How mobile games can leverage playable ads

For as we speak’s mini whiteboard grasp class, now we have Volkmar Reinerth, Advertising and marketing Director at Kolibri Video games, a cell sport studio aspiring to be probably the most player-oriented gaming firm on this planet.

Table of Content

Few verticals are as savvy about advert monetization as Gaming apps, however how do they select which advert codecs and placements to truly serve customers? Volkmar steps in with the solutions, deep diving into the highest 3 codecs for Fb advertisements and, notably, tips on how to leverage playable advertisements for actual income. Let the video games start!

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Transcription

I’m the Advertising and marketing Director at Kolibri Video games, and I’ve been main our UA staff for 3 years now. Kolibri Video games is a cell sport studio based mostly in Berlin. Our aspiration is to be probably the most player-oriented video games firm on this planet.

At present, I will likely be speaking about Fb advert codecs, and tips on how to leverage the facility of playable advertisements.

Earlier than I begin, please do not forget that there’s no magic technique to grasp Fb advertisements; it should all the time contain a number of testing and iterating. Nonetheless, I hope I may give some steerage on which advert codecs are value spending time on, and which advert set methods will help.

On which mixture of Fb advert codecs and placements ought to I focus?

In your official Fb advertisements information, there are 11 advert codecs, and as a enjoyable truth, playables will not be even in there. This could both imply that they aren’t confirmed to achieve success but, or are nonetheless a hidden treasure. At present, I’ll concentrate on my major three, that are photos, movies, and playables. I believe they go hand in hand with the placements; for instance, photos don’t make sense for rewarded video advertisements.

So, beginning with photos, as you all know, they’re simple to supply, versatile to make use of, and might nonetheless have an incredible conversion fee. What I believe is nice about photos is that they are often extra indifferent from the precise sport play, and that you need to use them for inventive testing.

For instance, testing a set of photos with one character versus one other character, and unrelated to the precise profitable inventive. You possibly can see which idea works higher as a complete.

So in abstract, I’d focus 20% of my time on photos, and put a particular concentrate on the Fb information feed.

Movies are the following step up. They’re a bit extra expensive to supply, however you possibly can truly maintain them easy – an excellent brief, three-second GIF can work equally nicely as an extended video, and you’ll work with display recordings, which isn’t plenty of work in any respect. I’d begin with sq. movies – they work in virtually all placements, and they’re very versatile. When you’ve got extra sources, then you possibly can transfer on to tailor placement-specific iterations of your creatives. However I’d begin with sq. movies first.

If you make movies, be sure you have a really catchy first second, particularly for skippable placements like viewers community interstitial or the Fb information feed. Ensure the primary second could be very attention-grabbing and interesting. When you’ve got an extended skippable placement, like Fb viewers community rewarded, you’ve got a bit extra time and might work with story-driven advertisements, or present actual game-play.

In abstract, I’d focus 35% of my time on movies. I believe movies are nice, be sure you have them in your inventive combine, and put a particular focus to the viewers community rewarded.

Now shifting on to probably the most attention-grabbing advert format of this discuss, that are playable advertisements.

I believe playable advertisements are nice, though they’re as high-risk as they’re high-reward. Notice that they do include plenty of technical challenges, like dangerous loading instances, crashes, all of which might result in dangerous consumer expertise. Be sure to sort out this with good inside QA processes.

Deal with each playable like a venture all by itself – you typically want exterior sources, which require plenty of communication and is certainly not simple. However ultimately, it’s all value it as a result of, when you even have the playable prepared, gamers will recognize that there’s sincere gameplay. As in, in the event that they go to the app retailer, and obtain from there, they are going to be extra prone to know what your product is about after experiencing the advert. This results in a superb retailer conversion fee, and likewise a superb day-one retention, since you marketed for truly what your product is about.

Secondly, when you even have a playable produced, you possibly can tweak little parameters, which might have a huge effect, just like the gameplay pace, the background, or the characters. All of that is fairly simple to do, and might have a superb affect in your conversion fee.

What are some finest practices for creating Fb playable advertisements for Gaming apps?

If you make playable advertisements, concentrate on some do’s.

Firstly, you could embody a clickable CTA on a regular basis. Fb checks for it, be sure you have a button in there on a regular basis.

Secondly, concentrate on gameplay. It could be difficult to place plenty of advanced gameplay into an summary 20-30 seconds advert, however you possibly can focus, for instance, on a core loop, or on sure options of your sport. Simply be certain it’s actual gameplay. Gamers will recognize these sincere advertisements, and it’ll lead to the next conversion fee. Although clickbait could be a legitimate technique, I believe gameplay advertisements are undoubtedly the best way to go. So, playables are nice, be sure you have them in your combine, don’t miss out on these.

In abstract, I’d focus most of my time, comparatively talking 45%, on playables, placing a particular concentrate on rewarded video advertisements. That’s as a result of, with these advertisements, you’ve got the time, you’ve got 20-30 seconds to truly present what your sport is about.

What sort of Fb advert set technique ought to I exploit?

Transferring on to the advert set technique.

If you happen to have a look at this desk, it seems to be like there are plenty of placement advert format mixtures that it is best to sort out, however truly, it’s not that a lot work. You don’t have to take a look at them individually, you can also make use of the Fb auto-placement function, which is the primary technique.

Right here, I’d advocate to make use of 5 to eight advertisements of blended sorts; for instance, two photos, two movies, two playables, placing all of them collectively in a single advert set. After that, choose the auto-placement choice. Fb will resolve to which placement and artistic mixture the spend goes to, and also you don’t have to fret a lot about it. This could work rather well on large-scale campaigns with little concentrating on, set to post-event optimization. It will also be nice for a starting the place you simply wish to see which placements or creatives work nicely for you.

It’s arduous to suit all of the advertisements for all placements. Like I discussed earlier than, sq. movies can work nicely on many of the placements.

Nonetheless, in the event you use playables, for instance, it may be more difficult to tailor them to placements like viewers community rewarded or interstitials or tales. And, what can occur as nicely is that spend will get allotted to just one profitable inventive, or a single profitable placement. This in flip means you’re not making full use of your potential right here, as a result of solely one of many placements is definitely used.

On this case, I’d advocate to go to the second technique, which is to take management your self. Right here you’d take a selected placement that works nicely, or that you simply wish to concentrate on, and break up it out into its personal advert set, utilizing solely placement-specific advertisements. For instance, if you wish to concentrate on Fb viewers community rewarded, you can also make full use of rewarded video playables.

This method is nice for testing and iterating on creatives as a result of it’s very targeted. You possibly can actually see which creatives work nicely for the particular placement. And since it’s a very targeted manufacturing, you don’t want to fret about too many necessities, but you continue to have full management over the finances and different KPIs which you could monitor on your placement.

Each methods are legitimate, and have their professionals and cons. I believe they’ll additionally work nicely collectively, so it’s not an either-or; you possibly can concurrently have some advert units on auto-placement whereas others are on handbook placement. And, they’ll go hand in hand, simply be certain they don’t overlap an excessive amount of.

What’s the way forward for Fb advert monetization?

What is going to the long run deliver? I believe Fb has a really distinctive market place. Fb has huge information and might discover customers throughout a number of placements, like mentioned within the autopilot technique. I’d anticipate to see far more options like this sooner or later, like, for instance, Marketing campaign Funds Optimization (CBO).

On one hand, sure, it will possibly imply that you simply’re dropping some management over your campaigns. Nonetheless, Fb could make actual use of its information, and discover customers, for instance, throughout a number of placements, or allocate budgets effectively so there’s not a lot viewers overlap. So, it is a good development that’s occurring on the whole, as a result of it saves be just right for you, and it will possibly make the entire promoting ecosystem extra environment friendly from a market perspective.

The second a part of my predictions considerations creatives themselves. Proper now, it’s concerning the battle of eyeballs, tips on how to stick out and get consideration. Although clickbait could be a legitimate technique, if that works for you, I’d nonetheless go for a extra holistic, and long-term method, and which I believe is gameplay advertisements. Your viewers will recognize seeing sincere gameplay advertisements, and what your product is definitely about, which might result in an excellent consumer expertise, and a superb consumer high quality ultimately as nicely.