Learn how Battle Creek Games leveraged Unity’s ecosystem to acquire high-quality users, create engaging ads quickly, optimize ad monetization, and achieve remarkable growth in the competitive action game genre.
Battle Creek Games, an indie studio, creates action-packed mobile games like Offroad Outlaws and No Limit Drag Racing. To expand their reach and optimize monetization, they worked with Unity, leveraging LevelPlay, the ironSource Ads network, Unity Ads network, and Unity's in-house creative team, unlocking new heights for their titles.
Opportunity to go further:
Battle Creek Games specializes in developing action and racing mobile games. Despite their success in building a strong player base, they recognized the untapped potential in leveraging Unity’s ecosystem of game growth products to expand their reach and optimize monetization.
Having built their games exclusively in the Unity Engine, Battle Creek Games integrated Unity LevelPlay as another important component in their growth strategy. This opened up new capabilities to expand their user acquisition strategy, integrate additional ad networks and ad formats, and closely analyze results. With the help of their Unity Growth Partnership team, Battle Creek Games was able to quickly integrate Unity LevelPlay, alongside other key Unity solutions such as the ironSource Ads network and the Unity Ads network, positioning themselves for further expansion.
Diversifying their user acquisition strategy:
With limited UA (user acquisition) tactics beyond Apple Search Ads, Battle Creek Games was interested in expanding their UA portfolio into in-app advertising to reach high-value players on the Unity Ads and ironSource Ads networks. Before setting up their first campaign, the Unity team stepped in to help set up their mobile measurement platform (MMP), and lay a strong foundation to measure performance.
To scale their UA efforts efficiently, Battle Creek Games activated the ROAS optimizer. This marked a significant milestone in their growth strategy. With the ROAS optimizer in place, Battle Creek Games began scaling their campaigns while reducing the need for manual adjustments.
The Unity team provided valuable recommendations on goal-setting for the ROAS optimizer, enabling Battle Creek Games to align their performance expectations with the tool as time progressed, helping them continually scale their campaign.
Creative delivery:
Battle Creek Games needed compelling ad creatives for their campaign but faced limited time and resources. Unity’s Ad Design Studio team studied their games and identified the most interesting elements to showcase. They created new video ads that incorporated game progress, control mechanics, and competitive elements in order to give a better sense of excitement and understanding of the game’s core mechanics. The Unity team also added voiceovers for better narrative and end cards with clear calls to action.
The Ad Design Studio resized existing landscape videos to portrait layouts for launch, created net-new 60 second videos, and provided interactive end cards for Offroad Outlaws and No Limit Drag Racing 2. From there, it was off to the races with UA campaigns launching in the U.S. on iOS and quickly expanding to other geos based on performance.
The results roll in:
With ROAS campaigns up and running on iOS, ARPU (average revenue per user) increased by 148% and spend increased by 5x. Not long after, ROAS campaigns were launched on Android, with D3 ROAS increasing by 21% and D3 ARPU increasing by 450% in just two months.
Adding additional ad formats:
As Battle Creek Games geared up their UA efforts, they sought additional monetization opportunities beyond the interstitial ads they were running. Unity’s account team recommended additional ad placements and reward types, such as offering players the chance to watch an ad when resources run out, extending their gameplay.
Following these recommendations, Battle Creek Games strategically incorporated rewarded ads, giving players opt-in opportunities to watch ads in exchange for valuable in-game items such as valuable in-game currency. Unity’s team provided industry benchmarks for interstitial and rewarded ad KPIs such as eCPM, engagement rate, and more for both iOS and Android. Within a month, Battle Creek Games saw impressive results.
Rewarded ads alone contributed to a 10% incremental increase in ad revenue, while, the studio doubled its daily ad revenue overall and saw a 93% increase in interstitial eCPM within a month of implementing these changes.
Leveraging recommendations for integrating ad networks:
Initially, Battle Creek Games began with the Unity Ads network for monetization. However, with the integration of LevelPlay, they took the opportunity to expand their ad network stack. The studio began by running ads from both the Unity Ads network and the ironSource Ads network. To further optimize their ad revenue and increase competition for their inventory, they strategically and carefully added various networks based on recommendations from the Unity team. Within their first 30 days of using LevelPlay, the studio integrated other notable ad networks such as Google bidding and Meta Audience Network bidding, to further diversify their network stack.
Celebrating a strong partnership:
Battle Creek Games’ success in implementing in-app advertising, new ad formats, and expanding their overall growth strategy proved that when working with knowledgeable partners, new heights can be achieved.
John Marbach, User Acquisition Lead at Battle Creek Games explains, “The incremental awareness and revenue is apparent and it has helped my other team members gain confidence in the revenue growth potential from marketing our games. We sincerely hope and believe this is the start of a partnership that will grow far bigger than where we are today.”
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