How to work effectively with the advertising format Playable ads: five common mistakes

Playable ads is an interactive demo version of the game, embedded in advertising, in other words - advertising that you can play. Despite the fact that playable ads are a rapidly growing phenomenon, many still make mistakes when working with this format - before, during and after launch. We have compiled a list of the five most common mistakes for the benefit of advertisers, publishers and developers.

Mistake # 1: You are too focused on the entertainment part and you lose sight of the big picture.

Often, brands and developers are extremely excited by the very idea of ​​playable ads. Each brainstorming session is devoted only to the entertainment part of advertising. Everyone is trying to create a gaming experience from scratch, forgetting that in fact all the user needs is just a little fun.
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As soon as it comes to the real goals of advertising, not all are in a hurry to study the issue in detail. Many fall into a stupor when it comes to all these boring numbers like installations, PI, CTR, profitability, sales funnels and so on. Remember: if you run a campaign with playable ads in HTML5 format, this is pure marketing. Therefore, metrics matter.

The goal of each playable ad is to get the installation of the application as cheap as possible. If brands spend millions of dollars every month to buy advertising, the playable format should justify such spending and ensure an adequate number of downloads.

Installation is more important than advertising itself. Shift the focus and draw conclusions, what types of advertising creatives in the playable format work better than others.



Mistake # 2: You are not testing the final message for the user.

The last message is very important. The wrong message may deprive you of a potential installation. One boring screen and your CTR will fall.

Do not regret time for A / B testing the creativity of the final message. Test every element, including text, images, buttons, and animations. Add localization here - and you will see how many options will be added to the standard message.

A very small advertising budget is spent on each A / B test, but tests help in advance to determine which creative will work best. As soon as the best creative is found - burn! Launch a campaign and constantly monitor the ROI of each installation.



Mistake # 3: You are not optimizing the first user experience (FTUE)

The First Time User Experience (FTUE) or first user experience is the first action that a user performs since the start of the playable ad.

There are many examples of non-optimized FTUE, from slow loading times to incomprehensible instructions for players.

Successful playable ads load very quickly. Every kilobyte of creativity matters. Get rid of animated loading screens, unnecessary features and go straight to the point. Thus, you will immediately send the user to the action - he will start playing, because he was asked to do so.

Imagine a mobile user who plays a puzzle on the phone. He / she sees an in-game pop-up ad with a built-in game (perhaps because of the reward he / she is trying to get). When the advertisement is already activated, the user's fingers are looking for what to click by inertia. Cool animation - the last thing the user wants to see. Believe me, everyone has already seen a huge amount of rewarded video with cool animations. The user wants action - and wants to stay in his game world, which you invaded with advertising.

Once you understand FTUE, the next step is to optimize it. Here you should think about such custom actions as pressing, capturing / resetting an object, swiping and so on. As a rule, a winning FTUE revolves around the simplest actions - pressing or grabbing / dropping an object.



Mistake # 4: You do not have enough budget

This part is more related to brands, however, it is also useful for developers to know about financial pitfalls.

To succeed in playable ads, brands have to spend an impressive part of their marketing budget on this format. The time has passed when $ 1000 a day was enough. Today, sometimes 100,000 dollars a month is not enough, especially if the brand operates in a highly competitive area.

Reason A: Competitors with large budgets offer much higher rates for attracting the attention of users. Thus, their playable ads will be shown instead of yours.

Reason B: The larger the advertising budget, the more data you can collect. Therefore, you can understand if the format of playable ads has worked to scale or not.
We recommend how to explore a niche before developing playable ads. In the case of playable ads, avoid competition on an equal footing with applications from top 10 in terms of profit - both for iOS and for Android. Instead, try to distribute the budget differently in terms of demographics, aim at different applications, and so on.



Mistake # 5: You do not think about the marketing funnel as a whole.

Advertising playable is not just advertising. You can't just give playable ads to a contract agency and just wash your hands - you’ll have to wait for gloomy statistics.

Successful campaigns for playable ads take everything into account: from development to A / B testing and launch, further iterations and measurement of indicators at each stage of the marketing funnel. Professionals register much more complex events after installing the application - this helps them determine, for example, what kind of revenue future installation can actually give. It is often possible to predict that $ 1 of advertising costs can generate revenue of $ 4, which is equivalent to a 300% ROI.

Conclusion: do not take playable ads as a mini-game and just a fun format with which you can diversify the user experience. Use metrics, conduct tests, do not spare budgets - and playable ads will work at full capacity and will become one of the most effective advertising formats for your applications.

Source of the title picture - TechCrunch