Mobile gaming has come a long way and now it is one of the most profitable and popular gaming platforms. This has resulted in various transformation in the game’s monetization, therefore the mobile game developers have a range of options in monetization than ever before.
Those developers who traditionally rely on the in-app purchases have moved on to the advertisements and the app bidders are seeing an increase in the revenue by reducing their dependency on waterfall optimization. These are some of the significant innovations that have taken place in game monetization.
Diversifying Revenue Source Leads to Increased Results
The freemium monetization is the model preferred by most of the mobile game developers, which normally generates revenue via in-app purchases. But it has several challenges like it depends on a small amount of in-app purchases made by the user. According to research done by an app testing company, they have found that only 2.2% of the players send and the other 46% is generated by the spenders. Hence, most of the game developers are including advertisements to the revenue source along with the freemium model results in generating revenue from a number of players.
In an interview, a popular game app company has stated that the revenue generated by them are mostly from the advertisements. Therefore, they have offered the players on a freemium basis, so whenever the players watch a video ad, they are rewarded a coin with which they can either access any in-game contents or hints.
Many game developers and mobile game companies assume that players are annoyed with ads. They assume that they have to either prioritize the user experience or monetize with ads. But in reality, all professional gamers and game enthusiasts are aware of the fact that the ads are an integral part of the mobile games.
According to the Mobile Game report, when players are asked to decide between seeing ads or paying for the game to play, around 73% of the players are happy with the ad-funded mobile game model. Also, the game publishers and game developers feared that it would impact the in-app purchases in a negative way. However, those who have incorporated ads in their game app have seen greater improvement within game monetization. Most of the players who review the videos, tend to buy those products and they even spend on the micro-interactions within the game application.
Ad Placements Pilot’s To Greater Retention And Value
The game developers and publishers have found out that testing with ads, like the flow and ad format integrated into the game depends on generating revenue. Identifying the nuances of placing the ads in help in game engagement, the participation of the players, and minimal churn without spoiling the player’s game experience.
The most productive and effective form of advertisements are the rewarded videos, presumably as it offers the players the option to gain reward for watching the advertisements within the game. Generally, the players enjoy receiving additional rewards or points in the game without paying or waiting for it, therefore both the advertisers and the game app receive the goodwill of the players. So, those game developers who are trying to reduce the need for in-app purchases can try the rewarded videos. This results in longer interactions, engaged audience, and greater CPMs.
Offering native ads gives an integrated experience to the players, and it can be customized according to the game interface. The ad video or a unit-static display can be created by the developers and leverage the metadata from the advertisers of Facebook. As the native ads are designed to resemble the game, they are more likely to get 3X higher user retention.
Flow Types Are Responsible for User Experience
It is important to study the mindset of the players when they see an ad on their screen while playing the game. This understanding helps the developers a lot in providing a good game experience.
The players pay attention to the advertisements when they are not focusing on the crucial aspect of the game, therefore the best time to integrate an ad is while the players are locating the notification tab or any other simple activity that does not distract their game experience. Placement of ads in this format are user-initiated, i.e it helps is driving more conversions.
Same way, placing an advertisement after completing a particular task can more likely gain user attention. For example, an ad engagement appearing after the player completes a level.
Bidding Improves the ROI For The Game Publishers
One of the outdated ways to connect the ad sellers and buyers is the Waterfall mediation and many game companies are practicing app bidding and are testing the impact of the revenue against the Waterfall system.
What is Waterfall Mediation?
It is a technology that involves different advertisement networks in a daisy chain and helps the publishers to make more money for every impression. The ad networks are ranked by the publishers based on the historical average price. After a particular period of time, the rankings can be changed after based on the historical performance either automatically or manually. The waterfall can work, but it has many disadvantages, like the inability to know the inventory’s true value, expensive maintenance, complicated setup, and lack of revenue generation.
Creating Opportunities for Advertisers and Publishers
Bidding helps the publishers to organize an open and impartial auction over their advertisement inventory, thereby offering each ad an opportunity during increasing demand. Therefore most of the publishers have realized that bidding is the future. Also, accessing the bid in the real-time helps the publishers to exclude the historical mediation stack, prioritize the winning bids based on the data.
The publishers can also access Facebook’s network of advertisers to increase revenue by offering ads in real-time across through mobile apps, web, etc. And be focusing on user experience, the publishers can take advantage of the integrated ad experience and flexible formats that result in increase life-time value.
