Without a doubt, we are in the golden age of mobile games. In the last few years, the industry of mobile games has become the biggest vertical in every key metric of mobile user acquisition. The gaming app business is booming, and mobile games constitute a quarter of all iOS App Store apps. For this reason, it is crucial to understand what it takes to create a successful mobile games industry: new downloads have skyrocketed in 2022, and that’s why we must pay attention to this sector and its role in mobile user acquisition.
1. The role of mobile games
When you need to strategy a gaming app marketing, you must take into consideration all the key trends developed during the years, such as the impact of iOS 14 on mobile games, the strategies needed for the mobile user acquisition strategy, as well as the best creatives for players. In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about marketing a gaming app to obtain more users.
The demand for mobile games significantly increased after the 2020 pandemic, with hyper-casual games leading the way. Mobile game marketing takes many forms, and its common goal is increasing installs and players' spending. To achieve this objective, mobile game marketers must focus on user acquisition, ensuring the engagement of users as well as a higher LTV. That’s why the first thing every marketer needs to do is understand his audience, which usually is an increasingly diverse group.
2. Games category in gaming app marketing
The last trends showed that the evolution of the gaming market was essentially based on hyper-casual games. This game category is reshaping the future of mobile games, thus they are constituted by all those free-to-play apps with simple mechanics, and involve a simple design. That’s why hyper-casual games are easy to play but they can also be quite addictive. The typical characteristic of this category of games is that they monetise almost exclusively through in-app ads. Therefore, their user acquisition strategy focuses on acquiring huge volumes of new users, who will thus be exposed to ads.
However, casual games are also very common in the trends, whereas it has high percentages of mobile games downloads. These games are characterized by a mass-market audience, and they also involve very simple rules and design. Hyper-casual puzzle games are also acquiring a high revenue, thus they test problem-solving skills which can also include the participation of other players.
Both hyper-casual and casual games are extremely popular for their simplicity and their capacity of boosting web traffic, increasing their ROI and receiving the highest downloads in the last couple of years.
3. User acquisition in mobile games
As a marketer, you need to increase the user acquisition of your mobile game to drive installs and generate revenue. Optimizing your app will help make monetisation through in-app ads and/or in-app purchases easier. The secret is acquiring engaged and high-value players to face the competition in the mobile games market.
In this article, we have outlined three key tips to follow for the optimization of your paid user acquisition:
- Finding the target audience for the market of your gaming app
Every effective mobile user acquisition strategy should identify your target audience to create effective communication with them through paid user acquisition activities. You should also remain informed to adopt the perfect mobile user acquisition strategy, considering that the most suitable audience for video games includes only certain age groups, whether it includes people who typically use other app categories or only users of mobile games. These characteristics can all be implemented in the targeting of an app install campaign.
- Know your KPIs and metrics
Every marketer must properly track the metrics and KPIs of its mobile games. Since the mobile games industry is based on volumes, the first important metric is installs, which you can achieve through a large user base. Post-install events are also important, while LTV and ARPU are useful metrics to follow if you want to assess the quality of your users and the increase of your revenue. ARPU and LTV, as well as ROI and ROAS Day-0 and Day-7 are among the KPIs most frequently monitored by game developers.
- Creatives and paid user acquisition
You can also adopt some specific creatives that will help you gain more users. Since they are the first thing a user sees, every marketer must choose the right creative for its gaming app. Playable ads are the most popular creatives as they provide users with a preview of the game.The practice of creative A/B testing is also fundamental because it involves running two different campaigns simultaneously while comparing the results in order to understand which one performs better in a mobile app campaign. Otherwise, you can also adopt a creative rotation to rotate different ads within an ad group to not show the same creative for an extended period of time.
The mobile games industry has significantly boosted its downloads in the last few years, but if you want to keep your app growing, you have to create an effective mobile user acquisition strategy that goes beyond just installs. Following the three key points suggested in the article is the best solution to get the best of your game.
