Whalo increases spend 3-4x since migrating to Singular

Founded in 2020, Whalo is a pioneering force in mobile gaming, known for blending imaginative design with advanced technology. The team focuses on creating captivating, multiplayer, cross-platform games that deliver joy and innovation to a global audience. The company has one game in the wild, “Fish of Fortune”. The 34-person team comprises industry veterans from Playtika, Playstudios, Moon Active, Sciplay, Crazy Labs, and more. The 3 founders were part of the founding team of Jelly Button, which was acquired by Playtika in 2019.

The Whalo team initially focused on building game prototypes and refining their vision of a hit game with top-notch brand art for their established portfolio. They soft-launched their first game, “Fish of Fortune”, an innovative mobile game in the party/luck battle genre, which was introduced to the world a decade ago with the launches of “Pirate Kings” and “Board Kings”.

Now ahead of 2025, the company’s vision is hyper growth.

Omer Gerzon kicked off as VP Marketing in May 2024, coming from a key global role at Playstudios International. He immediately began building the core marketing pillars (Performance, Growth, Creative, Data) and setting the foundations for strategic measurement and analytics with the right tools to take them through their journey as they scale.

“When I came in, Whalo was using another MMP but the opportune moment of our contract renewal had come up and it was the perfect time to think about the tool we needed to grow. I always believe in breaking the status quo and regularly re-evaluating whether your current tools are still working for you and your current needs – not just going for the default industry provider, or whomever you’re currently using.”

Omer, has experience with all the MMPs on the market, from his past roles, as well as his role at Playstudios, He intimately knew the comparative details, and what migrating to Singular would look like.

He quickly decided that to reach Whalo’s aggressive goals, Singular’s analytics-first approach, with the industry’s leading cost aggregation and ETL expertise, and superior customer service across all providers, made Singular the right partner for the long term. “My personal experience with Singular was that the product comes from an approach of analytics and measurement rather than just attribution, and it’s a huge advantage. Why would anyone choose not to have the whole package in one place?”

“Singular is essential to our work,” says Omer.
“At the end of the day, we need to understand the payback of marketing and how long it takes to recoup the investment. This means that we need to have certain KPIs in place to measure retention and stability. None of this can be achieved with just a tool. We need a partner who can help us take a 360 holistic approach to how we measure our business success, including non-paid channels, and even social traffic and custom sources.”

He notes that they just configured a new SKAN model on Singular. “It was easy to set up. We ran a session with the Singular team, who explained what to do, and the rest was really straight forward.”

Omer adds that in general, the Whalo team (and in his previous experience at other companies) have not encountered a lot of complexities with Singular. “And when we do, we immediately speak to the team and they help us. There is a lot of openness as partners and we know and feel that our well-being really is their top priority.”

In just a few sprints, the Whalo team migrated their 3 active channels with the view to expanding to 10 and beyond after migration.

As they had to rebuild their own entire internal data infrastructure, the Whalo team initially used Singular’s reports and dashboards, but they intend to move toward using their own internal reporting, moving data with Singular’s plug-and-play ETL. Singular’s reporting will then be for more of the day-to-day activity – quick data views, connecting partners, and so on.

Since migrating, Whalo has managed to increase spend significantly, with more growth expected in 2025.

Omer shares that marketing leaders (and business owners) need to “regularly evaluate your tools and if you find them lacking, don’t be scared to move. Don’t wait to move. The earlier in your journey, the easier the migration.”

“Don’t stay where you are because it’s convenient and you don’t want to rock the boat.
There are heavy disadvantages to staying with a provider that doesn’t give you the service, partnership, and analytics that are so crucial. You need to work with a tool that is right for growing your business.”

He notes that migration always has its complexities but every company should weigh up the pros and cons – pricing, legacy solutions, comfort, whether the company is associated with other companies, and so on and make the best decision for the future and growth of their company.