Deeper Dive into Monetization

Free-to-play revenue tactics

Monetization solution providers

 you  identified the impact of monetization on player experience, types of monetization, considered the relationship between monetization and game design, explored a successful case study and reflected on when to start adding monetization to your game.

In this tutorial you’ll be exploring "Free-to-play" tactics. “Free-to-play” comes from what is commonly referred to as “Freemium” in business. It basically means offering a product or a service free of charge at a very basic level.

Monetization comes in when extra functions and services are offered to enhance the product and/or user experience. You will now compare different types of monetization tactics in more depth so you can pick the best one(s) for your game.

Explore how to combine and balance ads and IAPs

Measure the success of your monetization efforts

Reflect on how ads and IAP can interfere with retention numbers

Monetization Glossary.pdf

Overview

Advertising: Rewarded video adverts

 Advertising: Playables

Advertising: Augmented Reality

 In-app purchases (IAPs)

Ask the experts!

Combining/balancing ads and IAP

Practical tips on combining and balancing ads and IAP

Measuring the success of your monetization efforts

Summary

 you explored Free-to-play revenue tactics. In this tutorial we will be exploring some of the key partners and solutions to take note of in your monetization efforts. There’s more than just you, your game, your players, and advertisers willing to pay you. 

To truly set yourself up for success, having a basic knowledge of your options and how to evaluate them will be critical. 

At the most basic level, an IAP plugin allows you to seamlessly integrate purchasing in your game, while ad networks allow you to sell ad space in your game at scale. There are other middlemen in the industry such as ad mediators, who help you manage several ad networks. 

We’ll take a deeper look at your options in this section, as well as provide some guidance in evaluating what you should consider trying out, and who you should consider partnering with based on your game and your goals. 

Examine and evaluate the different monetization 3rd party solution providers 

Distinguish the differences between native and paid 3rd party IAP plugins

Investigate what to consider when selecting ad networks

Examine what to consider when measuring efficacy of analytics providers 

Reflect on the easiest ways to monetize a new game

Monetization Course Glossary.pdf

Key partner ecosystem

IAP Plugins

Ad Networks

Ad Mediators

Manual mediation

Automated mediation

Measuring efficacy of analytics providers

Analytics Providers Scenario: A hypercasual game with no in-game economy

Analytics Providers Scenario: A hypercasual game with players who play a few times and then stop

In this project, you will explore the how to identify the impact of monetization on player experience and various types of monetization you can consider for your game. You will also compare different types of revenue options, examine various monetization solution providers and consider how to select them.

Monetizing your game

About this course

Monetization and  User Acquisition foundations

Deeper Dive into User Acquisition

Organic Marketing Channels

Paid Marketing Channels

Implementing performance-driven paid user acquisition

 Creating your strategy

Refining and consolidating your strategy

Next steps

Test your user acquisition knowledge! 

Test your monetization knowledge!

Introduction to Monetization & User Acquisition (UA)

What is Monetization?

What is User Acquisition?

Reflect!

The advertising ecosystem - how it all works  

Traditional advertising and advertising networks

The roles you could play

The ethics of Monetization

Summary 

In this project, you will learn about the scope of the course and the fundamentals of monetization and user acquisition.

Welcome to the course

What are the primary types of user acquisition for mobile games?

Organic sources of user acquisition

Paid User Acquisition

Pricing models for paid user acquisition

Case Sudy: Awareness Campaign 

Measure your results- KPIs

 Measure your results: Campaign health metrics

Measure your results: User and revenue metrics

Balancing marketing efforts with gameplay

Ensure campaign foundation and utilize past data

 Budget and how to determine how much to spend

Get your creative going

Explore video creative tips

Include attribution 

Target your players!

Target your players:  Additional targeting

Target your players: Publisher-based targeting

Target your players: Advanced targeting tools

Campaign metrics: Key Performance Indicators


Campaign metrics: Health metrics

Campaign metrics: User and revenue metrics

Using metrics to evaluate your ads

In this project, you will explore user acquisition pricing models, organic and paid marketing channels, and how to create and implement a performance-driven paid UA.

Acquiring your users

Qualitative Monetization Research - Sample Interview Questionnaire.pdf

Monetization and UA Strategy Checklist.pdf

Preparing for monetization

 Plan your marketing strategy and brand identity

 Planning your measures of success 

Identifying what to test

Identifying measures for success

Testing your changes

Implementing your strategy

 Implementing your strategy: key monetization guidance

Implementing your strategy: key user acquisition guidance

Create an Implementation strategy checklist

Measuring your implementation's success

Separate your primary and secondary KPIs

 Iterating and refining

 Gathering data on your monetization 

Gathering quantitative data

Gathering qualitative data: Competitor analysis

Gathering qualitative data: User interviews

Interpreting the data

Interpreting the data: Monetization metrics

Interpreting the data: Gameplay metrics

Interpreting the data: Performance and technical stability stats

Refining your strategy

Explore a case study

Case study reflection

 Consolidate your understanding

In this project, you will explore different ways to test, implement and iterate your strategy, how to track your success, and how to maximize your monetization and user acquisition opportunities. You will also have the opportunity to take a quiz to test and apply your Monetization knowledge.

Strategizing for success

This course is an engine-agnostic introduction to monetizing your free-to-play mobile game. You don't need any previous experience of monetization or user acquisition to complete this course.

Explore the fundamentals of monetization and user acquisition

Identify the key components of an effective monetization and user acquisition strategy

Review real-world case studies and reflect on your own circumstances and experience

Identify next steps in your monetization journey

You'll also have the opportunity to learn from the insights of Unity monetization experts throughout the course.

2018.4

2018.3

Growing your mobile game

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Progressing players too quickly-.mp4

Retention numbers using ads and IAP.mp4

In the previous tutorial: Deeper Dive into Monetization you  identified the impact of monetization on player experience, types of monetization, considered the relationship between monetization and game design, explored a successful case study and reflected on when to start adding monetization to your game.

In this tutorial you’ll be exploring "Free-to-play" tactics.“Free-to-play” comes from what is commonly referred to as “Freemium” in business. It basically means offering a product or a service free of charge at a very basic level.

These are more engaging than any other online advertising format. With nearly 70% of users demonstrating favorable attitudes to rewarded video, they are a great example of generating revenue while giving your players clear incentives to participate in the process. 

Rewarded video ads typically prompt a user to agree to view a video ad in exchange for a reward which can be used within the game they are playing. 

The value of this exchange is clear to the player, but also provides significant value to both the developer serving the ad as well as the advertiser buying the ad. The developer gets to monetize at scale while the advertiser gets to promote their own application or product to a highly engaged user. 

According to a recent study by AdColony, 75% of respondents identified rewarded video ads among their most effective monetization methods, higher than any other method. 

The next type of advertising you will explore is Playable Ads.

These are ads that can actually be played directly within the ad unit. This is typically done by companies wanting to show a teaser version of their game as part of the ad, which may influence players to proceed to download the game. 

This is a growing ad format which more developers are allowing in their game because advertisers are willing to pay a premium for this engaging format, and have increased their capacity to create these formats for advertising.

The next type of advertising you will explore is Augmented Reality.

Augmented Reality (AR) ads present an unprecedented opportunity to connect with consumers. In-game AR ads provide consumers with the ability to have a truly interactive experience with the ad content. 

However, serving these ads can present some user friction that does not exist with other ad formats since apps need to request permission to access a camera. This may unsettle some users if they don’t fully understand why the app or ad placement is requesting access to their camera.

Unity’s in-game AR ad solution is called Responsive AR. 

Responsive AR ads give more control to the user, allowing them to choose to interact with richer content. With Responsive AR ads, marketing content begins as a 3D-rendered ad unit. After a brief period of familiarization, it gives users the option to enhance their experience by using AR. Since the ad is interactive no matter what the user chooses, advertisers can design with purpose and avoid using fallback creative.

Augmented Reality (AR) ads are a format which are in extremely high demand for brand advertisers and they are willing to pay a premium for the rich experience it provides their audience. 

AR ad placements are really just another content type and they can run wherever a video or interstitial ad would serve. 

Therefore, AR ads will compete against other placements to ensure they only serve if they drive the highest price. The same thought process and strategy should apply when implementing AR ads as they would for rewarded video, interstitial video, or playables. 

Does this placement make sense within the core loop of my game? Would a user want to engage with this ad to give them a reward and help them continue their game play rather than waiting 24 hours for a currency opportunity to reboot?

As previously mentioned in Monetization as game design , one of the most common mistakes game developers make is treating monetization as an afterthought. 

To succeed, in-app purchases need to be part of the game design so that they can be served at exactly the right moment. If you build your game with in-app purchases in mind, your users will be much more likely to buy them. 

Consider how players progress from one stage of the game to the next, and think about challenging, high-friction experiences as IAP opportunities but make sure you won't make it impossible for your players to progress unless money is spent. Also be careful to not progress your players too quickly in your game, and make sure you’re offering enough gameplay value to get them to return. 

There are three main types of IAPs. Games often offer a combination of the three, depending on the action you want the players to take throughout your game.

Consumables: These are IAPs that can be used only once, such as an extra life. For multiple uses, they can be purchased again.

Non-consumables: These are IAPs that can be purchased once and used again, such as an additional feature or a game upgrade.

Subscription: These are IAPs that provide features on an ongoing and renewable basis, such as new game levels.

Now that you have identified the three different types of IAPs, compare them and reflect on which one(s) you would like to use to help your players progress in your game. 

While you're deciding, you may wonder how you will know if you are progressing your players too soon. Meet the experts and hear what they say about this next! 

Would you like to hear more from an expert?

In the video below, watch Cathal and Illya, both Unity monetization experts, discuss: 

How can a developer know if they’re progressing their players too quickly in their game?


Once you have ads and IAP in place, you can begin to get more sophisticated in how you implement each method for different users at different stages of your game.

The key thing to recognize here is that the vast majority of your players will not make purchases within your game. This is because most games allow players to enjoy the majority of what a game has to offer without making purchases. If they didn’t, players would likely stop playing the game and the publisher of that game would have fewer opportunities to grow their business.

However, the players who do make in-app purchases are quite valuable. Therefore, analyzing your user data based on their history of making purchases in your game equips you to deliver smarter monetization. 

More specifically, it enables you to serve ads disproportionately to the users who do not make in-app purchases by excluding or reducing ad exposure to those who do, allowing you to monetize your non-payers while continuing to enhance gameplay and increase retention from your payers.

Whether you track behaviour through your internal data or through a third party, this starts with some mode of user segmentation. User segmentation is the process of grouping users based on their actions or characteristics so that you can deliver unique experiences suitable for each of them.

Various ad platforms and liveops providers, which you will explore in more detail in Monetization solution providers, have capabilities to ingest those segments and deliver custom content to each of them. 

Have ongoing customer segmentation between IAP purchasers and non-purchasers.

Behavior changes over time, so if you segment your purchasers from your non-purchasers once, you can’t necessarily assume those segments remain unchanged. Segments of just about any kind are dynamic, so having current views of those segments refreshed every month or quarter will be helpful in assuring you are delivering the right actions to the right people.

If you find that an ad placement seems to be increasing your player churn, before removing it to rely only on IAP, consider trying a different ad format in its place and re-evaluating the results.

If you are weighing two different strategies or tactics against one another and you are struggling to determine which has more revenue upside, the player experience should ultimately be your deciding factor. Players who enjoy their experience in your game are your true source of sustainable revenue.

Once your monetization pieces are in place, how do you know everything is working? 

The easiest way is just to keep track of the revenue coming in, but ultimately that doesn’t do much good over the long term if the monetization strategies in place are causing players to churn.  

Let's look at the five top reasons why players churn! Here are some tips on what to do in different scenarios:

Measuring revenue along with any peripheral metrics, such as player engagement and retention and time spent per session, will help you evaluate the overall health of your monetization efforts. You may be able to track this internally or with the aid of an analytics partner. 

You'll explore the analytics providers in more detail in Analytics Providers. In Creating your Monetization Strategy, you will also learn about how to create a Monetization strategic plan in more detail.

If you are at a stage where you can check everything is working well with your monetization efforts, take some time now to analyze your game's:

Opportunities to increase player engagement

With some many different ways to measure the success of your Monetization efforts, you may be wondering how ads and IAPs could potentially interfere with your retention numbers. Let's ask the experts to hear what they have to say about this!

In the video below, watch Cathal and Illya, both Unity monetization experts, discuss:

 1. Do ads and IAP interfere with retention numbers? 


In this tutorial, you compared different types of advertising, three types of In-app purchase, explored how to combine and balance ads and IAPs and how to measure the success of your monetization efforts. You also took some time to reflect on ways to measure your monetization efforts.

Free-to-play revenue tactics

1. Overview

2. Advertising: Rewarded video adverts

3. Advertising: Playables

4. Advertising: Augmented Reality

5. In-app purchases (IAPs)

6. Ask the experts!

7. Combining/balancing ads and IAP

8. Practical tips on combining and balancing ads and IAP

9. Measuring the success of your monetization efforts

10. Ask the experts!

11. Summary

Complete this tutorial