Mobile gaming apps are booming. Check this infographic, if you are looking for insights into mobile gaming. How you leverage this in your favor depends on the marketing plan to come up with.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, people had to face lockdown, work-from-home adoption, and cancellation/delay of sporting events. It gave users no other option to switch to other forms to seek entertainment. Mobile gaming apps emerged as an option that users across the globe adopted.
Mobile gaming apps are on all-time high thanks to the impact of COVID-19. Some of the games have seen an unforeseen spike in the users as well as in terms of revenue. In 2020, the industry is expected to cross the $52 billion revenue mark. Apparently, if you own a gaming app, then you have a pocketful of opportunities to gain more users and drive more profits with in-app purchases. However, it comes with its share of challenges as well.
App marketing for games is a lot different from other categories. While most categories are selling some products or services right before the install, the gaming apps have to offer custom in-app purchases as per the gaming vertical and user interest. So, you need to frame a marketing strategy precisely for your gaming app category - be it hardcore, mid-core, real money gaming, role-playing games, or casual games. Being the app marketer, you would know the best tricks that work for you. But how about some quick hacks that can bring your better results in the campaigns by driving more users, keeping them engaged, and then guiding them to make in-app purchases.
Here are 3 quick ways to boost marketing of your gaming apps:
1. Premium On Device
Affle’s POD or Premium on Device is a marketing choice where you can leverage the custom app stores offers by different OEMs and device manufacturers. What it means for marketers is an increase in app discovery as top handsets brands like Xiaomi and Samsung offer such app stores.
In a market, such as India, the top 5 new handsets shipped in Q3 2019 commands a whopping 87%. Utilizing the POD service you get access to all these devices. The biggest benefit comes in the form of audience reach as you are able to reach users in tier-2 and tier-3 where the dominance of these devices is even greater. It helps you bypass the restrictions of Google Play Store, which needs users to have a Google account for the use. OEM app stores do not need such an account.
Moreover, the advertising possibilities that it offers go beyond the traditional ad norms as you are able to leverage ad formats, such as - native, on-lock screen, push notifications, splash screen, and homepage banner of the store. Affle’s POD relies on data-led optimization to better focus on the users and accordingly offer them ads.
2. App Intelligence
App intelligence is more about the kind of inventory you run your ads on. It’s commonly known that gaming apps work well as inventory to other games. App intelligence helps you better leverage the understanding in a more refined manner.
App intelligence gives a number of filters to choose the inventory while running your programmatic ads over aDemand Side Platform (DSP). You can choose if you want to run the ads only on apps that are listed on a renowned app store or not. So if you are targeting only iOS users or Android users, it enables you to do so. Moreover, you can choose the categories as well. For gaming apps, you would like to run ads on apps that in the categories, including gaming, OTT/entertainment, and dating.
You can even choose the rating of the app on the app stores to ensure that your apps are running only on quality inventory. Pitching ads on the quality inventory simply means attracting quality users for your app.
3. Choose Payment KPIs Similar to Campaign Goals
Let’s say you have a real-money game were you want to drive more first-time deposits using an ad campaign. But you choose Cost per Mille (CPM), Cost per Click (CPC), or Cost per Install (CPI) as your campaign KPI. You will be paying to the ad partners on every impression, click, or install. You are not even sure if those installs will actually convert into paying gamers or not. If you are not reaching the targets of first-time deposit, then you will scale impressions, clicks, and installs, which will mean more expenses. How about paying for every first-time deposit?
Well, that may come as surprise as various ad partners do not offer such customization with the KPI metrics. However, relying on Affle’s Cost per Converted User (CPCU) model, RevX offers custom KPIs for campaigns. Such downstream KPIs can be in-app purchases as well. So, you can opt for custom KPI depending on your app model. How it helps your budget?
With a direct focus on driving the lower-funnel results, we are able to target the right audience at the top of the funnel. So, you are not paying for impressions, installs, or clicks that don’t contribute to your revenue.
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