Promoting a mobile game is a complex, expensive, and time-consuming process. Not all participants in the game industry have the opportunity to do this competently: they have lack expertise, money or resources. Go Mobile explains the principles on which the marketing of mobile games is based.
Industry review
The gaming market is highly competitive. It is divided between large publishers and fixed, genre niches are filled with similar projects.
Gaming is the most profitable sector of the entertainment industry. Mobile games are the driver of the development of the gaming market, accounting for about 60% of its total volume. In 2021, the global mobile gaming market was estimated at $131.2 billion. According to forecasts, it will reach $173.4 billion in 2026, with Asia generating the most revenues in the segment.
Promotion options
It is difficult for small studios to launch the game themselves — they need money for revision and marketing. Promotion is the biggest expense item: 80% of all money is spent on it, and only 20% goes to operational expenses. Without advertising, all the efforts to create a game can be in vain.
In addition to merging with large companies, a game developer can:
- Go to the publishers. For a certain percentage of the income from the game, publishers will engage in its distribution. They can either bring the game to a specific platform or region or take it under their own brand. Publishers often have extensive gaming expertise, they can tell you what to change in the game for its success.
- Contact the agency with gaming expertise. Agencies can create videos adapted to the specifics of the game, produce creatives based on game engines, as well as competently purchase traffic.
- Assemble your in-house marketing team. This method is more expensive and resource-intensive, but very effective because the internal team is much better immersed in the product than outsourcing specialists.
The peculiarity of mobile game marketing is that you can’t make a product first and then promote it. These processes run parallel to each other, so the marketing team must cooperate with the development team and possess not only marketing analytics, but also product one. Metrics indicators will tell the teams how to improve the game to make it a success.
Changes in the game are needed to get into user requests. The difficulty is that the audience of games is very dynamic: user behavior is unpredictable, and tastes and interests often change. If at the stage of “checking” the niche and primary tests it is possible to collect good data and roughly understand what the audience wants, then at the release stage the result may not be repeated.
What influences game marketing
The strategy of promoting a mobile game depends on several factors:
- Stages of game promotion;
- Gaming niches;
- The audience and its preferences.
Let’s analyze each factor in detail.
The stage of game promotion
Marketing and development are closely related. However, in this section, we will not talk about the stages of creating a game — researching audience preferences, analyzing competitors, and creating a prototype, but we will focus on promotion.
We will consider such stages as:
- testing primary metrics;
- soft launch;
- scaling.
At the stage of testing primary metrics, a test of audience activity and users’ willingness to make in-app purchases is carried out. The data obtained is compared with the average market or target indicators. If the metrics are not satisfied, the game is changed.
If the metrics satisfy the entire team, it moves to the next stage.
At the soft launch, the game is launched in several markets. This stage helps to understand how much the game attracts users, whether there is a demand for it, whether the budget spent on it pays off, whether the traffic purchase strategy is correctly chosen, and whether creatives work well.
An analysis of this soft launch is required: errors are taken into account and possible changes are made to the strategy, creatives, and settings of advertising campaigns.
If the indicators at this stage suit the team, they decide to scale to the global market.
At the scaling stage, the game is launched in other markets. The game and its promotion tools are adapted for different countries. For example, they change the language and presentation of content, choose new advertising sources, and correct creative communication.
The scaling stage for the game does not end as long as there are budgets for user acquisition and development.
Gaming niche
Games can be divided into several groups: hyper-casual, casual, midcore, hardcore, and hybrid.
Hyper-casual games are simple, with elementary mechanics and minimalistic gameplay, in which the transition to the gameplay occurs instantly. For example, Flappy Bird.
Casual games are simple, have an exciting plot, and require the player to be smart and make right decisions. For example, Townsmen.
Midcore games are a little more difficult than casual ones, they require more time to complete, and the mechanics in them become more complicated with each level. For example, War Robots.
Hardcore games are complex, and require a long time of practicing skills to achieve success in them. For example, Pedal UP!
Hybrid games are cross-genre projects that contain elements of several types of games. For example, Archer.
Hyper-casual games are designed for a wide audience of users who like short gaming sessions. These games are simple, and easy to play. Their goal is to attract as much audience as possible at the lowest prices in a very short time (a day or two).
Since hyper-casual games are free and there are no in-app purchases, they receive revenue from video ads.
In casual, midcore, and hardcore games, the approach is significantly different. These are games with longer gaming sessions, for a narrower target segment of users. If the audience of hyper-casual games is huge, then casual games have less, and midcore and hardcore have even less.
The main task of such games is to gather a loyal audience base. Moreover, the importance of finding relevant users increases in proportion to the level of hardcore of the game. So, in simple casual games, the departure of a part of the audience will not be as painful as for midcore and hardcore games. There, the loss of a user has a big impact on the project, so their task is to look for those who will stay in the game longer.
Monetization in casual, midcore, and hardcore games is mainly carried out through in-app purchases. Such in-app events allow users to accelerate progress in the game and master new content. There are also video ads in this type of game.
To summarize: hyper-casual games attract cheap traffic quickly, and starting with casual games there is a dynamic growth of working budgets, their optimization, and scaling within the framework of the search for a target audience that should settle in the project.
Audience and its preferences
The audience is the main resource that advertisers are fighting for. The game industry has a special audience: gamers have a high percentage of engagement, they actively and often pay.
The promotion will be effective, if you study your user and understand his interests and pains. Let’s look at some of the factors influencing game marketing.
Gender
Analytics of user preferences shows differences by gender. According to Data.ai, Match 3 games, simulators, and visual novels are more typical for women, while strategy, RPG, and shooting games, action games and racing are more typical for men.
Despite these preferences, games in the Action and RPG genres were found at the top for a female audience in certain markets, as well as “board games” for men.
Age
There are also differences in creatives for audiences of different ages. Slow creatives work well for an adult audience, dynamic creatives work well for children and teenagers. In the videos for different age groups, the number of shown game events differs: in the slow ones less, in the dynamic ones more.
Accordingly, there are differences in the preferred genres: age segments are more likely to choose casual or midcore games, and young ones — are hyper-casual, although other genres of games are also in demand among them.
Country
When promoting, it is worth taking into account the traditions of a particular country, carefully handling the topics of sex, religion, violence, and death — not only because of the culture but also due to the restrictions of the platforms in these countries.
You also need to rely on the perception of advertising in a particular geo. Users in Asia are more willing to respond to bright creatives with lots of details, and users from Europe prefer conciseness and minimalism.
How to create creatives
There are several rules here.
Evoke emotions
The main goal of creativity is to attract the attention of the audience. This can be done by arousing emotions in the user: irritation, fun, pacification, and others. That’s why “failes” work so well, for example, incorrect hand moves. They trigger the user and encourage him to do better than shown in the advertisement.
Make sure that the creative does not burn out
That is, continue to receive good indicators. The burnout rate depends on the type of game, the format of the creative, and whether the campaign is set up for the right audience.
When restarting advertising campaigns, creatives can get a new life. They are used again when entering a new geo, scaling, or for new audience segments.
Do many creatives
Creating variations is the basis for successful promotion. The more creatives of different formats you create, the higher the probability that some of them will appeal to the audience. This approach is also suitable if creatives burn out quickly, for example, in advertising hyper-casual games.
Formats
There are three types of formats used in gaming:
- Video Banners;
- Playable Ads;
- Static Banners.
The most popular and effective format is Video Banners. Video advertising in gaming can be divided into three types:
Advertising with real gameplay
Most of the video there is filmed gameplay. Such advertising is well suited to games whose gameplay is attractive and exciting, for example, hyper-casual.
Storytelling advertising
There is either very little gameplay here, or not at all. The main content of such advertising is the demonstration of heroes, art elements, or a plot. It can be a full-fledged short film based on the events in the game.
A combination of gameplay and storytelling
In these videos, the real interface of the game is combined with a story about the storyline that will take place in it.
The standard timing of video banners is 15 and 30 seconds. A 30-second ad is considered the main one, and a 15-second ad is a short version of it.
The structure of the video is also important:
- At the beginning, eye catcher is shown — a bright moment at the start, which attracts the user’s attention.
- Then there is a demonstration of the game. It is better not to overload this part — to focus on one or two key features. Otherwise, there will be chaos in the video, which will only confuse the audience.
- At the end, a studio or project loader is placed, as well as call to action and buttons to go to the store.
Playable Ads — advertising where the user can play the game directly in the creative frame. The whole video or only its end can be built on these mechanics. These are expensive formats that are created on the game engine. Here the author needs to think through the user path and be essentially a game designer of the creative.
Gameloft estimates that playable advertising is very effective: it increases spontaneous recognition of the game (+33%) and the intention to play it (+25%). It also increases the interaction time with videos by an average of 30 seconds.
The last format from the list is Static Banners. This is a standard format in which banners can be fullscreen or embedded in the interface.
When working with Static Banners, you need to keep in mind that:
- The text should be readable and attractive even on the smallest screens. The shorter and simpler the text, the better.
- Key objects should contrast with the background, and the composition should attract attention. The clutter on the banner annoys the players.
- The creative must be visually recognizable to the audience.
Mislead mechanics
Some developers use mislead mechanics in advertising — they show characters, gameplay, or plot that doesn’t exist in the game. It can be funny videos or trigger solutions that attract users’ attention with a non-existent conflict.
However, misleads often lead to distrust between developers, publishers and players. In March 2021, Facebook and Google Ads began to impose restrictions on what can be in the creative. The restrictions also affected misleads.
6 tips how to promote mobile games
- Do not skip the testing stages. On the one hand, this will require additional costs, but on the other, the tests will give answers to work with in the future — to improve the game itself or correct marketing approaches.
- Don’t be afraid to buy traffic in large geo, for example, in the USA. Tests and launches in this market will show the real state of affairs of the project and help assess its future prospects.
- Immerse in the product and communicate with the development team. Find out how the project will look and develop, which features will be the main ones and why, and what competitors the project has.
- Do not skimp on the quantity and quality of creatives at the start. There is nothing more lasting than temporary. It is better to do good packaging in the store right away, and create a basic good set of creatives.
- Track the preferences of the audience: conduct surveys, gather focus groups, and do fake tests. Check your ideas with the interests of the user who will then play this game. Sometimes watching the audience may not give the right answers, but keeping your finger on the pulse and analyzing user behavior is always useful.
- Track trends. Think globally and use non-gaming content that your potential users like right now. It can be anything from a popular show to a viral sound from TikTok.
