Audiomob chose Google Cloud to host its global ad delivery infrastructure and technology stack. "Audiomob has strong roots with Google since both founders are Xooglers," says Ville Laitinen, Head of Engineering at Audiomob. "Google for Startups also invested in Audiomob. We've since built a strong partnership with Google that supports Audiomob's growth both from the technical and business perspectives."

Complex, data-heavy processes would be driving Audiomob's business model, so engineers built the company's data warehouse with BigQuery. It meets the company's requirements for scalability, flexibility, and security; and with it, operations teams can quickly ingest and secure any type and amount of data. Engineers created pipelines with Fivetran that export data from business systems to BigQuery. Sources include Audiomob's Salesforce data, Xero accounting data, and vast amounts of operational and analytical data from the games and apps that use Audiomob's technology. "BigQuery is just so easy to use," says Laitinen. "We don't need to maintain it ourselves. It hides or abstracts away a lot of complexity. Data just flows into it and it just scales. BigQuery is at the core of everything we do."

To initially speed time-to-market, Audiomob went with the BI tool it was most familiar with and the fastest to set up: bespoke SQL queries and dashboards. The solution worked, but it wasn't scalable. New partners required custom system integrations and data models. Usability was also an issue and the learning curve was steep. Staff soon found themselves spending more time building new models, queries, and reports rather than developing value-added services. Increasing numbers of data silos introduced governance concerns and inflated operations' maintenance requirements. They also made it increasingly difficult to understand what data was available for analysis and what new insights were possible. That's because queries were written to obtain specific types of information based on preconceived notions of available data and what KPIs should measure.

Audiomob needed a modern solution that would empower users to independently explore and analyze all the information they had access to and see actual patterns and trends on demand rather than starting their analysis with predefined metrics and KPIs. The company evaluated BI platforms including Tableau and Looker, and it chose Looker. "We operate an extremely complex ecosystem of partners and data points," says Laitinen. "To reach an audience in an industry that's measured in the billions of users, we must enable smart decision-making. With Looker, we can make our data available and visible to our departments while ensuring security and privacy remain a top priority — without added complexity." Looker would also democratize data access and analytics. Tristan Vassallo, Ad Operations Team Lead at Audiomob, says, "I really, really like Looker. Even if you're not an engineer, you can quickly and easily access all the data you need." Additionally, Audiomob had experience with the tool. The company's technology and ad delivery infrastructure use Looker to analyze data in order to build targeted audiences for ads that are then created programmatically, at scale, in real time.

To enable executives and employees to freely explore and create BI that reflects what they think is important, Audiomob's engineers created internal-facing dashboards with Looker. Users include Demand Sales teams that work with advertisers, Partnerships teams that work with app and game developers, Developer Relations teams responsible for integration quality, Ad Operations teams that manage ad delivery, and Marketing and Finance teams. The dashboards track objectives and key benchmarks in real time. Looker users can customize dashboards and reports using Looker Explores, which are pre-built datasets. Popular Explores include one that connects real-time revenue with Salesforce opportunities, one that provides a granular view of the games and apps that use Audiomob's technology — also known as inventory — and one that forecasts inventory size and growth in different areas.

In addition to viewing dashboards in Looker, employees can also automatically generate and send dashboards and reports through Slack using Looker Actions. Exporting a dashboard or report to Slack can be helpful to share a snapshot of department KPIs and alert the recipients at the same time. This option also helps teams disseminate information to people who don't have or need access to Looker but still care about high-level metrics or numbers.

They can see if a developer's ad inventory suddenly drops and then take immediate action. And they can give Sales teams up-to-date information about how many ad impressions they can actually sell. On the demand side, Audiomob's teams can attribute revenue streams to individual salespeople, even when revenue information flows through a myriad of interconnected partners in real time. "We can also see things like a media brand purchasing 10 times more ads than usual on a particular day," says Vassallo. "By digging into that with Looker, we can understand the drivers behind that change and then focus on upselling in those areas."

And when users or partners experience performance issues with Audiomob's apps, Audiomob can pinpoint the issue using Looker in minutes rather than hours as well.

Executives and Sales and Marketing teams now make better use of Audiomob's data to confidently expand the business. "We can't grow our inventory if we don't have advertisers, and we can't attract advertisers if we don't have inventory to sell," says Laitinen. "Looker helps us with that. We can project growth in different regions around the world and then make sure that we increase supply and demand at the same pace."