Just a few years ago, advertisers were skeptical about the opportunity to engage mobile gamers, but times change. Now brand advertisers have realized the gaming audience includes high-spending consumers that are right within their targeting group.
Meanwhile, ever-changing privacy laws and technical changes by Apple and Google have shaken the industry. Game developers who historically monetized via performance marketing have sought out alternatives to diversify and minimize risks to their revenue. While there is still revenue to be gained via paid downloads and in-app purchases, developers are looking to brand advertising dollars as an option. Here are a few things for developers to consider for those new brand advertising revenue opportunities:
Metrics
Brand advertisers are looking for engagement and conversion, which means making sure in-app gamers are viewing ads (metric: viewability) and completion rates (metric: view through rate) are high. They also want to see high click-through rates. Game developers should consider designing ad placements that will engage with gamers to drive those metrics, and better-performing campaign KPIs.
SSP Partners
And because advertisers want to make sure their media dollars are well spent while also retaining some measure of control, it also makes sense for both parties to work with a sell-side platform (SSP). That’s because an SSP is the closest point of contact to publishers and can identify those most relevant to a brand’s objectives. And because of an SSP’s direct relationship with advertisers as well, it can tell publishers exactly what they need to do in order to capture brand dollars, like, say making sure placements are engaging.
Pricing Strategies
Game publishers need to consider pricing strategies that are relevant for brand advertising as opposed to those for performance campaigns. Look to brand revenue as supplemental, not as a replacement for performance dollars and as part of your diversification strategy in the wake of ongoing privacy changes.
Programmatic Advertising and Unified Bidding
Meanwhile, both gaming and non-gaming apps alike can benefit from programmatic advertising, which offers transparency, efficiency and control.
For those already tapping into programmatic to monetize their inventory but who are still using the waterfall approach, it’s time to think about unified bidding. That’s because the ‘waterfall’ requires too many manual processes and it increases the odds that publishers will miss out on high-value demand.
Unified bidding is all about creating efficiency and transparency for every single impression to deliver the highest bid in return. In tandem with the insights above, taking advantage of such a highly competitive environment will naturally help drive higher eCPM for your inventory.
It’s time to act on these strategies and get in the game for more monetization opportunities. Get in touch and we can get started today.
