💎 Growth Gems #64 - Ad Monetization, Paid and Organic Acquisition
Hi there,
This week I’m sharing gems on TikTok, UA post-iOS 15, organic acquisition and ad monetization. These insights come from Ryan J, Piyush Mishra, Ania Wysocka, Taylor Ryan, Felix Braberg, Jakub Remiar and more.
Enjoy!
🥇 TOP GEM OF THE WEEK
Acquisition: TikTok, post-iOS 15, organic acquisition, imperfect solutions
App Promotion Summit London ended last week.
I haven’t watch everything yet, but already found some good organic acquisition and paid acquisition insights in a few videos!
💎 Placing the product/app within the TikTok ad in a subtle way, not actually explaining what it is, can be a good way to get started for the top of the funnel. Then you work with the comments section to share more videos: you can post videos on comments from users asking more questions about the app or for a tutorial.
by Ryan J Thorpe (CMO at Reflectly)
at 05:00 in The Future of App Growth (Panel)
💎 Your best way to start with TikTok is to hire or bring in someone who actually makes TikTok videos regularly. Search on TikTok for the kinds of creatives you’re looking for, find a creator that looks like your target audience and bring them on.
by Ryan J Thorpe (CMO at Reflectly)
at 08:41 in The Future of App Growth (Panel)
💎 Looking at your blended metrics is more important than ever because we’ve lost visibility. Run incrementality tests to gain back some visibility, even if it’s just turning off and on some channels.
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 07:45 in Rebuilding User Acquisition in a Post-iOS 15 World
💎 Focus on being smarter about your conversion value strategy: the new world is not going to go away (24-48h limitations, delay in reporting, etc.), but you can still extract a lot of information.
by Piyush Mishra (Lead, Growth Marketing at Product Madness)
at 14:12 in Rebuilding User Acquisition in a Post-iOS 15 World
💎 Product Madness has tried to change their creative strategy to speak to both re-engaged users and new users, because you can’t know where the creatives will be shown.
by Piyush Mishra (Lead, Growth Marketing at Product Madness)
at 29:48 in Rebuilding User Acquisition in a Post-iOS 15 World
💎 There are 3 things that you can control to increase your chances to convert:
Contextual targeting
Creative speaking to the consumer
Landing page
Example: Buffalo creative that brings to a landing page showing the same thing.
by Piyush Mishra (Lead, Growth Marketing at Product Madness)
at 30:00 in Rebuilding User Acquisition in a Post-iOS 15 World
💎 Test on different channels your creatives that work on a specific channel. Example for Uptime: creatives for TikTok on Facebook did not work, but creatives for TikTok on Google UAC worked great.
by Hannah Parvaz (Head of Marketing at Uptime)
at 32:15 in Rebuilding User Acquisition in a Post-iOS 15 World
💎 Start with a hyper-focused keyword niche (lower volume, lower difficulty keywords) and have the clear value proposition that goes with it. Then, expand in both product and ASO. Example: rootd first focused on “panic attack” keyword(s), and only later expanded to “anxiety”. The app now ranks well for both in the US.
by Ania Wysocka (Founder at Rootd)
at 03:26 in How we Bootstrapped to 1 Million Users
💎 For every calendar year, select a theme for that month and submit a story to Apple related to that. Example: February is stress awareness month, rootd would make sure that the update would tie into that.
by Ania Wysocka (Founder at Rootd)
at 06:08 in How we Bootstrapped to 1 Million Users
💎 Connect press releases to real world stories. Even when you don’t have many users, you can have press releases. Follow a calendar. Example for rootd: Oct 10 is world’s mental health day and they had this press release. At an earlier stage, they connected this one with anxiety of NBA players.
by Ania Wysocka (Founder at Rootd)
at 07:07 in How we Bootstrapped to 1 Million Users
I don’t like the term growth-hacking too much: it often relates to short-term thinking.
But this talk called Product-led Growth-Hacking - Converting more users and reducing churn by Taylor Ryan (Growth Hacker at Klint) at the Mobile Growth Summit GVC 4 last year had several good insights.
A lot is derived from SaaS, and that’s actually interesting inspiration at a time where several mobile apps turn to the web for acquisition.
💎 Think about what people ask or do before they consider buying. Then create a resource that is an imperfect solution and will not solve their problem. This puts your foot in the door to tell them about your actual solution. Example below.
by Taylor Ryan
at 22:25
💎 Fear is a strong motivator. Another way to drive conversions is to build a list of what happens to those that fail to fix the problem (e.g. 50 examples of corporations that failed to innovate). Then use a Tripwire funnel or an exit intent popup.
by Taylor Ryan
at 25:52
Ad Monetization
I’ve been wanting to check the “two & a half gamers” show that Matej Lancaric (UA & Marketing Consultant) put together with Felix Braberg (Director of Ad Monetization at N3TWORK) and Jakub Remiar (Head of Monetization at Traplight).
I’m no ad monetization expert, but I like learning about any monetization topic as it can often give ideas even for non-games.
Plus, the psychology behind it and how to manage the balance between IAPs, the game economy, ads and retention is kind of fascinating.
So here you go, insights on How to Soft Launch a Mobile Game - Ad Monetisation Perspective.
Make sure you watch the end of the session to understand why working with ad networks might be like growing mushrooms!
💎 If your game sits in the middle of the spectrum between casual and hardcore, 9 times out of 10 the ad format that is best for you is the rewarded ad format. It is the undisputed king in terms of ad monetization:
Highest eCPM
Highest completion rates
Lowest amount of friction for users since it’s opt-in
Most amount of competition from other networks because it converts well
by Felix Braberg
at 24:10
💎 Since Ad revenue = Impressions x eCPM, everything you do to increase revenue should be aiming at increasing Impressions or eCPMs. During soft launch, focus your energy on maximizing impressions and once that’s done, focus on maximizing your eCPMs.
by Felix Braberg
at 25:09
⛏️ Going Deeper: Felix and Jakub clarified that there is a point of diminishing returns when maximizing impressions, as the goal is not to get just a few people watching hundreds of ads but to get most of users to watch a few ads a day.
💎 During soft launch, your north star ad metric is Impressions/DAU ie. how many ads your users watch a day. A gold standard you want to aim for to have an impact on your overall UA efforts is at least 5 impressions/DAU. At an early stage, don’t worry about mediation: worry about reaching this number.
by Felix Braberg
at 26:14
⛏️ Going Deeper: With a proper mediation setup, if you achieve 5 impressions/DAU you will add about 6 to 8 cts per user per day. With 7 impressions/DAU you will add 12 to 15 cts per user day. This is $1.2 to $1.5 to the overall LTV in 10 days! Check out this article for more about setting up your mediation (when it’s time).
💎 A big lever to increase Impressions/DAU is to increase the percentage of your DAU that actually interacts with at least 1 ad. A good baseline to reach for this engagement percentage is 60%. You can increase this baseline by spreading the ad placements throughout your game: you do want a core loop where users can watch ads at any time, but also dynamic placements (e.g. when the player runs out of something, or when the user fails, etc.). A more advanced solution is to add ads integrating in game events (e.g. seasonal content).
by Jakub Remiar
at 28:02
💎 You need to think about ad monetization in the pre-production stage, it should be part of the game design and you need to be familiar with the revenue share of IAP vs. Ads.
by Jakub Remiar
at 30:40
💎 If it’s a midcore game and there is some kind of economy in it, dedicate a percentage of the economy going into the ads (i.e. game resources to be given through ads). This way you account (from the start) for players to watch ads as a way to progress in the game, so that you can have your player progression under control.
by Jakub Remiar
at 31:44
⛏️ Going Deeper: for example, for an Adventure Capitalist kind of game, the best converting ad placements are the ones that allow to speed up the economy. The game makers take that into account at the planning stage. Jakub shared that it is always better if for ad rewards you can leverage resources that are not part of the game economy so you don’t impact your economy and don't give players gameplay power through these - but it is really tricky to do these well as not every game can support this format.
💎 3 top ad placements app developers should start by testing (for an RPG-style game with some economy):
Ad wheel or wheel of fortune with a big jackpot possibility (with a very small chance to get it)
Monetizing fail states (if your core loop enables it)
Some session limiter that you can put on top of ads (e.g. players run out of energy and can get more)
by Jakub Remiar
at 34:35
💎 After you’ve reached your Impressions/DAU and ad engagement numbers, your north star metric should shift to Ad ARPDAU. This is when you can add a mediation partner. Networks recommended on both iOS and Android: 1. FB 2. AdMob 3. Unity 4. ironSource 5. AppLovin.
by Felix Braberg
at 36:18
💎 Your UA channels depend on your split between IAP and Ad revenue. Having a 50/50 split is ideal for the UA team: it gives the possibility of the purchase campaigns (AEO) and the possibility of the ad monetization campaigns (value optimized campaigns based on ad revenue events).
by Matej Lancaric
at 40:13
⛏️ Going Deeper: If you have 70% of Ads, the UA strategy should be more skewed towards optimization based on the ad revenue. Different UA channels also offer different UA strategies. Unity and Google now have the possibility to run Ad ROAS based campaigns. Matej’s Top ad networks for acquisition: Google with tROAS campaigns + ad-based ROAS; Facebook (including for iOS), even though the quality is dropping; Unity with ROAS campaigns on purchase and ad monetization; TikTok; ironSource; AppLovin.
💎 Ad networks make money from your inventory by taking a cut on the ads they show in your game. Usually 70% publisher and 30% ad network, but you never have a way to check in on an ad network’s margin. The only thing you can do is to have a waterfall setup that’s as competitive as possible, because networks compete for your inventory.
by Felix Braberg
at 46:38
💎 Ad networks that never hear complaints will slowly start pushing their margins. You need to be an annoying publisher, you need to almost be like a disapproving father and never give a compliment. Example: don’t answer questions about “Are we in your top 3?”.
by Felix Braberg
at 48:14
And before I leave, a quote from one of Apptamin’s App Marketing Snacks on ASO:
“The best ASO tool in the world is Apple Search Ads and Google UAC” - Ryan Kelley (Mobile Growth Consultant)
See you next time. Stay savvy!
⛏️ Sylvain