Blog Article
September 15, 2021
The global mobile game market is skyrocketing, so choosing the right marketing strategy is more important than ever.
Since the popularity of mobile gaming surged during the pandemic, mobile game marketers have been faced with an increasingly crowded marketplace and cutthroat competition. After climbing to over half of total gaming revenue worldwide in 2020, mobile games are expected to pass the $100 billion mark by 2023. In that industry climate, mobile studios are under pressure to develop the most effective mobile game marketing strategies possible, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. It’s important to select the right mobile game marketing strategies that work for your business and are aligned with the specific nature of your game.
In this article, we’ll explore five of the most promising mobile game marketing strategies that mobile studios can employ to win big.
Ready to explore the data behind the trends? Check out our report on post-IDFA mobile game advertising costs.
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One of the most fundamental mobile game marketing strategies is to lay the groundwork for growth. Although most strategies are designed to attract and acquire new users, it won’t matter how many potential users discover your mobile game if they don’t convert into players. As the decision points for potential purchasers, your app store listings and even your website deserve extra attention. Furthermore, those digital touchpoints are the foundation of word-of-mouth growth, so marketers should optimize those free channels first.
Here are two primary ways to optimize your mobile game for conversions:
Perfecting the allocation of your budget across multiple channels is another important mobile game marketing strategy. The most significant chunk of most marketing budgets is spent on digital advertising (13.5%, according to a Statista report), but distributing that budget effectively across the various channels available to marketers today is a delicate balancing act. Here are a few channel distribution questions to consider when developing your mobile game marketing strategy:
The increased potential for success that experimentation and test campaigns offer also introduces greater risk. That’s why it’s a good idea to work with a partner like Moloco’s team of mobile experts. We’ll guide you through our vast programmatic ecosystem, proprietary RTB technology, and more. Get in touch to get started!
As tech platforms move to protect users’ privacy, many of the tools marketers have relied on in the past are no longer viable. In a world without IDFA, mobile game marketing strategies will need to leverage contextual targeting practices to compensate for the disappearance of user-specific identifiers. Contextual targeting actually pre-dates the user-level strategies that have become dominant in recent years. As a strategy, contextual targeting is focused on relevant ad placements without detailed user-level knowledge of the person who will eventually view the ad.
The name gives away the key tenet of the strategy: deliberately selecting the context in which your ad will appear. In the pre-internet days when broadcast advertising reigned, a company selling a backyard grill might choose to advertise either during cooking shows or during sporting events. For mobile game marketers, contextual targeting might be as simple as matching advertisements for a puzzle game within other puzzle games or placing a makeover-themed game ad on a beauty brand’s website. According to a Global Industry Analysts study, the global contextual advertising market is expected to surpass the $335 billion mark by 2026.
When it comes to marketing mobile games, certain ad formats are more effective than others. At the same time, innovative new ads are cropping up to better serve consumers’ constantly evolving mobile gaming habits. While traditional ad formats offer the security of tried and true options, some of the best-performing formats for mobile games in particular fall into the innovation category:
Dig deeper into mobile game marketing and promotion strategies with The Complete Guide to Mobile Game Marketing.
Tracking your progress is an essential mobile game marketing strategy, since understanding your results will allow you to iterate and improve your approach in the long run. Make sure to set metrics that are aligned with your specific goals, and track those key performance indicators at regular intervals throughout the process. Some popular mobile game marketing KPIs include:
Want to know how your advertising efforts measure up? Check out our advertising benchmark report for casual games.
At Moloco, we help mobile studios and app developers acquire new users and increase their revenue through fully optimized campaigns powered by our proprietary machine learning algorithms. With Moloco as your partner, quality user targeting, ROAS-based campaign optimization, and sustainable growth are all within your reach. To learn more about how Moloco can help you succeed with your mobile game marketing strategy, contact us today.
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