The case for mobile gaming apps and video advertising
Gamers are no longer a niche audience. It’s time for brands to include mobile gaming apps in their video advertising strategy.
5 strategies to enhance user ad experience: A guide for gaming publishers
Craft effective ad experiences in games by tailoring ads based on user demographics, preferences, and behavior to enhance engagement.
Game on for the gaming sector: Winning with data
KEY TAKEAWAY: While the gaming sector has lost some of its pizazz, it cannot be overlooked as a source of growth and opportunity. I wish I had a title like “Entrepreneur in Residence.” I wish I could channel my teenage son’s desire to get paid for playing and knowing about the world of video games. AND, I wish I could have the futuristic foresight like Clara Markovich does. Alas, there’s no genie in a bottle granting me three wishes, but Clara is as close to a “trend capturer” that Verve has. And she wants to make sure marketers don’t forget about the gaming sector as a source of opportunity and insight as to where the next wave of growth may take place. Clara had a chance to sit down with #AVA and me to talk about the obvious and not-so-obvious ways that gaming can benefit clients across the Verve ecosystem. She started by talking about our parent company’s origins and why they matter more than ever. “With our parent company being Media and Games Invest (MGI), you would have to think that our company invests in media companies and gaming companies. In business and in life, media and games naturally go together,” Clara said. “While these units operate independently, we always look for opportunities to collaborate. For instance, MGI brought together a CTV re-engagement/user acquisition campaign with a gamigo group game. It is but one way we connected the dots. We believe there are more opportunities like that on the horizon.” Games People Play (for Money) Clara may be on to something, especially when looking at the number of ad tech conglomerates adding gaming studios to their portfolios (e.g., Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard). Verve’s sister company, gamigo group, has more than 500 games across mobile, PC and the web. This means we can hear and learn from gamers’ pain points about advertising more closely. For example, we can better understand the consumer and user journey thanks to data intelligence within the apps. We can also identify and discover consumers more efficiently. These direct insights help Verve solve problems that benefit all gaming publishers across our stack — and potentially other publishers who may face similar situations. “The most important thing to be mindful of when looking at the gaming sector is tapping into the data possibilities stemming from owned and operated games,” Clara noted. “In an ideal world, we can utilize and enhance all the pain points our gaming unit has through data, and at the same time have the capability of creating new gaming audiences that our clients can benefit from.” Publishers and brands alike should tap into Verve’s gaming expertise to find some “extra plays” in the form of new revenue sources. Reach out to your Client Partner Manager to learn more about how gaming can help you grow your business.
User acquisition on CTV for games and apps: What marketers need to know in 2023
Game and app marketers are looking at connected TV now for performance, but there is a lot of confusion in the market about CTV’s role. How can apps and games tap into this high-attention, high-viewability channel? How will it fit into their marketing mix? What are the challenges and potential solutions? Verve’s CTV performance team experts share our latest discoveries about this exciting new approach to user acquisition. Definitions: Linear TV vs. CTV vs. OTT Because CTV is a new performance channel for mobile apps and games, some marketers need help understanding the terminology. Let’s set the context from the start: Linear TV is traditional broadcast television with scheduled programming. Ads are served during predefined commercial breaks and sold in advance, usually as part of a bigger campaign. CTV (Connected TV) refers to internet-connected devices used for streaming video content, such as smart TVs, streaming boxes (e.g., Roku, Apple TV) or gaming consoles. CTV provides personalized, on-demand viewing without traditional commercial breaks. CTV allows for programmatic ad buys. OTT (Over-The-Top) is internet-based video content delivery, bypassing traditional TV providers. It includes services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video, accessible on CTV devices, smartphones, and more. OTT provides on-demand content with subscription or ad-supported models, revolutionizing TV consumption. CTV is a subcategory of OTT. Why use CTV for performance marketing now? For a marketer looking to drive installs, turning to CTV for performance just makes sense: buyers’ attention is shifting from traditional linear TV toward connected TV. As of last year, 92% of US households are reachable on CTV. Data from 2023 shows that 42% of game discovery can be attributed to streaming ads. Marketers should always follow the consumers. Consumer attention is shifting more and more from traditional TV to connected TV and on-demand streaming. The rapid growth of FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV), SVOD (subscription video on demand), and AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) makes this transition much easier, even eating up some attention from the UGC (user-generated content) on social media. Alexei MoltchanDirector of Product Management and Innovation, Verve While TV has been primarily a brand channel for publishers, CTV’s advantages make it a compelling option in the mobile marketing mix as a performance channel. Leveraging CTV in campaigns isn’t restricted to big brands with hefty marketing budgets like is often true for linear TV. Although CPMs from CTV are comparable to those of traditional TV, the impression quality often exceeds that of traditional TV CPMs. How does CTV fit into the mobile or gaming marketing mix? There are strong signals in the market of CTV being a channel for driving incrementality and working as an amplifier for other channels. Rather than driving direct installs, connected TV has proven as a powerful tool to move users down the funnel where they convert via other channels, as evidenced by the MMP Adjust. Big screens with no skip option are expected to eventually lead to high impact. Now that it can be measured, we have a chance to evaluate CTV’s efficiency within the full funnel. Clara MarkovichEntrepreneur in Residence, Verve Isolating CTV from other channels and relying on last-touch attribution would be misleading because (so far) the ads are not clickable, and the advertiser has limited control over which channel is the last one to contribute to that install. Measurement and attribution Major MMPs are recognizing the market’s need to measure CTV performance for gaming and app user acquisition, and are moving forward with a solid roadmap of CTV measurement features, although at a different pace. User journeys come in so many shapes and sizes. Here are just a few common examples: An easy scenario with a QR code in a CTV ad, which works as a direct link to app store CTV ad seen, user searches on app store, which results in an install which according to last touch gets attributed to organic CTV ad followed up with a banner ad on mobile, which becomes the last touch This all brings us back to the fact that the only correct approach to measuring CTV performance is looking at it from the full-funnel perspective. Advertisers and vendors turn to look at custom signals and report on assisted installs, measuring incrementality and even MMM (media mix modeling). We recommend that advertisers analyze their existing install data attributed to specific channels — before launching a CTV campaign. This lets them compare and measure the uplift caused by CTV-driven assists and installs later. It is particularly important to note that not all MMPs have the capability to present assists from a full-funnel perspective. Brayan van BronckhorstSenior Solutions Consultant, Verve Simply ignoring the channel due to the measurement complexity might be a choice for new apps and games that haven’t seen enough growth via other channels yet. However, other channels gain traction and establish benchmarks, boosting the media mix with CTV can lead to more performance. How are measurement platforms supporting CTV measurement? Verve has tested most CTV-supporting MMPs while running campaigns for our partners. At this point we are able to advise on the best MMP options for CTV and are working closely with advertisers and MMPs of their choice to ensure the best possible quality of measurement. AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular, Kochava, and Branch are all offering certain functionality to support their publisher partners in exploring the new channel, even though not all MMPs are created equal. In terms of features and pricing, Adjust now offers a CTV-specific dashboard as an add-on solution. Other notable measurement tools are the ones providing incrementality measurement (ex. INCRMNTAL) and media mix modeling (ex. MetricWorks). Creative is key: best practices for CTV ad creative The ad needs to be next-level compelling in order for the user to take action. Best practices: Unsure whether to invest more in CTV? Start by with adjusting existing creatives but keep in mind it may happen that web creatives will not perform the same way on CTV. Make the ad entertaining – after all, this is what…
The games people play create opportunities
When I was growing up, I wanted to always play video games. I didn’t care where I played, when I was able to play them. I didn’t care if it was on a mobile phone or a game console. I didn’t care if the game was about sports, cars, words or me being able to channel my inner action hero. I loved the thrill and action of games. Now, I am a few years older. I still love my games, but I love them for a lot more reasons. Sure, I have the tendency to kick my imaginary sports car into fourth gear and drive throughout busy streets, but I am also more cognizant and aware of the data that comes with me playing games. Within the ad-tech community, gaming studios are hot commodities. Not only do they possess strong technical developers and compelling content, they are the newest treasure troves of data that ad-tech loves to connect with. Verve and its parent company, MGI, are no exceptions. MGI recently announced it acquired AxesInMotion, a fast-growing and leading free-to-play mobile games developer (here is the news release that MGI shared announcing the acquisition). The Verve team is excited about the opportunities to work with and learn from the AxesInMotion team for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is learning from them how they use data acquired by customers to create better gaming experiences. But this means so much more to us than just data, and importantly, we want to help AxesInMotion benefit from this new association. The AxesInMotion team will benefit from having the ability to broaden its tech stack. Verve and MGI are in an ideal marketplace position to help empower smaller media companies to build up their tech stack. We encourage you to learn more about AxesInMotion. We also encourage you to take some time away from work and to download a game or two. I can’t wait to hear stories from people sharing their inner action hero stories like mine.
