Paid Marketing Channels

1. Overview

In Organic Marketing Channels, you explored organic user acquisition channels, reviewed strategy examples and tips, and considered how to help prioritize channels that make sense for your game.

In this tutorial, you’ll explore paid marketing channels, with specific examples. You’ll also explore the ad ecosystem for advertisers and mobile measurement partners who measure attribution and holistic return on ad spend.

First, let’s start by considering social advertising.

• Explore types of paid user acquisition

• Explore the ad ecosystem

• Investigate what to consider when selecting ad networks and platforms

• Explore attribution and mobile measurement partners

2. Purchase social ads

Paid advertising on social media can be used both to generate awareness and meet performance campaign goals. In Implementing performance-driven paid UA, you will explore your campaign goals in more detail.

Social media ads are often strategically used in the early stages of marketing your game, because you can reach a broad audience and they require a smaller budget than some other forms of paid advertising.

Between Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter campaigns, you could reach over one billion people.

While there are many ways to get started with social ads, let’s consider an example.

A mid-core strategy game with broad-based appeal and a performance marketing goal, selected to run ads through Facebook and utilize the lowest cost bid strategy. The lowest cost bid strategy enables you to set a budget.The system will spend your budget over a set timeframe, while getting you the lowest possible cost per optimization event.

You can also leverage your targeting by selecting pre-existing audiences which match the kind of audience you would like to reach. These are called “look-a-like” audiences. This tactic enabled this example game to acquire users and generate a profit, which they measured by return on ad spend (ROAS).

3. Develop influencer partnerships

Another marketing channel that is on the rise is partnering with influencers to tap into their audience reach. A good example of a mobile game that used influencers to create content and grow is Bejeweled.

The popular iOS game used a combination of user-generated content, branded videos, and smart distribution to skyrocket their listing in the Apple app store. Working with influencers on Instagram, Bejeweled had people take pictures of themselves playing the game with the hashtag #shinyplace.

They created a branded video that showed people escaping their mundane routines by finding their “shiny place” with the game.

This campaign did two smart things:

• It leveraged Instagram, one of the most popular mobile apps, to reach mobile users. This allowed them to spend their money wisely, because their goal of driving mobile app installs was easier to achieve when coming from another mobile app.

• The campaign was enhanced by using targeted influencers, to give their campaign the social proof they needed to drive signups.

This campaign resulted in the app going from 454th place to the 335th on the app store ranking.

4. Utilize in-app Ads

Advertising in mobile apps, especially games, is a great way to reach a broad but targeted audience.

Games are consistently the most downloaded type of app. By advertising within game apps, you can reach a massive amount of people that are already interested in games.

According to a March 2019 survey from mobile ad and app monetization company Tapjoy, 69% of US consumers said they would rather give up social media apps or TV than lose their favorite mobile games. Members of this dedicated gaming cohort are important because they're paying attention to (and may even appreciate) the in-game ads they receive.

An example of this is a rewarded video ad, where a player watches an ad to get a reward that will help them in the game. This strategy works so well because the player wants that reward, so they’re willing to watch an ad in exchange.

Advertising within other games can also be powerful when the context is highly relevant to potential users. If you have an RPG game, and want to drive users that are interested in RPG games, then advertising within another RPG game makes a lot of sense. Several ad networks, exchanges, and social platforms focus on in-app advertising.

5. In-app advertising partner ecosystem

The ecosystem of in-app advertising solutions is large and sometimes daunting, but there is no reason to be overwhelmed by it. This section will help you navigate this ecosystem and make decisions about what types of in-app advertising partners you should test based on your game’s and your organization’s unique needs.

There are a variety of solutions available for your advertising needs, including:

• Ad platforms and networks

• Demand-side platforms

• Third party measurement

In this tutorial, you’ll explore some of the major ones.

It’s common practice to test out multiple ad solutions, as the different partners offer a variety of features and products to help you acquire users. Budget and resources depending, you might find that you use a few different ad partners at the same time. This is fine and even recommended, just remember to continually evaluate your campaigns and ensure they fulfill your specific goals. You should also take note of the dedicated resources that are available, to fully leverage the benefits of each partner.

6. Ad Networks and platforms

You explored ad networks in the key partner ecosystem. In this tutorial, you'll focus on ad networks from the advertiser perspective.

The mobile ad ecosystem has become increasingly complex. Different networks and ad platforms having different targeting capabilities and algorithms, as well as access to different sets of publishers. Some networks may have specialized reach in certain regions, while some are global.

All have different ways of valuing what an ad is worth at a specific time, in a specific place, for a specific user. For these reasons, many advertisers choose to experiment with three to five reputable ad networks. Ultimately the goal is to find valuable users at a cost that is beneficial for the advertiser, but as networks have different tools, targeting capabilities, campaign management, and creative capabilities it’s helpful to experiment and see what works best for you.

Let’s look at what to consider when selecting an ad network to try!

7. What to consider when selecting an ad network

Reach

Get a sense of how much access you will have to apps where your ads can be served. This will help you evaluate if there are enough apps and users for you to get your message across. Ensuring significant scale, means you have a chance of reaching users who are valuable to you and will take action by downloading your app or game.

Networks typically have some statistical measure of this which they are willing to disclose

Gaming vs non-gaming

Some ad networks specialize in gaming. This may give them unique access and insights into both the gamers who will respond well to ads, and the gaming advertisers who can deliver the most value to you as a publisher. This doesn’t necessarily mean you should only use gaming-specific ad networks, as some non-gaming-specific networks have huge reach which is also of value, but it’s something to keep in mind as you are experimenting with different networks.

Ultimately, the ability to acquire valuable users at the right price is what matters, so testing both gaming-specific and non-gaming-specific networks can give you a sense of whether the specialization or broad reach delivers more value for you over time.

Targeting, Campaign Management, Ad Formats, Reporting

Different ad networks support different ad formats, offer different targeting tools, campaign management and reporting. And, the cost to test out and try different networks is relatively low. One cost that you may incur is around needing additional creative/ad formats, as well as attribution.

8. Mobile measurement partners and attribution

Mobile attribution is the process of tracking where users learn of your app and connecting them to key actions in their journey towards becoming customers.

The two major players in mobile apps, Apple and Google, enforce an information gap between what users see before deciding to install your app and who actually installs your app. Mobile attribution is the bridge over that gap.

Advertising partners often require you to utilize attribution so you can attribute installs to their ad campaigns and ensure the payment loop is successfully completed. For example, let’s say you see an ad campaign for Awesome Game through Unity and then you decide to click and install. The attribution provider will register that you clicked on the ad served from Unity and close the loop of where that install came from. Unity can then mark that they drove that install, and charge you based on the cost per install (CPI) that is set.

Setting up attribution is also crucial to truly being able to understand your return on advertising spend or ROAS, inclusive of revenue share to the app stores, ad revenue, and in-app purchase revenue.

What solutions are available?

There are various third party attribution solutions available and supported by ad platforms.

Adjust is the first mobile measurement provider to join Unity’s Verified Solutions program. Other major and supported attribution partners on Unity’s platform include Appsflyer, Kochava, Singular, Tenjin, and Branch. Would you like to know more about return on advertising spend? Let’s ask the experts!

9. Ask the experts!

Would you like to hear more from an expert?

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

1. What are the easiest and cost effective ways to drive people to our games?

10. Summary

In this tutorial, you have:

• Explored types of paid user acquisition

• Explored the ad ecosystem as it relates to advertising

• Investigated what to consider when selecting ad networks and platforms

• Learned about mobile measurement partners

In the next tutorial you’ll:

• Determine UA campaign objectives using past data

• Budget and determine how much to spend

• Get your creative going

• Target your players

• Explore how you can achieve your KPIs using campaign metrics

• Consolidate your UA knowledge by taking a Quiz