5 strategies to enhance user ad experience: A guide for gaming publishers
Reality check: gamers prefer minimal interruptions from ads while playing. There’s good news for gaming publishers: advancements in ad tech can address monetization challenges and enhance the overall user experience for players — all while running ads. Understanding user demographics, preferences, and behavior means that we can better tailor ad strategies to enhance engagement while ensuring ads remain effective. Let’s review key strategies to improve the ad experience for users while maintaining performance for publishers. Know your user: understanding demographics and preferences To craft effective ad experiences, it’s crucial to know your audience and understand what influences their behavior. Factors such as age, gender, location, and economic climate play significant roles in shaping user attitudes towards ads. The latest data from eMarketer shows that the age and gender composition of gamers is shifting significantly. More diverse age of users as well as parsed residence is pushing developers to be more sophisticated in the choice of ad creatives, ad placement, and ad frequency to match their preferences. 74% of non-paying users from younger generations and Tier 2/Tier 3 countries mainly enjoy ads with reasonable frequency capping — and even tend to make more purchases from the brands advertised. However, engagement and retention of older generations in the same scenario could decrease dramatically; this demographic group tends not to tolerate too many ads. Another notable demographic shift is geography, with Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries emerging as significant players. Mobile gamers are booming across MENA (Turkey, Saudi Arabia), APAC (India, Thailand, China), and EMEA (Nigeria, South Africa), with 92% of them gaming every day. Tailor your ad formats and placements Different game types demand tailored ad approaches. Hyper-casual and casual mobile games thrive on a mix of ad formats, including banners, interstitials, and rewarded videos. Mid-core and hard-core PC/console and mobile games tend to focus more on less intrusive ad options like rewarded or in-game ads that appear less frequently. Gaming publishers can consider testing banners, but they should be less represented than other formats. Issues with clickability of in-game ads can be balanced there by ad revenues coming from rewarded and banner ads. According to an IAS report, today more than 60% of users are open to non-disruptive ads that are related to the content of the game. Enhance engagement across channels: the omnichannel approach Big opportunities lay ahead for ad monetization activities, including: Preferred deals can bring higher eCPMs and better fill as well as secure ad quality. As games begin to reach bigger screen sizes such as smart TVs, preferred deals could have a significant impact on facilitating this transition. With users engaging across multiple devices, adopting an omnichannel approach can significantly boost engagement and ad performance. 72% of console or PC gamers play on more than one platform. Diversifying ad formats based on device usage can further enhance user engagement. Use what you have: first-party data for behavioral and contextual targeting Publishers can deliver more relevant ads to their audiences by using first-party data for behavioral and contextual targeting. For addressing the ID-less and cookieless world, leveraging first-party data is one of the essential strategies for marketers and publishers alike. In-gaming publishers can use behavioral information — such as in-app actions, time of day, purchase history — to tailor ad experiences within the app. According to eMarketer, 61% of gamers in the US mentioned that they prefer to see ads that are related to the content of the game the are playing. Advanced targeting options such as geo-fencing and contextual ad technology can also enhance ad relevance and effectiveness. Apple’s ATT and the end of device fingerprinting challenge user identification and advertising/monetization in general. Users have become more sensitive and demanding when it comes to ad content. For the foreseeable future, exploring contextual solutions and UIs, as well as education about more effective use of first-party data, will likely be inevitable. Embrace flexibility and testing Maintaining open communication and transparency among publishers, ad networks, and demand partners is essential for optimizing ad strategies. From the SSP perspective, we’re really honing in on empowering our publishers and demand partners with greater control, all the while prioritizing user experience. Here’s the breakdown: developers and publishers get to manage the general settings, while demand partners and advertisers focus on bidding for inventory that aligns best with their campaign objectives. And you know what? It never hurts to explore new ad units, integrations, and buying models for publishers and developers. We’re all about sharing insights and best practices, paving the way for improved revenues without sacrificing user retention and engagement. Embracing a culture of testing allows for continuous refinement of ad formats, placements, and buying models to adapt to evolving user behaviors. 85% of gamers confirm that the most user-engaging formats remain interstitial and rewarded video. Putting it all together If you’re a gaming publisher, you’re probably already using one of the strategies (at least) we’ve just discussed. But more is more, and it’s worth exploring how to implement all five of these strategies holistically. With all five working together, publishers can create ad experiences that are not only engaging but also respectful of user preferences. It’s a win-win that ultimately leads to improved performance and user satisfaction.
Top 3 takeaways for app marketers from Apple WWDC 2023
Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this year had no shortage of talking points. Apple made a big splash by unveiling a major new product, Vision Pro. But Apple WWDC is about more than headline-grabbing reveals: it’s an incredibly important peek into software updates in iOS, MacOS, and other platforms. Those of us in the app ad-tech space eagerly tuned into WWDC 2023 hoping for updates and insights relating to privacy and tracking. Over at Dataseat (part of Verve), we delve into WWDC’s three most relevant announcements for app marketers, what you most need to know about them, and how we expect these changes to impact app advertising campaigns, both today and in the future. Here’s a sneak peek into our deep dive of Apple WWDC 2023 for app marketers. What we know about Privacy Manifests (so far) Privacy Manifests are here! Apple defines Privacy Manifests as “a property list that records the types of data collected by your app or third-party SDK, and the uses of the collected data.” According to Apple, “We’re introducing new privacy manifests — files that outline the privacy practices of the third-party code in an app, in a single standard format. When developers prepare to distribute their app, Xcode will combine the privacy manifests across all the third-party SDKs that a developer is using into a single, easy-to-use report.” The new Privacy Manifests feature is Apple’s answer to a big problem. Privacy Manifests aim to end user profiling and fingerprinting in early 2024. While App Tracking Transparency (ATT) has succeeded in blocking device ID-based tracking, Apple hasn’t yet rolled out a solution to prevent tracking via probabilistic methods (profiling and fingerprinting) – until now. To find out what platforms and SDKs will be impacted, head over to Dataseat. Coming Soon: SKAdNetwork 5.0 and re-engagement metrics Speaking of SKAN, Apple teased a fifth iteration of SKAdNetwork (SKAN) in its Platforms State of the Union. SKAdNetwork 5.0 is due sometime “later this year” in coordination with a new iOS version, though Apple wasn’t more specific. An exciting update for app marketers is Apple’s hint that SKAN 5.0 will support measuring re-engagement. iOS app developers can soon leverage Private Relay For iCloud+ subscribers who opt in, Private Relay helps protect users’ privacy by obscuring IP addresses. What’s new? App developers can soon reap the benefits of Private Relay in their apps. Like Privacy Manifests, implementing Private Relay will make it harder to create user profiles and track users through their IP addresses. However, because Private Relay is an optional feature for users, many apps that rely on fingerprinting aren’t likely to pursue it. Comparatively, the impact of increased access to Private Relay is expected to be less significant than that of Privacy Manifests. What should app marketers do now that Apple WWDC 2023 is over? For us, the implications of these three takeaways from WWDC 2023 mean a shift in priorities: There’s never been a better time for marketing teams to transition to using SKAN 4.0. SKAdNetwork 4 is increasingly available in traffic, and SKAdNetwork 5 is approaching quickly. Dataseat’s expertise in SKAN, contextual targeting, and mobile marketing helps app developers and marketers acquire new users, monetize, and engage. Interested in learning more? The Dataseat team is here to help.
