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SuperScale vs. Going Direct to Each Ad Network Yourself
Nothing stops you from opening an account with every ad network directly. Plenty of publishers do exactly that for their top two or three.
This page is about what happens when you try to run 35+ networks that way yourself — the integration, contracting, billing and daily-optimization load — against routing all of it through one relationship with SuperScale.
SuperMedia is a standalone managed UA service powered by SuperStack — no stack licence required.
The decision in one line
Going direct costs you no intermediary fee and gives you maximum control on each platform. SuperMedia charges an 8% management fee on managed spend and collapses 35+ separate relationships, contracts, invoices and optimization workflows into one, with an AI workforce running the day-to-day so that breadth is something you can actually operate.
Side by side
The comparison
| Dimension | Going direct / self-serve to each network | SuperMedia |
|---|---|---|
| Setup / time-to-value | Linear and repeated: a separate account, integration, IO and billing setup per network. Manageable for two or three; a project of its own at 35+. | One relationship, one IO, one invoice across 35+ pre-integrated ad networks. Onboarding is a tracking link, not an integration project. |
| Network coverage / reach | Whatever you personally have the time to open and maintain. Publishers commonly stall at the handful of networks they can operationally manage, and rewarded, OEM, creator-led, regional and emerging supply is usually what never gets reached. | 35+ ad networks live through one partner, including the rewarded, OEM, creator-led, regional and emerging supply that is hardest to reach one by one. Your spend runs through SuperScale's own network agreements — one IO, 35+ networks. |
| Pricing model & cost | No intermediary fee. The cost shows up as headcount hours, integration and tooling, and the profitable spend you never capture on channels you can't reach. | An 8% management fee on managed spend. One published line item, in exchange for the operation being run for you. |
| Headcount required | You and your team are the operating layer. Setup, optimization, reconciliation and troubleshooting all scale with network count, and a senior UA hire plus tooling is a fixed annual cost you carry through slow quarters. | No extra headcount. You bring budget, targets and a tracking link. Agencies add headcount to scale; we add software. |
| Expertise & ramp | You climb each network's learning curve separately: different consoles, bidding logic, creative specs and support quirks per platform. | 70+ publishers. 200+ games. Ten years encoded in the platform. The per-platform learning curve is already paid down. |
| Optimization / AI | Manual and per-platform, capped by human hours. Realistically you can actively optimize a handful of networks well at once. | SuperAI — an autonomous AI workforce executing 80–90% of publishing ops inside guardrails, 24/7. Not a chatbot. Every connected network gets continuous attention, not only your top few. |
| Data & reporting | You build the aggregation: pull each network and your MMP into a warehouse, reconcile currencies and metrics, standardize. Or accept fragmented per-network dashboards and no clean cross-network view. | SuperPlatform, the semantic layer: no-SDK integrations across ad networks, MMPs, app stores and your warehouse, in one gaming-native source of truth deployed into your own BigQuery. You own the data. |
| Incentive alignment | Fully your own P&L, with no external interest in the outcome either way. | The rate is published, so it isn't what you spend the first call negotiating. And a network closes the loop only on its own supply, optimizing its own revenue; we close it network-neutral, on your data, on any supply. |
| Risk / downside | Operational fragility: key-person concentration, an under-managed long tail, reconciliation errors, and channels you never get to. | An 8% management fee and dependency on a single partner, offset by full data visibility in SuperPlatform and by 35+ networks becoming genuinely operable rather than nominal. |
SuperScale's specific edge
- Breadth you can operate. Anyone can open 35+ accounts. Almost nobody can actively optimize them by hand. SuperAI is what turns "we have access to 35+ networks" into "35+ networks are being optimized right now."
- One IO, one invoice, one relationship. Contracting, billing and reconciliation go from N workflows to one, which is where the direct path quietly breaks down past a handful of networks.
- The long tail is where the profit sits. Direct/self-serve over-indexes on the top two or three networks because that is where the human hours go. On average, the top 8 ad networks absorb about half of mobile UA spend and return only about a quarter of the profit; the other ~30 networks carry the remaining half of spend and about 75% of the profit. Reaching that tail is an operations problem before it is a strategy problem.
- Unified data by default. SuperPlatform replaces the warehouse-and-reconcile project you would otherwise own, with standardized gaming metrics across every channel.
- You keep the budget and the goals; you shed the operation. The 8% buys back the headcount hours going direct consumes silently.
What that looks like on a single title: one game we took over went from 50% to 153% ROAS, CPI from $2.80 to $0.60, and reached breakeven in four months.
The honest version
When going direct is the better choice
Going direct is genuinely right in several cases:
- Your spend is concentrated on one to three networks you already run well. If Meta, Google or AppLovin cover your needs and you are optimizing them competently, an 8% layer on top may not pay for itself. Go direct.
- You have the in-house bandwidth and tooling to open, integrate, optimize and reconcile networks yourself, and you want that muscle in-house.
- You hold direct, favorable terms with specific networks — bespoke deals, dedicated reps, custom placements — that you would rather manage without an intermediary. If the terms are good and the operating load is the actual problem, the licensed path fits better than the managed one: you operate SuperStack, and it decides and executes spend on your own network agreements.
- You are deliberately staying narrow. If multi-network breadth is not a current priority, the operational load of many networks does not apply to you.
A common pattern: keep running your top two or three networks direct where you are strong, and use SuperMedia for the expansion layer across the rest, so the breadth you cannot operate by hand still gets worked without re-architecting how you buy on your core channels.
Model it against your own spend
Estimate the profitable revenue currently untapped on the networks you aren't running direct, net of the 8% management fee.
See how SuperMedia, SuperAI and SuperPlatform would run the full network set against your titles.
A standalone managed UA service powered by SuperStack, no stack licence required.
Compare it against licensing SuperStack yourself.
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