioned are part of this historical case, not a universal recommendation. What matters is a defined testing commitment, an agreed review point, and support that helps interpret the results. Without those, a team can stop too early or keep spending without a clear decision rule.
Adapt the message to different people
The creative examples show different ways the same product can matter: an athlete, a person interested in alcohol alternatives, or a founder explaining the mission. Each communicates a different reason to consider BRĒZ.
Gareth argues that simply transferring one winning social ad misses that range. Existing assets are a useful starting point, but review which customer situation each one addresses and where the test needs a new angle. The creative is part of learning about the audience.
Give the ending as much attention as the opening
The discussion includes end cards and the transition from viewing to action. An ad’s message needs a clear next step that fits the product and the viewer’s level of interest.
Treat the complete experience as the test: the story, length, offer, ending, and destination. A channel result is easier to improve when the team can identify which of those elements it is learning about, rather than label the entire platform a success or failure after one creative approach.
KEEP THE IDEAS COMING
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3 SESSIONSPLAY IT BACK. PUT IT TO WORK.
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