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What apps can learn from mobile games in order to scale their UA. Here, Sandra Schneider will discuss mobile games’ growth loop and provide key takeaways for all apps, from both the user acquisition and monetization side, that work together to support a flywheel of growth.

I’m Sandra Schneider. I’m the Senior Director leading growth partnerships for apps here at Unity. I’m very excited to be today’s guest on the Mobile Spotlight segment of the Mobile User Acquisition Show. 

In recent years, many apps, which were traditionally built on a premium subscription model or monetized through interstitials, native and banner ads, have been incorporating elements from the gaming playbook on User Acquisition and monetization. In today’s episode, I want to go into detail on what apps can learn from Mobile Games. 

I’m going to give you 3 strategies from mobile games that you can adopt for apps that I hope will give you some inspiration for your own UA. 

#1 Diversify your channels

So on the marketing side, many apps stick to the standard channel mix of social and search. And that’s great. But I think that there is definitely a lot of upside in diversifying the mix more. For example, one of the main channels for mobile game advertisers are SDK networks.

Some ad experiences inside apps via SDK networks are unique in that they’re initiated by the user. The user chooses to watch a rewarded video, for example, in exchange for getting an in-app reward. This value exchange is unlike any other ad experience and creates a win-win situation for every stakeholder involved: it brings benefit to the user who gets their reward, the app publisher who keeps their user engaged and playing for longer, and the advertiser who benefited from someone actively choosing to view their ad vs being interrupted by it.  SDK networks give app marketers access to a new and diverse pool of users they can reach through high-quality and positive ad experiences. 

One of the challenges with SDK networks and other channels outside of the classic social/search channels is that on the surface, they seemingly require a lot more work to optimize campaigns and analyze the data. If social channels are like “the black boxes of user acquisition” where the marketing team needs to trust the algorithm, SDK networks give a lot more freedom and transparency for optimization. Yet this requires the skills and know-how to make it happen. However, this shouldn’t be cause for concern. Some of the SDK networks, like the ironSource and Unity networks, offer automated products that help with optimization. These basically do the manual work of optimizing the CPI/CPA per each source according to the quality of users that you get. 

There are also on-device ads which connect app advertisers with device owners through partnerships with premium manufacturers and carriers at moments when the device owners are highly engaged. 

To sum up this tip, diversify your UA channels, specifically to SDK networks, and look for partners whose technology will allow you to automate as many processes as possible.

#2: Upgrade your creative strategy

My next tip is to upgrade your creative strategy. We’re living in a time when UA is heavily automated. Yes, if everyone is benefiting from the same algorithm and optimizations, there are fewer levers available to differentiate, and you certainly don’t want to get caught just increasing your bids to stay competitive. Creatives are one of the ways marketers can get an edge on their campaigns. According to our data at Unity, the number of creatives tested per month for many of the larger mobile games can reach into the hundreds. 

In mobile gaming we talk about having winning creatives – which is that one (or two or three) creative that over-performs again and again. Finding that creative is key, but it is also very hard to find the needle in the haystack. That is why game developers prioritize the speed of creative production and testing. There are several solutions out there that do just that – they allow for fast and efficient production and testing cycles. 

In summary, use tools that speed up creative production, and automate creative testing and optimization to a very granular level, and this is a useful strategy for all apps. 

It’s important to point out that following the changes to iOS, granular optimization became more challenging. I know that Shamanth has a course and a ton of information on life in an iOS14+ world so I’ll leave the additional tips up to him. 

#3: Incorporate rewarded video for monetization

The next tip comes from the monetization side which I think is an area with a lot of potential for growth of your app. 

Now, on the UA side, I spoke about rewarded video being one of the benefits of advertising on SDK channels due to the mindset of the user while watching the ad. Similarly, it’s important to be open-minded about implementing rewarded ads into your app as a source of monetization.

Mobile games have shown how sophisticated implementation of some ad formats, such as rewarded video ads, can actually improve retention, increase session length, and encourage users to login to the app more frequently. Now don’t worry. For apps that don’t have a virtual currency, there are many ways to easily create small rewards from the app’s existing content, in order to implement rewarded ads and reap the benefits. 

List out all of your paid features and determine what a user may pay for one unit of that feature. For example, if you’re a health and fitness app they could watch a video (or two) to unlock exclusive content. For an education app, it may be to customize a daily learning plan. For a photo and video app, watching ads could give them access to different effects and tools. There are so many possibilities – it comes down to the particular app and its offering. What’s important to know is that implementing rewarded video into an app is possible, and can be hugely beneficial.

Implemented well, rewarded video can revamp an app’s economy so much that it improves the overall LTV of your app. This in turn will have an effect on your UA strategy and the diversity of users that it draws to it. Your most valuable users will still be the subscribers but at the same time, you also will have users that monetize well with the rewarded video format.

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To sum up, we covered 3 tips from the growth loop which are to diversify UA channels to SDK networks, on-device advertising and others; to utilize tools that speed up creative production, and to consider integrating rewarded video into your app which helps create the flywheel of growth that mobile games have nailed so well. Like in every industry sector, each category has something to learn from the others, and I hope that today I’ve helped highlight a few new avenues for optimizing your app’s growth strategy. 

A REQUEST BEFORE YOU GO

I have a very important favor to ask, which as those of you who know me know I don’t do often. If you get any pleasure or inspiration from this episode, could you PLEASE leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform – be it iTunes, Overcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast fix. This podcast is very much a labor of love – and each episode takes many many hours to put together. When you write a review, it will not only be a great deal of encouragement to us, but it will also support getting the word out about the Mobile User Acquisition Show.

Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are welcome, whether on podcasting platforms – or by email to shamanth@rocketshiphq.com. We read all the reviews & I want to make this podcast better.

Thank you – and I look forward to seeing you with the next episode!