In the last couple of years, hyper casual games have seen their fair share of ups and downs. After their boom during the pandemic, they declined in downloads in 2022. Despite this, the hyper casual mobile games market was valued at around USD 16.66 billion according to Market Reports World, leaving room for growth in future years.
But what are hyper casual games? And what KPIs matter to measure their success? Let’s find out!
Hyper casual mobile games combine hyper-simplicity with the instantly-playable variable, making users log in more times a day for a short amount of time. Add in the fact that most of them are playable offline and it is easy to see how hyper casual games can become addictive.
Because of these intrinsic characteristics, paying users are hard to acquire for hyper casual games, making them rely almost exclusively on ads to make a profit. Here’s a list of the more commonly used ones:
- Banner ads. Despite being less employed in larger games in recent years, banner ads remain a significant source of income for hyper casual games, generating brand-awareness.
- Rewarded videos. Users click willingly on rewarded videos, unskippable ads that provide the user with an in-app bonus at the end of the ad. Users are increasingly motivated to watch the ad with increasing and highly-rewarding rewards. Along with interstitials, these are the type of ads that will generate the greatest ROAS for your hyper casual mobile games.
- Interstitials. Interstitial ads are typically displayed at natural transition points in the host app and cover the whole interface. When they show up, users can either tap on them and be redirected to the app store, or close them and return to their hyper casual games.
Nevertheless, a smaller percentage of time and effort needs to be invested in in-app purchase (IAPs) as well. IAPs can in fact be inserted into the game as a way for users to get a bonus, without them being a requirement for continuing to play the game.
To measure the revenue generation of your hyper casual games, certain monetization KPIs need to be taken into account.
- Average revenue per user (ARPU). Hyper casual mobile games require ARPU to be measured at the Day 0, First 24-hour, Day 3 and Day 7 landmarks. For hybrid-casual games Day 30 and Day 180 ARPU represent important metrics as well.
- Ad revenue. Ad revenue is the income you earn for showing advertisements for others on your hyper casual games.
- Ad type distribution. Ad type distribution helps you understand which kind of ads work better for your game, based on their performance levels.
- ROI. Return on investment it’s a metric used to compare the total of money invested in a venture versus the total of earnings gained from it, measuring the profitability of your budgetary decisions.
- Retention rate. Retention rate (RR) is the percentage of users that remain engaged with your hyper casual mobile games over a period of time.
- Ad impressions per user. Ad impressions per user represents an average of the number of ads shown per user, divided by ad category.
App success is also strictly related to that of your hyper casual games’ user acquisition campaigns. To track campaign success we have access to a series of acquisition KPIs:
- Impressions. Impressions are the number of times your content was displayed on a user's screen.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a percentage that shows the number of clicks your ad received, divided by the number of times it was shown to users.
- Cost per Install (CPI). The pre-established price paid by the advertiser once an user installs their app
- Installs. The number of users who install your hyper-casual mobile games after clicking on an ad.
- Conversion Rate (CVR). The conversion rate is calculated by dividing conversions (which are desired actions that have been completed) by the total of the users.
We’ve seen how measurement of KPIs keeps you aware of your hyper casual mobile games’ success, but how can you reach the set KPIs and get a positive ROI in your user acquisition campaigns?
Let’s take a look into the most effective user acquisition strategies.
- Optimization of creatives. An effective creative strategy is the ultimate power-move for your game, since hyper casual games need ads to be short and captivating to appeal to users. The visuals of your ads could also draw color associations from real life to help potential new users understand the mechanics of your game.
- ASO. App Store Optimization helps your game get noticed in the app store, making it rank higher and therefore catching users’ attention and interest. Selecting the right keywords and category is paramount to improving ASO for your hyper casual mobile games.
- Programmatic UA. Programmatic user acquisition campaigns help hyper casual games by buying traffic from ad exchanges. Such campaigns can be run through platforms such as DSPs or Google and Meta. Demand-side platforms allow marketers to track their app’s performance in a highly automated way, saving them valuable time that can then be invested elsewhere. Here at Mapendo we are a fully managed DSP that takes care of your user acquisition campaigns for you, from testing to optimizing and scaling, thanks to real-time data analysis.
In short, hyper casual mobile games require your attention when it comes to tracking KPIs at the acquisition, retention and monetization level.
In this article we've listed some of the more important metrics to be taken into consideration so that your app doesn’t get lost in this highly competitive market. If you want to learn more and improve your hyper casual mobile games’ ROAS, don’t be afraid to contact us!
