Alawar experience: how to increase eCPM advertising in the game by 150%
Alawar company exists since 1999. She is known for her hidden object games (hidden object games) - more than 40 of these applications are available in the company ’s Google Play account. Alawar games are available in all key mobile stores (Google Play, App Store, Windows Store, Amazon, Samsung), sold on Steam and distributed through affiliate programs. Below is a story about what and how to use advertising in freemium games.
For 2016, Alawar planned to release several new games and update existing projects. It was the perfect time to update the monetization strategy, and from August 2015, the company began to search for new partners to advertise in their games.
Here and hereafter - screenshots from the game Dark Tales: Buried Alive
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Games of this genre are usually distributed on the freemium-model: the player downloads the trial part and, if he likes, opens the full version for money. The “Free Trial + Paid Full Game” scheme works well for Alawar projects, but there are always users who are not willing to pay. They play only in trial versions, and the company monetizes such players through advertising.
Yevgeny Kapustin, Alawar monetization manager: “The main goal of any advertising in the game is to increase total revenue by monetizing those who do not make purchases in the app. In our case, there were additional difficulties due to the peculiarities of the distribution model. We could only advertise in the free part of the game, and after buying the full version of the game, the ad is turned off. Such restrictions severely curb the potential number of ad impressions to one user. Therefore, it was important for us to find a partner with the highest eCPM ”.
Alawar had a long experience with different networks and mediation services, including AdMob, AdToApp, Chartboost, Fyber, Supersonic, and various video ad providers (AdColony, UnityAds, Vungle, Applovin, etc.). But since this time a partner was needed that would combine high eCPM, good fill rate and stable coverage in all countries in one solution, the company began to look for new services.
The search for the optimal solution began in August 2015 and lasted almost a few months.
Obviously, it was necessary to use mediation, because each country has its own ad networks, and the company did not want to overload the game with a set of several separate SDKs.
Alawar had the experience of manual and semi-automatic advertising management: the team independently collected data from advertisers connected to games, analyzed them and blocked weak grids, leaving only those who give good results. When working on a large number of projects in several markets, manual control took a lot of time and effort, so I wanted to find a way to automate everything as much as possible.
The monetization strategy remained the same - it was worked out long ago and simply needed to be updated. In Alawar games, two advertising formats are used - Rewarded video (videos, for which the player receives a reward) and full-screen banners. Reward videos do not cause annoyance to players, and they are often used to restore hints during the game.
The user sees full-screen banners when some kind of completed action occurs (for example, the scene has ended or the chapter of the game has been completed). According to Alawar’s experience, full-screen advertising in their games has always worked better than banners or native ads. This is due to the fact that the company has a lot of games, each with its own interface features. In such a situation, full-screen banners are more convenient and easier to integrate.
After all the tests, Appodeal turned out to be the best option for both fill rate, eCPM, and simplicity of integration.
The main result - revenue from advertising in games has grown in the whole world and especially in the target markets.
Evgeny Kapustin, Alawar's monetization manager: “Firstly, Appodeal showed an objective, honest fill rate by which one can judge advertising coverage. In the whole world, our fill rate is now 84%, and in the target countries - 94.8%. Secondly, one can understand the dynamics by comparing eCPM in games in which ad networks have been replaced by Appodeal, for example, in Snark Busters: All Revved Up! and Weird Park: Broken Tune . Previously, these games had different grids - Chartboost, MoPub, Fyber, AdMob, now one solution for everything is built in. The table below compares the dynamics of advertising revenues by key countries for us.
In addition, it is convenient to monitor the performance of each network. We saw, for example, that video advertising from Applovin works best in France in our projects, and in Russia and Great Britain - from Vungle. In general, if we wanted to achieve this result on our own, we would have to integrate each game with at least seven advertising networks, then carry out tests, determine effective combinations for each region, set up and constantly analyze the operation of networks. Now we practically do not spend time on work with advertising. Built in - and everything, periodically we look in the admin panel to see if everything is in order, sometimes we run a cross-promo campaign. Previously, advertising optimization took from 10% to 40% of the working time of a person engaged in additional monetization. ”
The new approach to working with advertising not only increased Alawar's revenues, but also allowed the team to fully concentrate on developing games and improving their products.
Task
- Alawar was preparing to launch new projects and wanted to try new monetization solutions in them.
For 2016, Alawar planned to release several new games and update existing projects. It was the perfect time to update the monetization strategy, and from August 2015, the company began to search for new partners to advertise in their games.
Here and hereafter - screenshots from the game Dark Tales: Buried Alive
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- The new partner should help achieve maximum eCPM and fill rate.
Games of this genre are usually distributed on the freemium-model: the player downloads the trial part and, if he likes, opens the full version for money. The “Free Trial + Paid Full Game” scheme works well for Alawar projects, but there are always users who are not willing to pay. They play only in trial versions, and the company monetizes such players through advertising.
Yevgeny Kapustin, Alawar monetization manager: “The main goal of any advertising in the game is to increase total revenue by monetizing those who do not make purchases in the app. In our case, there were additional difficulties due to the peculiarities of the distribution model. We could only advertise in the free part of the game, and after buying the full version of the game, the ad is turned off. Such restrictions severely curb the potential number of ad impressions to one user. Therefore, it was important for us to find a partner with the highest eCPM ”.
- Alawar games are released around the world, so the company was looking for a solution that would allow advertising to be shown in as many countries as possible with minimal effort.
Alawar had a long experience with different networks and mediation services, including AdMob, AdToApp, Chartboost, Fyber, Supersonic, and various video ad providers (AdColony, UnityAds, Vungle, Applovin, etc.). But since this time a partner was needed that would combine high eCPM, good fill rate and stable coverage in all countries in one solution, the company began to look for new services.
Decision
The search for the optimal solution began in August 2015 and lasted almost a few months.
- A new partner should be the mediation service.
Obviously, it was necessary to use mediation, because each country has its own ad networks, and the company did not want to overload the game with a set of several separate SDKs.
- Maximum simplification and automation.
Alawar had the experience of manual and semi-automatic advertising management: the team independently collected data from advertisers connected to games, analyzed them and blocked weak grids, leaving only those who give good results. When working on a large number of projects in several markets, manual control took a lot of time and effort, so I wanted to find a way to automate everything as much as possible.
- Previous monetization strategy combined with new tools: Rewarded video and full-screen banners
The monetization strategy remained the same - it was worked out long ago and simply needed to be updated. In Alawar games, two advertising formats are used - Rewarded video (videos, for which the player receives a reward) and full-screen banners. Reward videos do not cause annoyance to players, and they are often used to restore hints during the game.
The user sees full-screen banners when some kind of completed action occurs (for example, the scene has ended or the chapter of the game has been completed). According to Alawar’s experience, full-screen advertising in their games has always worked better than banners or native ads. This is due to the fact that the company has a lot of games, each with its own interface features. In such a situation, full-screen banners are more convenient and easier to integrate.
After all the tests, Appodeal turned out to be the best option for both fill rate, eCPM, and simplicity of integration.
results
The main result - revenue from advertising in games has grown in the whole world and especially in the target markets.
Evgeny Kapustin, Alawar's monetization manager: “Firstly, Appodeal showed an objective, honest fill rate by which one can judge advertising coverage. In the whole world, our fill rate is now 84%, and in the target countries - 94.8%. Secondly, one can understand the dynamics by comparing eCPM in games in which ad networks have been replaced by Appodeal, for example, in Snark Busters: All Revved Up! and Weird Park: Broken Tune . Previously, these games had different grids - Chartboost, MoPub, Fyber, AdMob, now one solution for everything is built in. The table below compares the dynamics of advertising revenues by key countries for us.
In addition, it is convenient to monitor the performance of each network. We saw, for example, that video advertising from Applovin works best in France in our projects, and in Russia and Great Britain - from Vungle. In general, if we wanted to achieve this result on our own, we would have to integrate each game with at least seven advertising networks, then carry out tests, determine effective combinations for each region, set up and constantly analyze the operation of networks. Now we practically do not spend time on work with advertising. Built in - and everything, periodically we look in the admin panel to see if everything is in order, sometimes we run a cross-promo campaign. Previously, advertising optimization took from 10% to 40% of the working time of a person engaged in additional monetization. ”
The new approach to working with advertising not only increased Alawar's revenues, but also allowed the team to fully concentrate on developing games and improving their products.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/308444/
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