advertising – Alley Mobile

THE BEST MOBILE ADS CHANNELS – RANKINGS 1st HALF 2017

By Stefano Melucci | November 9, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

The latest “Performance index” recently published by Appsflyer provides a comprehensive snapshot of the mobile advertising market based on massive traffic data analysis on 6 B installs for 5,500 apps from 250 ad networks in the period January – June 2017.

Methodology

The main metrics that the report uses to rank the ad networks are:

Volume ranking – total number of clean (fraud free) installs they generated

Power ranking – number of clean (fraud free) installs normalized with a quality score that depends on retention and average sessions per user

ROI index – based on the Return of Investment for those networks reporting both cost and revenue. So, the data for this index is reduced to 40 M installs from 50+ networks from 800+ apps.

Takeaways

Not surprisingly for anyone working in the industry, Facebook and Google dominate both the Volume and Power rankings placing consistently at first and second place for both gaming and non-gaming categories.

In the gaming category, Unity Ads is a solid third on both indexes, thanks to the wide distribution of Unity platform among game developers, while Apple Search Ads grew considerably from the previous report, ranking now third and fourth in power ranking for universal non-gaming and gaming.

Source: Appsflyer Performance Index V Edition

Interestingly, Apple Search Ads ranked in first place in the ROI index for iOS. Overall, Apple Search Ads had a 30% higher ARPU and 40% lower price than other networks.

When it comes to delivering ROI, Facebook and Google also showed their consistent strength, with more than double the revenue and roughly the average cost (vs. other networks in the index), and thus ranking #1 and #2 spots in the Android ROI Index, respectively. With 50% more revenue generated and 20% lower than the average cost, Facebook reached the #2 spot in the iOS ROI Index, while Google came in 3rd.

The dominance of the social and search big players was far more pronounced in non-gaming than in gaming. In fact, their share of installs in non-gaming was 70% higher than their share in gaming. When looking at operating systems, their share on Android was almost 50% higher than on iOS.

Source: Appsflyer Performance Index V Edition

Another interesting signal is the growing importance of video ads networks, confirming the importance of the medium, especially in the gaming category, where three video-only network appear in the top 10 power ranking: Unity Ads at #3, Vungle at #7 and AdColony at #8. It should be noted that Chartboost (#6) and Applovin (#5) also serve rewarded video ads in their mix, although they are not exclusively video ad networks.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the number of networks chosen by non-gaming app marketers was almost double the number of gaming ones. When looking at the top networks (minimum 500k installs), the ratio further rises to nearly 2.5x. This can be explained by the fact that gaming is more global in nature, and therefore directs marketers toward networks with global inventory. Non-gaming, on the other hand, is more local in nature, as marketers have to differentiate the channels including both local and global media partners.

BUILDING A GREAT GAME: INTEGRATING REWARDED VIDEO ADS

By Stefano Melucci | October 5, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or – understandably – just trying to screen out all news from the real world, there’s been a lot of buzz lately around rewarded video ads. According to a recent report released by Tapjoy, 79% of players prefer to have the option of rewarded ads in their games, and that number is broadly consistent with the user behavior we see in our titles. As you may recall, we briefly touched on rewarded ads in the most recent blog, so now let’s dig a little deeper and look at some of the best practices for implementing rewarded ads in your mobile game.

The format is increasingly popular in games and apps alike because it not only represents a non-intrusive form of advertising (the user ‘pulls’ the ad towards them rather than having it ‘pushed’ at them), but it also allows users to better enjoy the game, by progressing faster, collecting more virtual currency, or exploring new content.

Let’s first take a look at how the use of this kind of advertising in your game can actually improve your metrics (besides contributing to your bottom line). The graph below shows the daily retention for one of our games for three different cohorts of users: all users, payers, and users who never purchased anything but watched at least one rewarded video.

As you would expect, players who made at least one purchase have a much higher retention rate than the average (83% Day 1 retention vs. 54% in this case). Interestingly, rewarded video viewers also have much better retention than average (79% Day 1 retention in this example). This is also in line with empirical feedback from users who often ask for more opportunities to “earn” rewards in the game through ads.

For sure, you are wondering: do rewarded video ads cannibalize In-App Purchase Revenue? In our experience, if implemented correctly, that is not the case. Based on our findings, you should expect a 10% to 40% uplift in ARPDAU with no negative effect on your conversion rate to in-app purchase. The fact that this ad revenue is incremental to the in-app purchase revenue is illustrated by the graph below in which you can see the average number of video ads seen by viewers divided into two cohorts: all users and payers. It shows that payers also like to take advantage of this additional opportunity to progress in the game and have similar watching patterns as the average user.

So, what are the best practices for effectively integrating rewarded video ads in your game?

The first suggestion is to embed rewarded ads in the core loop of your game so that they become a natural part of the gameplay. Typical examples of reward mechanisms are: revive at Game Over (for casual games), additional life (for platformers or puzzle games), shorter timers (for building games), virtual currency, energy, boosters, etc.

Example of Rewarded Video in Get 13

The best reward mechanism for your game depends on the genre of your game as well as its resources and economy. It is important to be creative in the way the rewards are designed within the game in order to keep players motivated without disrupting the overall game economy. Rewards can also be a way to let users explore new content that they may later be interested in obtaining via an in-app purchase. For example, in our title Weed Firm: 2 Back to College, one of the customers that comes to the door brings a gift in exchange for watching an ad. This allows the player to get a sneak peek of content that would otherwise be available to them only much later in the game.

Another important aspect in the implementation of rewarded video ads is to find a balance between theprominence of the ad’s placement while simultaneously creating a sense of rarity around the offer. The goal is to create a sense of urgency amongst players to motivate them to seize the opportunity when it is presented in the game. The example above illustrates a creative solution to finding that balance; the customer who offers the rewarded video “gift” appears sporadically in the game.

As with any other feature of your game, it is important to track rewarded ad views and measure some important KPIs. In our analytics, we typically track every completed ad view as an event, together with some relevant properties (e.g. user level, the balance of virtual currencies, the ad network that served the ad, reward obtained, and so on). This way, it is possible to do an in-depth behavioral analysis about what kind of reward is most appealing to users, what the effect is on the overall economy of the game, etc.

At a high level, the main KPIs that you will want to track for your game are:

% of DAU engaging with Rewarded Video ads

Average views per player, per day

These KPIs can vary widely depending on your implementation: we have seen between 25% and 50% of DAUs engaging in rewarded video ads and between 2 and 8 rewarded video ad views per player. As a rule of thumb, you should target at least a 30% engagement rate and around 4 ads per day, per viewer. At Thumbspire, we work with our partners to establish specific targets based on their game’s genre and implementation.

In summary, rewarded video ads can be an important component of your game’s monetization strategy and they can also increase usage metrics in your game, provided you stick to some basic guidelines for the successful implementation of this feature:

Embed rewarded ads in the core game.
Give rewarded ads prominence while maintaining a sense of rarity around the offer.
Be creative in the definition of the rewards to prevent disruption of your game’s economy.
Track rewarded ads properly so that you can improve their effectiveness with the usual iterative process and A/B testing.

Hopefully these guidelines will be helpful in increasing the success of your game, but as usual, feel free to comment or get in touch!

BUILDING A GREAT GAME: AD MONETIZATION BEST PRACTICES

By Stefano Melucci | September 27, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

In the first article of our Building a Great Game series we focused our attention on engagement and in-app monetization metrics: now it’s the time to look at the equally important component, ad monetization. In fact, as we already mentioned, the average overall conversion rate for IAP (In-App Purchases) is ~2% of the base over a 30 day period, so it is crucial to find ways to get some value from the other 98% of your players.

Many game developers are wary of integrating ads into their game. They fear that ads would annoy their players and negatively impact retention and engagement, but if done in the right way, ads can raise the ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) by 10% to 80%, even for games that are successfully monetizing with IAPs. To get started, let’s first take a look at the main ad formats, their characteristics, and the pros and cons of each type.

AD FORMATS

The oldest format is the Banner Ad, inherited directly from the web. Static banners are typically displayed on the top or the bottom of your game, either in menu pages or in the gameplay view itself. As you can imagine, this format can be pretty invasive, and it can also lower the perception of your game’s quality. It is not used much nowadays, but can still be an important component of your ad monetization strategy for very casual games.

Interstitial Ads are full screen (or almost full screen) images or videos that pop up at a certain point in your game. They are typically placed at “intermission points” like after seeing the “Game Over” screen or at a “Level Up” moment in the game. This format constitutes the bulk of ad revenue in most casual games, but as we will discuss below, it must be integrated carefully in order not to impact user experience.

Rewarded Videos require the user to opt-in to watch a full (15-30 sec) video ad in exchange for a reward in the game. They are becoming very popular in mobile games because they provide high CPM (Revenue per thousand impressions) and they fit well with the Free-to-Play model: giving non-spenders a way to progress faster in the game in exchange for some value they provide by voluntarily engaging with the ads.

Another format that has been getting some traction in recent times is rich media or “Playable Ads” which require users to interact with the ad, typically in a short game demo, which showcases the core gameplay inside the ad. This format can be displayed either as an interstitial or as a rewarded ad. They have the potential to achieve high CPMs but need to be utilized carefully because depending on the quality of the creative, the experience can be confusing and negatively impact your user retention.

From Left to Right: Banner Ad, Interstitial Ad, and Rewarded Video Ad

BEST PRACTICES

An easy yet valuable piece of advice is to integrate ads into your game, or you will be leaving money on the table! However, it is important to implement ads in the right way, and at Thumbspire we guide our developer partners to follow the best practices for games found in the same genre.

The most important rule is to prepare your game in a way that allows you to measure and dynamically control the ads in your game. Considering that for each format you will most likely integrate a few ad networks, it is important to control the order in which these networks will be invoked at every ad impression to maximize the average CPM of your traffic. This is the role of the mediation system – an intermediate layer that your game will invoke at every ad placement, deferring to it the choice of which ad network to forward the request to. There are a number of mediation systems on the market, and all of them have some automatic algorithm aimed at maximizing the CPM for every impression based on various parameters like device, location, etc. With mediation, you can also manually override the algorithm and force a pre-defined priority of ad-networks for a specific format in a specific geographic location (known as a “waterfall”). This can be useful if you want to take advantage of special guaranteed CPMs you might be offered by the ad networks in exchange for a guaranteed call order in the waterfall. From our experience, introducing mediation to optimize the return for your inventory can lead to an increase of 80-110% compared to your average CPM from a single network.

In addition to mediation, it is also important to put a system in place that allows you to measure and dynamically control the ads being served in your game. For example, if you decided to have banner ads in your game you might want to have a server flag that enables or disables them for specific cohorts of users, such as disabling them for any user who makes an IAP. You might also want to be able to control the frequency of your interstitial ads (for example, every 5 “Game Over” screens) and dynamically tweak it depending on the average game session length or even apply different frequencies to different cohorts of users. For rewarded videos, you might want to make the amount of the reward configurable dynamically so that you can tweak the economy of your game once you have a sense of the CPMs you can obtain. Hopefully, you get the idea: the level of control depends on how granular you want to be in your actions, but it is important to have the possibility to control and modify the ad implementation without the need of a new release for every change you want to test.

Finally, it is important to measure and track every ad impression at a user level in your analytics, so that by applying an average CPM per geographic area you can estimate the advertising contribution to the LTV (Lifetime Value) with the same granularity that you have for IAPs.

Stay tuned, as we’ll dive into more details on what to measure as well as target benchmarks for ad KPIs in our next blog post in this series. In the meanwhile, feel free to reach out if you have questions or comments!