In the dynamic world of mobile game app monetization, staying ahead of the curve is crucial to success. Advertisers and publishers constantly explore innovative strategies for engaging users and maximizing revenue. One such strategy that has gained significant traction is the implementation of Multi-Reward Campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the best practices and insights for leveraging Multi-Reward Campaigns in your games.

Understanding Multi-Reward Campaigns

Multi-Reward Campaigns introduce a fresh approach to user engagement and monetization. Instead of traditional single-reward campaigns where users are rewarded upon completing a specific action, Multi-Reward campaigns reward users at multiple milestones within the app. This approach offers deeper engagement and enhances user retention while maintaining a reasonable cost per acquisition (CPA). 

Here are the Benefits

Deeper Engagement, Same CPA

Deeper engagement is one of the key advantages of Multi-Reward Campaigns. You can motivate users to explore more features, levels, and gameplay in your game by incentivizing them at different stages. Let’s say a single-reward campaign offers a reward for installing the app and completing level 10. If the user fails to complete the level or reach it, they won’t get anything in return. With Multi-Reward, users get rewarded along the way, boosting user satisfaction and extending their app usage lifespan.

Optimal Bid Models

The notion that Multi-Reward Campaigns require higher CPA bids is dispelled by industry insights. These campaigns can be just as effective as Single-Reward campaigns without the need for inflated bids. However, you should test different bid models to determine which works best for your game title and audience.

Crafting a Successful Multi-Reward Campaign

Event Variety

Diversity in events is essential to cater to different types of players. You can mix and match events, such as combining level completion with side quests or IAPs. Offering a variety of events can help you attract a broader audience and keep users engaged. 

Tip: Even though event variety is significant, starting with a simple level completion offer could help you test the waters and see players’ reactions.

Get to Know Your Players

The variety of events allows you to create and test different user journeys. Learn what your users like and dislike by analyzing the events. Do they spend time on in-app events such as upgrading an item or unlocking a box, or do they mostly focus on completing levels? Based on your insights, you can improve the less-interacted parts to maximize user engagement in future campaigns.

Running Different Bids

When deciding on your bid (the value offer), testing two different campaigns might help you understand what works best for you. Testing a robust and soft bid is an effective way to see their performance. After all, it’s up to the users to judge if the events are worth the bid, and testing gives you insights into what they think.

Final Thoughts 

Multi-Reward campaigns represent an innovative approach to mobile game monetization that focuses on driving deeper user engagement and increasing revenue without significantly raising CPA bids. Creating a well-balanced mix of engaging events that cater to various user preferences is imperative. Utilizing these insights in your game’s marketing strategy can help you generate more revenue and engage new users.

In a competitive mobile gaming landscape, staying open to experimentation and embracing strategies like Multi-Reward Campaigns could be the key to setting your game apart and fostering a loyal user base. As the industry evolves, keeping an eye on emerging trends and insights will be crucial for sustained success.

Check out AppSamurai for Games to get insights about how we grow mobile games.

The post Mobile Multi-Reward Campaigns: Best Practices and Insights by AppSamurai for Games first appeared on AppSamurai.

Play-to-earn apps are mobile or web-based applications that allow users to earn real-world rewards for playing the game. Examples of play-to-earn apps include fantasy sports, online gaming, quizzes and skill-based games; Swagbuck is an app that is especially famous in the UK, the US and Canada. Users answer up to 10 questions and have a chance to share a prize pool of up to $1000 USD with other winners. 

Play-to-Earn Apps’ Business Model

The business model behind these apps is based on the idea that users are willing to pay to play and compete for real-world rewards. These rewards can come in the form of cash, gift cards, vouchers, and other prizes. To monetize the app, the developers charge a fee for access to the app and/or a commission on any rewards won or they include offerwalls (granted they have intersecting target markets). Learn more about offerwalls and rewarded engagements here.

How to Market Play-to-Earn Apps?

Some top tips on how to create an effective marketing strategy for a play-to-earn app are as follows:

Social Media Marketing

Gamers are often found on social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube; use these channels to boost your app’s brand awareness and generate interest amongst your potential target market. You can begin by developing a content marketing strategy that includes creating engaging posts that promote what rewards gamers can earn from your app, running playable ads to give them a taste of the games they can experience, hosting free giveaways to cement your position as a source of gain for users and engaging with your followers.

Influencer Marketing

Identify influencers who align with the target audience for your app. Nowadays, the term ‘gamer’ is a very general one; there are many different categories of games in the market like RPG, FPS, puzzles, hyper-casual games and casual games (to name a few). Naturally, influencers have their own narrow focuses and niche followings, you will need to find the right ones for your app. Collaborating with influencers allows you to outsource the marketing to an entity that will help spread the awareness of your app in a promotional way that doesn’t resemble a hard sell (which is what gamers like).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO helps play-to-earn mobile apps to be more visible in search engine results and makes them easier to find for potential gamers. Remember, more visibility means more organic uplift. This technique involves optimizing the app’s website and content for specific keywords related to the app and its features like “earn”, “reward”, “play”, “and game” to name a few. This in turn helps to boost your marketing efforts, making it easier to hit your goals once your target market is more aware of your presence in the market. Additionally, SEO can also help to improve the user experience for visitors, resulting in more downloads, higher conversion rates, and better engagement rates.

Paid Advertising/User Acquisition

There are many forms of paid advertising that you can use to boost your user acquisition. There are walled gardens such as Google Ads or Meta Ads, and then there are 3rd party ad sources that you can use to reach out to your target audience and drive app downloads. DSPs are a great way of scaling up user volume whilst maintaining your user targeting parameters. Rewarded engagements like offerwalls and play-to-earn apps both have users with similar characteristics and behaviors so using offerwalls could lead to an influx of gamers for your app.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

Optimize the app store listing to ensure that it is visible and attractive to potential users. This means checking your title, description and screenshots to ensure that you have displayed the most relevant and aesthetically pleasing content about your play-to-earn app. Grab an attention-capturing title that encapsulates what your app is about, include any reviews or awards your app has received in your description, and display relevant images and videos that give your end users a good idea of what to expect when they install your app.

Referral Programs

Creating a referral program to reward users for referring the app to their friends and family is a great way to bring in new users at lower costs. This will in turn build your app’s K-factor as more of your users bring in additional users; most play-to-earn users tend to have communities in Discord where they bring their gamer friends into apps that have more to offer them.

Marketing Incentives

Play-to-earn apps are only as good as the rewards they offer their users. If the rewards themselves lose value, the app will lose its DAU (daily active users) within a frighteningly short period of time. If your play-to-earn app is partnered with monetary reward schemes like Paypal or with partnerships like Starbucks, Amazon, and PlayStation then is sure to market these rewards via multiple channels. Influencers, social media, within your user acquisition campaign creatives and also in your app page descriptions and screenshots. 

Measuring Marketing Strategy Success

As the gaming industry has grown, so has the popularity of play-to-earn apps, and it’s important to measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategies to ensure the success of your app. Here are some key metrics to track and tools and techniques to analyze the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. 

Key Metrics to Track

The most important things to track when measuring marketing strategies for play-to-earn apps are user engagement-based value metrics and user acquisition-based quantity metrics.

Value Metrics

This includes tracking user retention, user LTV, and user spending. Additionally, you should also track user reviews and ratings, as well as average user session time, ie. the frequency with which users are playing your game. 

Quantity Metrics

In order to ascertain the success rate of your user acquisition methods, you should have a look at your click-to-install conversion rate, the CPM/CPI of your in-app ad placements, bounce rate and the CAC (customer acquisition cost).

Tools and Techniques for Analyzing the Effectiveness of Marketing Campaigns

It’s important to use the right tools and techniques to analyze the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. This includes using analytics tools such as Google Analytics and your chosen attribution tool (Adjust, Appsflyer or Branch.io etc.) to track user engagement. Additionally, A/B testing is a useful tool for testing different versions of your app to see which one performs better. Finally, it’s also important to use social media to track user engagement and measure the success of your campaigns. 

Examples of Successful Play-to-Earn Apps

There are many successful play-to-earn apps out there, such as World of Tanks, Clash Royale, and Candy Crush Saga. All of these apps have successfully used marketing campaigns to drive user engagement and monetization. They also use analytics and A/B testing to measure and optimize their user experience. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s important to have marketing strategies in place for play-to-earn apps in order to ensure their success given that they are only as strong as the number of users they can acquire and retain. In order to launch a marketing strategy, visit the AppSamurai dashboard and sign up to one of the biggest one-stop shops in the world to gain access to top placements via DSPs, influencer performance marketing, OEM inventory, offerwalls (rewarded engagements) and more.

The post Marketing Strategies for Play-to-Earn Apps first appeared on AppSamurai.

In the ever-changing and highly competitive mobile marketing industry, targeted marketing strategies are essential for an app’s success. Concentrated marketing is an effective approach for app marketers to maximize their return on investment (ROI) and to ensure their app stands out from the competition. This blog post will provide an overview of concentrated marketing, its associated benefits, and strategies for implementation and measurement. 

What is Concentrated Marketing?

Concentrated marketing is a strategy that focuses on a particular user segment of the target audience and uses tailored messaging and strategies to reach them. This type of marketing is more cost-efficient than traditional methods in the long run, as it enables businesses to direct resources towards a specific group of users and bring in users that are more likely to make in-app purchases and become loyal. Concentrated marketing also allows companies to develop a deeper understanding of their target audience and create more personalized messaging and experiences. 

For example, a mobile app developer could use concentrated marketing to target a specific age group or geographic location. By targeting users within this segment, the marketer could then create localized creatives and messaging that is tailored to their needs and interests and communicate app features that are particularly tailored to their preferences.

Benefits of Concentrated Marketing

Concentrated marketing has several key benefits that can lead to mobile app success.

Maximizing ROI

It allows businesses to maximize their ROI by focusing their resources on a specific target segment. While it may be costly initially to commit to concentrated marketing rather than non-targeted marketing, you are more likely to only pay for loyal users with higher LTV (lifetime value) and retention rates. In the long run, your cost efficiency leads to high return on investment, as it will increase incrementally granted that you are bringing in highly engaged loyal users.

Improved User Acquisition and Engagement

It enables you to optimize your user acquisition and engagement strategies by crafting personalized messaging and experiences that appeal directly to your target users. 

User Acquisition

By running concentrated marketing campaigns, you have a much higher chance of converting the users that you have developed your app. In terms of user acquisition strategies, this will translate into higher conversion and clickthrough (CTR) rates as your creatives and communication will be tailormade to convert specific user segments.

User Engagement

The way you know the users you have acquired are in fact ‘loyal’ is to analyze their engagement with your app over time. You can look at metrics such as retention rate, engagement rate and session times as well to get a clear picture of whether your app is holding onto the users it’s acquiring, and making good profits in return for the value it offers them.

Enhanced Brand Awareness & Resonance

Concentrated marketing can help businesses to build greater brand awareness and recognition by targeting users who are more likely to be interested in their product. While this may be hard to analyze as it is not a qualitative measure such as acquisition and engagement, it is still an important part of your app’s overall business. In terms of your branding strategy, concentrated marketing can help your app build a strong repertoire with your core users, which you can then build upon to lure newcomers to your brand.

Implementing Concentrated Marketing Strategies

Identifying your Target Market

In order to effectively implement concentrated marketing strategies, businesses must first identify and target the key user segments. This requires businesses to analyze user data to determine which segments are most likely to be interested in their app. Personalized marketing requires understanding users beyond just demographics; in order to get a better picture of your target market, behavioral segmentation is a good strategy to determine users most likely to purchase within your app and turn loyal.

Create Communications based on Target Segment

Once these segments have been identified, businesses can then create personalized messaging and experiences that appeal to them. The level of personalization will determine the amount of resonance the users will share with your app and can result in a high rate of post-install events. The point of creating segments is to make your marketing as personalized as possible after all; the language, creatives and communication ought to be based primarily on your target audience.

Use Particular Channels to Reach Each Segment

You’ve created your target segments and the personalized messages per segment, now all that is left is to reach out to these segments. Mobile app advertisers should utilize multiple channels and tactics to reach their target users; multi-tiered approaches are often used in order to reach users via social media, email, and other paid advertising methods. A DSP (demand side platform) is a particularly strong mobile marketing tool in an advertiser’s arsenal. One campaign on one platform can reach millions of targeted users, based on your KPIs.

Measuring the Success of Concentrated Marketing

In order to measure concentrated marketing campaign performance, businesses should track key metrics and data points. This includes tracking user acquisition, engagement, and retention rates, as well as tracking user feedback and surveys. However, there are some key metrics that you should consider whilst measure your marketing’s success.

1. Click-Through Rate (CTR):

The CTR is one of the most important metrics to measure the success of your concentrated marketing campaigns. It measures the rate at which people click on your ads or other mobile content, and it’s a great way to gauge the effectiveness of your ads and content on your target segments.

2. Conversion Rate:

This metric measures the rate at which people take the desired action after seeing your ads or other mobile content. It’s a great way to measure the effectiveness of your targeted mobile marketing campaigns and determine how successful they are in driving conversions, whether it is based on subscriptions, installs, purchases or account creations (to name a few). Learn about conversion rate optimization here.

3. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA):

CPA is a great metric to measure the success of your mobile marketing campaigns. It measures the cost associated with acquiring a new user through your concentrated marketing efforts and helps you determine if your campaigns are delivering a positive return on investment (ROI).

4. Audience Acquisition Rate:

This metric measures the rate at which new users are downloading your app. It’s a great way to measure the success of your mobile marketing campaigns and ensure that you’re reaching your intended users with the right message.

5. Engagement Rate:

This metric measures the rate at which users are engaging with your app, content, and ads. It’s a telltale sign as to whether you have reached your target segment successfully or not. It ensures that your target segment is enjoying what your app has to offer..

6. Retention Rate:

This metric measures the rate at which users continue to use your app or return to your website. It’s another way to determine your in-app user engagement, and whether your user acquisition strategies are bringing in quality users. It also informs you as to whether your users are finding value in your app, or not.

Conclusion

In conclusion, concentrated marketing is an effective approach for maximizing a mobile app’s success. It enables businesses to maximize their ROI by focusing their resources on a specific target segment and creating personalized messaging as well as experiences that appeal to that segment. Additionally, businesses can measure the success of their campaigns by tracking key metrics and data points. By following these strategies, businesses can ensure their mobile app stands out from the competition and achieves long-term success.

If you are interested in running a concentrated marketing campaign, look no further than AppSamurai, an award-winning mobile marketing platform that helps apps grow. Visit the AppSamurai website for more information, or sign up to start your app’s growth journey today.

The post Take Your App to the Next Level with Concentrated Marketing first appeared on AppSamurai.

There’s no sugarcoating the fact that, right now in 2022, we are currently in the clutches of a global recession. Many economies are seeing historically high levels of inflation and businesses are cutting back on budgets left, right and center. It’s of no help that these events are taking place at a time when the global economy is still in a state of recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The current economic recession is a difficult time for many businesses, but it presents an opportunity for businesses with the right strategies; for app owners, investing in your app during this time is vital to building and maintaining your competitive advantage. You must look for ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) positive mobile marketing campaigns and strategies that can help you optimize your budgets and maximize your returns. By doing this, you will be able to capitalize on the recession and come out ahead.

Mobile Marketing Success Tips During a Recession

As aforementioned, the current economic crisis has impacted almost every industry, and MarTech is no exception. With people cutting back on their spending, businesses are having to find new ways to reach their target audiences. Fortunately, there are some mobile marketing success tips that can help your app navigate the recession and come out on top.

Re-Evaluate Your Target Audience

One of the most important mobile marketing success tips during a recession is to re-evaluate your target audience. It’s important to make sure that your message is resonating with your current customers, as well as any potential new customers. Make sure that you’re targeting the right people, and that your message is relevant to them. For instance, running CPA (Cost per Activity) campaigns can help you bring in users that specifically commit to making purchases.

Take Advantage of Social Media

Social media can be a great way to reach your target audience during a recession. It’s a cost-effective way to build relationships with your customers and promote your app and its products and services. Don’t forget to take advantage of social media advertising too — it can be a great way to increase your reach; while it may be pricey, read below as to why investing in user acquisition during a recession can lead to a huge long-term payoff.

Bolster User Engagement

User engagement is key to making sure your mobile marketing campaign is successful. Make sure that you’re providing customers with an engaging experience that encourages them to come back to your app or website. Consider adding incentives and rewards in the form of regular content or discounts to keep users engaged and coming back for more.

Build & Maintain Relevancy

Finally, one of the most important mobile marketing success tips during a recession is to stay relevant. Make sure that you’re providing your customers with content that they’ll find valuable and that is relevant to the current economic climate. This will help ensure that your message is heard by your target audience and that your mobile marketing efforts are successful.

These are just a few mobile marketing success tips that can help you navigate the current economic crisis. By re-evaluating your target audience, utilizing low-cost solutions, taking advantage of social media, increasing user engagement, and staying relevant, you’ll be able to ensure that your mobile marketing campaign is successful during a recession.

Why Investing in User Acquisition During a Recession can Pay off in the Long Run?

User acquisition refers to any strategy used to acquire new app users or customers. It can be a costly process, but it can also be a key driver of long-term success. Investing in user acquisition during a recession can help a business acquire new customers, build brand awareness, and establish a solid customer base. This can help to ensure the business’s long-term survival and help it to thrive in the future.

Boosting In-App Purchases

Why do businesses exist? The business aficionados amongst you will know that businesses seek to build profits in return for offering value to customers. By investing in user acquisition, a business can bring in new customers which will lead to an increase in potential buyers. Granted that you resort to targeted advertising or run CPA campaigns that convert upon purchase, you will bring in users that will boost your in-app purchase rate. CPI (cost per install) campaigns can work here as well, especially with a DSP, permitting that you have integrated KPIs that keep you from wasting your budget on unwanted users. Read more about DSPs here.

Building Brand Awareness

By investing in user acquisition during a time when the industry standard is to cut back, businesses can differentiate themselves from their competitors and gain an advantage in the market. For instance, OEM inventory offers you an enticing opportunity to feature your app pre-installed on Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei and Samsung smartphone devices and you are only charged for users that open your app, leaving you with a big differentiating advantage. This advantage would be in terms of growing app and brand awareness and consequently, revenue (as a result of a growing paying user base). Learn more about OEM inventory here.

Building a Loyal Customer Base

Businesses do cut back on all sorts of costs to stay afloat in difficult times, some apps have to rescind certain services. Customers are often reluctant to switch apps, but if your competitors compromise their user experience, their users then would make for prime targets for your user acquisition campaign. Additionally, these users are more likely to be loyal even after the recession, permitting that you maintain your engagement levels. By luring users in during a volatile time, you will have gained their trust after the volatility has abated thus leaving you with handsome LTV (Lifetime value) and retention rate metrics.

Maintaining your Business’ Bottom Line

By hunting for new paying users during a time of recession, your business can maintain its bottom line for the considerable future. To opt not to invest in user acquisition during this time can be a huge mistake as, while it does save the business in the short term, the lack of advertising can eventually lead to consumer unawareness and ultimately, redundancy in the eyes of your target market.

Ensuring App Growth

The usual trend of apps’ user bases during a recession is a downhill one. However, this in turn leaves your business with yet another opportunity. By investing in user acquisition methods such as rewarded engagements, you can bolster your app install rate in a short span of time and reach the top levels of your app category much more efficiently (especially when you consider other apps are losing their users). This will eventually lead to a massive boost in users, and app visibility and will allow you to tap into the organic user market; all factors being telltale signs of app growth.

Overall, investing in user acquisition during a recession can pay off in the long run. It can help to build a loyal customer base, stay ahead of the competition, and ensure the long-term survival of the business. This makes it an attractive option, even in uncertain and turbulent times.

Conclusion

A recession is not a reason to pull back on advertising budgets. Cutting spending on user acquisition is essentially a way to sacrifice your business’s long-term success for short-term stability. By enhancing your user base, you gain a crucial competitive advantage that will remain with you long after the recession has died down.

If you are looking for a lucrative mobile marketing strategy that meshes efficiency with effectiveness, look no further than AppSamurai, a one-stop shop mobile marketing platform that can offer a variety of advertising strategies including DSP, OEM and rewarded engagement inventories to meet your KPIs. For more information, visit the AppSamurai website or sign up here and a dedicated account manager will reach out to you to discuss your mobile marketing plan. 

The post How to Maximize Your App’s Potential in a Recession first appeared on AppSamurai.

AppSamurai has dedicated itself to availing the best forms of user acquisition to its users, the newest addition to its inventory: Influencer Performance Marketing. A form of acquiring users that has been molded from the ever-evolving media consumption habits of boomers, millennials and Gen Z’s.

With this new format, advertisers are able to enhance their marketing strategies in a way that enhances user acquisition, awareness and return on ad spend in a more streamlined and cost-effective manner.

What is Influencer Performance Marketing (IPM)?

Not to be mistaken with the branding version of influencer marketing which focuses on building brand awareness, influencer performance marketing aims to enhance app user acquisition. The same way one would provide a DSP (demand side platform) with an attribution tool’s tracking URL, influencers are provided with trackers and creatives which they then integrate into their content or profile information and distribute via explore pages.

Influencer performance marketing (IPM) has been made possible by hundreds of thousands of influencers from different specialized social media platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. By creating IPM campaigns, you will be able to reach millions of users from these platforms. Given that this style of advertising is performance-based, the pricing behind it resembles performance campaigns as well; in an influencer performance marketing campaign, you only pay per install (CPI).

Benefits of IPM

Organic Uplift

Historic campaign data has proven that advertisers that promote their apps via IPM campaigns only end up paying for 70% of their total acquired users.

A comprehensive study has compared an IPM’s campaign’s effects with the level of organic downloads within a specific cohort. It has gone to show that 30% of users who viewed the IPM-advertised app did not click on the link provided by the influencer. Instead, they went straight to the app’s store page and downloaded it directly; this will result in a direct organic uplift and one more discreet benefit as well.

ROAS Positive

Based on the aforementioned fact, not only does this mean that you can boost your organic downloads and enhance your visibility to prospective customers, but you also end up getting a 30% natural discount every time you launch an IPM campaign. Meaning, you are far more likely to earn a positive return on your ad spend with this method of advertising.

Brand Awareness

While IPM does focus on performance-based marketing, it cannot be denied that this is a form of viral marketing. Given that, it can be expected that the followers of the influencers that promote your app are bound to hear about it, and even discuss it amongst their communities.

Specific Audiences

Reach a vast audience that comprises of:

• A majority of iOS users (more than 60%),
• Users in tier 1 countries like the US (90% of IPM traffic comes from tier 1),
• Users ages 13 to 24.

Influencers are able to select which app ads to promote based on their themes and/or followers’ demographics. Hence, there is always a high rate of campaign efficiency and effectiveness to IPM campaigns.

Price Efficiency

Unlike the ineffective and unscalable traditional methods of influencer marketing, IPM’s cost model is solely cost per install (CPI). As a result, advertisers need only pay for the users they acquire, instead of impressions or clicks (whether or not they result in an install).

What You’ll Need for an IPM Campaign

This section of the guide will cover what all you will need in order to run a successful influencer performance marketing campaign.

GEO Setting

You will need to have your app available in a wide berth of GEO’s. Given the viral nature of IPM campaigns, users who follow influencers may not be from the same country but should be able to download the app regardless.

OS Setting

Your app will need to be present on IOS & Android devices. The one-link that influencers will give their users should allow them to install your app irrespective of which OS they are using.

Creatives

For this mobile marketing campaign, there is great flexibility on the creatives that can be used. You can provide still images and videos as well as your app icon. It is recommended to upload all your creatives so that influencers can distribute them within their content (landscape & portrait) and social media “Explore” pages as well.

Influencer Performance Marketing Budget

In order to launch an Influencer Performance Campaign with AppSamurai, you will need a minimum budget allocation of $5,000 USD.

Conclusion

With the fast-changing AdTech environment, with more and more players entering the fray, it’s becoming more important to stand out of the crowd. Influencer performance marketing meshes the boosting nature of rewarded engagements with the high quality users of performance-based user acquisition, making it the perfect must-have in advertisers’ strategies.

If you have any questions about trying out this newest form of performance-based user acquisition, you can fill in AppSamurai’s advertiser form here. If you would like to sign up to the AppSamurai dashboard and initiate your app’s growth journey, click here.

The post Influencer Performance Marketing Campaigns Explained first appeared on AppSamurai.

The nature of mobile games continues to evolve each year, and Facebook’s recent rebranding to Meta is likely to have a significant impact on the future of these games. Facebook played a major role in helping mobile games gain popularity in the first place, and visions for what a new emphasis on 3D and virtual reality games in the Metaverse may look like has the potential to rapidly cause older methods of earning money from these apps to fade in favor of newer monetization trends that integrate more smoothly with the functionality of newer games. 

The Fading Trends

The rise of the Metaverse and the impact it is predicted to have on the world of mobile gaming is likely to push many of today’s most popular mobile game monetization trends out of style as newer and more innovative alternatives that work better with new mobile games that were created with the modern setup of Meta in mind. Although many of the trends that are expected to become obsolete in the coming years were among the most popular and profitable options as recently as planning for 2021, the introduction of Meta and its potential to transform basic mobile games into a general preference for 3D and virtual reality games is likely to mean that they will not work as well within the context of new releases and may eventually fade out entirely. 

Paid Strategy 

Paid games must be purchased in order to download them from Google Play or the App Store. Although paid games and other apps are downloaded much less frequently than free apps are, they are more upfront than freemium games that require players to pay later on and frequently do not include ads or other forms of monetization. At this time, only around 3 percent of Apple apps and 7 percent of Apple apps are currently paid, but this percentage has the potential to change in the future as the quality of mobile games improves.

Few people are willing to pay upfront for a mobile game that they do not know enough about to feel confident that it will be worth the money and most mobile games that are currently available are much more basic and less likely to be worth paying for than traditional video games in other formats. However, Meta’s planned shift toward introducing much more complex games has the potential to eventually make paid games more common than they currently are, which may naturally lead to a decline in free and freemium games. 

Freemium Strategy

The freemium strategy provides free access to a limited version of a game that encourages players to purchase the full-paid version. This type of monetization builds players’ interest by introducing them to the majority of what the game has to offer and letting them play it enough for free to make them realize they like it and want to continue playing it, but they will eventually need to pay to continue playing. This strategy is most frequently used by offering a limited number of free levels when players download a game, often without informing players when they first download the “free” app that they will not be able to play very much for free and telling them that they need to purchase access to the premium version to continue playing the game once they reach the end of the free levels. 

Paid Subscription  

Although many types of paid digital and other subscription services are becoming more popular over time, paid gaming subscriptions are generally not one of them. TV and music streaming subscriptions, ebook subscriptions, grocery delivery subscriptions, and even meal delivery subscriptions are quickly gaining popularity as they enhance their consumers’ lives, but many are not sticking with the paid gaming subscription model. Instead, many mobile game players prefer to play free games or make one-time purchases if they are willing to pay for a particularly high-quality game. The idea of having to continue to subscribe to a service in order to keep access to what is generally the same game over time is beginning to die out because this model does not appeal to many players. 

In-App Purchasing 

Although in-app purchases are unlikely to die out completely, they are becoming less popular than they used to be because most people do not buy them. Many older games included some type of power-ups or other bonus features that could only acquire with real money instead of by using in-game currency, leveling up, or by other means within the course of gameplay. However, these features have been largely unsuccessful because the majority of players only use the free features of the game, which make up the majority of most games that are free to download, and have decided not to spend money for features that add little to the experience of playing the game.

These options bring in some additional money from the very small percentage of players that love a particular game and are willing to spend money to do as well as possible, especially when the bonus features allow them to progress through levels significantly faster than they would if they only played the free version, but they are generally a far less successful form of mobile game monetization than the ads that all players see. Approximately 5 percent of all mobile game players make in-app purchases, while the other 95 percent prefer to only utilize the app’s free options. For this reason, many in-app purchases are not as profitable as their app designers expected them to be, and app designers have begun to rely less on this form of mobile game monetization than they initially intended to. 

In-App Advertising 

Although in-app advertising has been one of the most successful sources of revenue for many developers of basic games since their inception, the distracting nature of these ads is not a good fit for the immersive direction that mobile games are heading in. With this form of mobile game monetization, app developers allow brands to place ads in their apps in exchange for payment. This payment is generally based on the number of times an ad is clicked on, rather than the number of views it gets, which means that ads are sometimes strategically placed in an effort to get users to accidentally click on them. 

Hybrid Monetization 

Hybrid monetization allows app developers to make money from a combination of in-app advertisements and in-app purchases. Although this has frequently been the most successful option in the past, it is also likely to become somewhat less popular as the evolution of Meta transforms the future of mobile gaming. Most in-app purchases and in-app ads that are placed randomly instead of strategically are less able to fit the needs of modern mobile gamers, which means that the concept of hybrid monetization as it is today will likely shift to a more modern version of hybrid monetization as the landscape of mobile games evolves. 

Interstitials

Interstitial ads are the popup ads that appear prior to accessing the content you expected. This type of advertisement is frequently found when entering websites, as well as between levels in certain mobile games and other apps. Although these ads are successful in forcing users to view them and often wait several seconds to allow users to close the ads, they are one of the most disliked forms of monetization among many players of mobile games. This type of ad frequently takes up the majority of the screen, which makes it frustrating for mobile game players that would rather stay focused on the game and may simply close the app once an ad pops up and forces them to think about something else.

Because overuse of this type of ad can discourage players from using the game as much as they might if fewer ads were used, this option has begun to lose its popularity among many app developers. Although they may continue to be used to some extent, they are unlikely to regain the frequency with which they were used when they were first introduced. 

Audio Ads 

Audio ads are generally a more successful form of monetization for podcasts than they are for mobile games and other apps. The audio aspect of video apps tends to be problematic for users when an ad’s sound unexpectedly comes on in public, especially when ads are frequently much louder than the game itself. Although these ads are likely to continue to be used as the primary form of monetization among podcast creators, they are a less ideal option for mobile games. 

Rising Monetization Trends That May Replace Older Alternatives 

The nature of the changes that are likely to come to mobile games in the coming years means that older trends are likely to become less profitable and less common over time, but there are also several up-and-coming monetization trends that have the potential to replace them. These newer options for monetizing mobile games are likely to make more sense within the context of a trend toward virtual reality and 3D games that are likely to become more common than basic 2D mobile games as Meta develops into something bigger than Facebook and changes the standards of the mobile games it played an important role in creating. 

Immersive Ads 

Immersive ads that are integrated directly into the experience of playing a 3D game have the potential to replace traditional ads that are frequently found at the top or bottom of the screen while playing a game. This strategy involves placing ads within the game itself in places that make sense within the real-world context of the game, such as on a TV screen, billboard, or marquee graphic. This option makes the ads less intrusive and more relevant to players because they can be viewed in a way that is easier to absorb and does not directly interrupt gameplay. 

Rewarded Ads/Offerwalls

App developers have looked to integrating offerwalls into their game experiences for their users to find an alternative method to continue playing without having to pay real money for more “lives”, “gems” or other in-app currencies. Offerwalls are not intrusive towards the experience of playing a mobile game, and are usually a positive addition as users would prefer to watch a rewarded video ad or download an advertised app for the sake of more in-game riches. Thus the game developers monetize smartly and don’t risk losing their user-base as mentioned with outdated advertising formats.

Diversified Revenue Sources

As app developers experiment with new forms of mobile game monetization, they do so with the understanding that not every new idea will be successful. For this reason, diversifying revenue sources is likely to be an important trend when it comes to making sure that app developers are able to bring in a profitable amount of income. This trend will give developers more flexibility to test multiple new ideas to see what new monetization options that may not have even been released yet work best with a lower overall risk to the business. 

At App Samurai Inc., we prioritize helping app developers find the most profitable options for monetizing their apps as well as user acquisition. Sign up for our dashboard today to speak with a customer service representative about what older monetization techniques may no longer be a good fit for your mobile game and what newer options may be the most profitable replacements!

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