How to get new settings for the game? Try the meta games
The faster the game industry grows, the greater the importance of gameplay, UX, marketing and monetization in the creation of games. Comprehensive marketing strategy today can not ignore retention rates. This is due both to the growing cost of attracting new users, and to fierce competition in the gaming market. Together with KamaGames, we studied the effectiveness of various advertising strategies to increase player retention.
One of the tactics of retention in KamaGames is the cross-promotion of other company games in their own projects. For the experiment, we decided to compare the effectiveness of the video with the reward with other channels for cross-promo and retention of players. It turned out that cross-promo increases retention rates, conversion of users into payers and ARPPU. Due to this, revenue from players who came from one game company to another, increased by 26%.
The monetization strategy and game design are the two main factors on the basis of which the developer makes a decision on which advertising format to choose. Ad networks offer different options. Here are the most popular ones:
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We chose the 100 most profitable games and by their example we studied the effectiveness of various advertising formats. The results are displayed in the graph below.
As the analysis showed, 95% of successful games use full-screen advertising, 65% also connect rewarded videos. Full-screen advertising gives the best CTR (click-through-rate) of all formats. And banners, despite their popularity, are the least effective - their CTR is only 0.4%. This is one of the reasons why full-screen banners are so common in top games. Rewarded videos rank second in popularity.
As a result of this analysis, KamaGames chose full-screen banners and rewarded videos for cross-promotional campaigns.
Mechanics cross-promo used in all games KamaGames. During the experiment, the company analyzed the effectiveness of four channels:
The first interesting observation: in Android games, conversion in all formats was higher than on iOS, almost 1.7 times higher when comparing poker and blackjack (14.1% vs. 8.3%), and 1.6 times higher if you compare poker and roulette (12.9% vs. 8.1%).
Then, KamaGames compared the conversion of various channels. The result is shown in the graph below.
Meta-games lead in comparison of conversions and transitions to installations without any extra questions. Most likely, this is due to the fact that the internal quests additionally involve the player, and he more easily tries other games of the company. The graph below shows that meta-games, moreover, give the maximum number of installations on both platforms.
Rewarded videos show higher conversion than banners and social hooks, but banners still bring more installations, probably because of the good location in the game.
If you need to motivate your users to do something, add to the game a call to action in the format of a meta-game - it will give the maximum effect (and the player will be least annoyed).
Another interesting tactic is to use rewarded video as a cross promo . This option will definitely give a good result, and the players will take it positively.
Rewarded videos as a channel for cross promo
One of the tactics of retention in KamaGames is the cross-promotion of other company games in their own projects. For the experiment, we decided to compare the effectiveness of the video with the reward with other channels for cross-promo and retention of players. It turned out that cross-promo increases retention rates, conversion of users into payers and ARPPU. Due to this, revenue from players who came from one game company to another, increased by 26%.
Full-screen advertising is the most popular format in games.
The monetization strategy and game design are the two main factors on the basis of which the developer makes a decision on which advertising format to choose. Ad networks offer different options. Here are the most popular ones:
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The popularity of advertising formats in mobile games
We chose the 100 most profitable games and by their example we studied the effectiveness of various advertising formats. The results are displayed in the graph below.
As the analysis showed, 95% of successful games use full-screen advertising, 65% also connect rewarded videos. Full-screen advertising gives the best CTR (click-through-rate) of all formats. And banners, despite their popularity, are the least effective - their CTR is only 0.4%. This is one of the reasons why full-screen banners are so common in top games. Rewarded videos rank second in popularity.
As a result of this analysis, KamaGames chose full-screen banners and rewarded videos for cross-promotional campaigns.
The choice of tactics
Mechanics cross-promo used in all games KamaGames. During the experiment, the company analyzed the effectiveness of four channels:
- banners on the welcome screen;
- social “hooks” - notifications about the activity of a user's friends in various KamaGames games like “Your friend Peter Ivanov started playing Blackjack.
- Meta-games - tasks that require the player to perform a certain action. For example, get an achievement, do a daily quest, or try another KamaGames game.
- rewarded videos that were available in the in-game store.
Conversion in various channels
The first interesting observation: in Android games, conversion in all formats was higher than on iOS, almost 1.7 times higher when comparing poker and blackjack (14.1% vs. 8.3%), and 1.6 times higher if you compare poker and roulette (12.9% vs. 8.1%).
Then, KamaGames compared the conversion of various channels. The result is shown in the graph below.
Number of installations from different channels
Meta-games lead in comparison of conversions and transitions to installations without any extra questions. Most likely, this is due to the fact that the internal quests additionally involve the player, and he more easily tries other games of the company. The graph below shows that meta-games, moreover, give the maximum number of installations on both platforms.
Rewarded videos show higher conversion than banners and social hooks, but banners still bring more installations, probably because of the good location in the game.
Findings:
- Those segments of the audience, which were shown meta-games , gave a higher conversion and, accordingly, showed a higher LTV than the rest. The experience of Pokerist, one of the most popular projects of KamaGames, says the same: cross-promo elements in quests and trials inside the game increase conversion.
- Social "hooks" - an effective and organic channel to attract the user's attention. The conversion of “hooks” is higher than that of advertising, but it goes into installations less often. These data correlate with numerous studies on the strong influence of social recommendations on user actions.
- Rewarded videos also work well as a cross-promo channel - 17.9% of players switched to the settings of the game we advertised in the video. In general, this format is very convenient - users are happy to watch the video to get rewards and promote the game.
If you need to motivate your users to do something, add to the game a call to action in the format of a meta-game - it will give the maximum effect (and the player will be least annoyed).
Another interesting tactic is to use rewarded video as a cross promo . This option will definitely give a good result, and the players will take it positively.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/315874/
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