- FanAI has acquired Waypoint Media, developer of the Raven URL shortener and Twitch Middleware API.
- Waypoint Media CPO Kevin Hsu will join FanAI as head of ad tech.
- The acquisition will allow FanAI to help esports clients sell media buys to brands and deliver a clear picture of ROI.
Esports analytics firm FanAI 
has announced its acquisition of data company Waypoint Media. As part of the acquisition, Waypoint Media chief product officer Kevin Hsu will become head of ad tech for FanAI. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The deal allows FanAI to fully utilize Waypoint’s Twitch Middleware API, which tracks Twitch users across a wide range of metrics including channel loyalty. Waypoint has also developed a URL shortener called Raven which will enable FanAI to track users online traffic after they’ve clicked on the link.
According to FanAI founder and CEO Johannes Waldstein, the combination of these tools, FanAI’s existing analytics, and its partnership with various payment platforms will allow the company to paint a clearer picture of the effectiveness of a campaign. “So the brand, instead of just doing a media buy somewhere on the internet and not knowing if it works, or just knowing the click-through rate, a combination of Waypoint and FanAI and our payment partners are able to say ‘this is what the uplift in spend looks like,’” he said. “And that’s super important for brands as they start looking at ‘where should I spend, how do I optimize my dollars?’ All of them want ROI.”
The ability to present clients with “market-leading ROI equivalent to what they would be getting from Amazon or Google or Facebook,” Waldstein said, will open the doors to new opportunities for esports organizations and leagues. He explained that most ad dollars are spent with these companies because of their ability to show clients the spend and uplift following a campaign. Without the ability to present these metrics, esports companies have been restricted in what they can offer to brands.
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“If you go to our clients like Cloud9 or even the Overwatch League , at the moment they can’t sell a media buy. They can’t retarget that audience. And so, they’re selling sponsorships and they’re selling content plays, but they’re not really selling a media buy, and that budget is often much bigger. If you go to an agency like MediaMath, who work on behalf of Alienware Dell, they want to find Team Liquid fans, they want to find – now with their big sponsorship of [Riot Games ] – League of Legends fans, and how do they find those? How [do] they know if they’re then buying an Alienware Dell? And so the Waypoint acquisition allows us both to target those fans with relevant, interesting, game-related content that they like, and also report ROI back to the brands and agencies.”
Waypoint’s Twitch API also helps brands and organizations analyze the potential of specific streamers. “For instance,” Waldstein explained, “for [Team Solomid streamer Ali “Myth” Kabbani] we identified that he had a much more loyal audience than a lot of other streamers. And because we could see how often people come back, we’re not just focusing on the absolute numbers. So even though he was in the low thousands, we say ‘look, you have to invest in this streamer. He has a much more loyal fanbase than even some of the big streamers.’ And sure enough, TSM Myth has grown into one of the top 10 streamers. So being able to just see below just average concurrents or max users or uniques and being able to see ‘is my loyal fanbase growing? How many of those am I converting to tips or to subscribers? How do I do more of that?’ That’s really the key to some of the growth now in some [of] our clients’ audiences.”
Looking forward, Waldstein said that the Waypoint acquisition is an important part of one of the company’s goals for 2019: expanding outside of esports.
“We’re now starting to move into gaming like with Hi-Rez and also into NBA G-League and other sports. And the tech that Waypoint has – they’ve been working on it for 5 years. It’s super robust and super scalable and it also helps us move outside of just esports into gaming, mobile gaming, and then sports, which is one of the key focuses for this year.”
