Ammunition for User Acquisition: Your Guide to Boosting Profit

The importance of eCPM on the UA side

As a UA manager, your main goal is to maximize profit by cracking cost-effective user acquisition at scale. Naturally, the way to stay profitable is by saving on ad spend .e. lowering CPIs. However, solely focusing on lowering CPIs doesn’t keep you competitive in the wider market, and limits your campaigns’ growth potential.

That’s why it’s more important to focus on the bigger picture - increasing eCPMs. eCPM (effective cost per one thousand impressions) is the ad revenue generated by any given user acquisition campaign. While it’s often considered a monetization-related metric, it’s actually equally important for UA managers, as it represents your buying power in the market.

eCPM is made up of two variables: IPM (installs per one thousand impressions, or volume) and CPI (cost per install, or spend).

An ad campaign that is converting well and generating a high eCPM drives more installs (IPM), while reducing costs (CPI) - ultimately boosting profit.

↑ eCPM = ↑ IPM x ↓ CPI

Throughout this eBook, we’ll give tips on how to increase eCPM and build a user acquisition strategy centered around profitability. Here we go!

1. Test marketability before greenlighting a game

Game studios in the process of evaluating new titles often assume that the most important metrics to examine are those related to monetization, such as LTV. They work under the assumption that if they’re successfully monetizing their users then they’ll be equally as successful acquiring the right users. However, we often see instances where games with high LTV struggle to acquire users as at the end of the day, there’s simply not a market of users who want to download those games.

Successful user acquisition isn’t just about how high you’re able to bid for an install (CPI), but also about whether or not there is a big enough market for your game in the first place (IPM).

That’s why before pouring endless resources into developing your game, it’s imperative to test its viability as a business. And the way to do this is by identifying marketability.

Marketability is how the market reacts to your game - answering the question of whether or not there is a user base who wants to download it.

Imagine a situation where Game A has an IPM of 2 and Game B has an IPM of 20. Clearly, the market prefers Game B.

Let’s take this one step further. Even if the ARPU (average revenue per user) and CPI of Game A is higher than that of Game B, the eCPM of Game B is actually higher as a result of the big difference in IPM. (Remember that eCPM = IPM * CPI?).

That means your buying power for Game B is higher, giving you the ability to scale more cost-efficiently, since CPIs are lower. In this situation, we see that Game B with a low ARPU and CPI actually outperforms Game A in the long run.

Do you see how identifying marketability also helps maximize profit?

2. Run a creative soft launch

By the time you’ve set the date for your game’s global launch, you should already know which creatives you’ll run. But how do you come to that conclusion? A creative soft launch, of course.

Creative soft launches allow you to test multiple creatives simultaneously with a limited budget in relevant geos. The creatives with the best performance are then optimized quickly, with fast iterations.

The benefits

1. Avoid wasted ad spend: A small investment in a soft launch has the potential to save budget during higher-spend periods (global launches) as you’ll know which low-performing creatives to avoid.

2. Increase quality: You’ll only run with creatives that both convert well and bring in the highest-quality users in the global launch.

3. Dramatically increase cost efficiency: You’ll also gain more users for the same amount of money in the global launch.

4. Improve gameplay: Interactive creatives like playable ads can teach you a lot about how users are interacting with actual gameplay, which will help you optimize your game for global launch. For example, you’ll have the opportunity to learn how potential users are reacting to the characters in your game. If your winning creative concept includes a cat, consider including the cat in your tutorial.

Best practices

1. Test all types of ad units: From playables to videos, you never know which combination will maximize your IPM. If you’re using playables, make sure to test many variants, as it’s easier to make multiple versions of a playable than it is to produce a lot of video ads.

2. Use in-ad data to analyze your playable ads: In contrast to video ads or interstitials which only allow you to analyze CVR, CTR, and a few other metrics, playable ads offer a world of information between the impression and the click - such as time to engagement, win and lose rates, and a number of in-ad funnel events. This in-depth data makes it much easier to optimize creatives. For example, with access to in-ad data, you can see how users respond to the difficulty level of the playable ad and adjust it accordingly. Are players struggling to complete the level or are they finishing it within a few seconds?

3. Measure against benchmarks: Remember that metrics fluctuate across genres. It’s crucial to not only compare yourself to other games within your game genre, but to others in your same subcategory as well. That said, benchmarks are by no means definitive, and like everything, there are exceptions to the rule. This is why testing your creatives, and then testing them again, is crucial to crack your UA strategy

Case study: Kwalee

Kwalee, one of the biggest names in hyper-casual today, was planning the global launch of their latest game, PLANK!

Working with ironSource, Kwalee decided to soft-launch PLANK! in Canada with a limited budget. ironSource spent two weeks A/B testing and iterating the creatives, and one creative proved to be the champion. By the official global launch, the highest-performing creative was in place, localized to three languages.

The result? PLANK! Reached #2 on both the App Store and the Play Store in the US and the worldwide campaign drove over 200K quality installs per day. Check out the full case study here.

3. Focus on creative optimization

When it comes to acquiring new users, creatives may very well be the most powerful weapon in any UA manager’s arsenal. There is a direct correlation between the profitability of a UA campaign and the investment made in creatives. Why? It’s the only part of the funnel where UA managers can directly appeal to potential users and encourage them to install. In other words, because it’s more within your control to create engaging playable ads, than, say, tackling ad fraud (which we’ll get to later), the potential impact on IPM is especially high.

Localize your creatives

When advertising your mobile games, the creatives you’re running should be relevant to the audience you plan on targeting. There are many approaches you can take to make your creatives both linguistically and culturally relevant to your intended audience: from a simple translation, to the motifs you incorporate into the design. The more people understand (literally) your creatives, and connect with it culturally, the more likely they are to install your game. IPM goes up, and CPIs decrease - maximizing your profitability.

Unity's Ad Design Studio often receives questions about how to localize creatives for specific markets. One of the most fascinating markets to consider for localization is China. One suggestion they give is to feature Chinese motifs as well as images and ideas that are both culturally relevant and appropriate.

Be sure to always be aware of local events like the Chinese New Year or the Mid-Autumn Festival - and then incorporate those motifs into your design. In fact, we found that when creatives were localized for Chinese audiences, IPM in China increased 30%.

If you don’t have the resources to produce an entire campaign solely for a cultural event, we recommend localizing an end-card, rather than creating a new campaign from scratch. Small adjustments and tweaks will go a long way in your quest for new users.

Diversify your ad formats

There are a handful of ad formats - from rewarded videos to playables to static interstitials - so don’t make the mistake of only sticking to one. Determine which ad formats resonate best with each audience by A/B testing them.

Consider user context in creative optimization

Be sure to take user context into consideration. In other words, how exactly users are interacting with the ad? Consider publisher, supply source, ad unit, device type (newest iPhone vs old, small screen iPhone), and geo. For example, a midcore game advertising on a casual game should make their creatives in a more casual style in order to attract that audience. By taking these factors into account, you ensure you’re serving the right ad to the right user at the right time, and will increase IPM and lower CPIs.

Refresh creatives to avoid ad fatigue

Just because you’ve found a winning creative one day doesn’t mean it will be a returning champion. Diversifying your creatives is equally as important as updating them. To avoid ad fatigue and wasted impressions, constantly updating your creatives is key to success.

4. Automate your UA optimization

As a UA manager, chances are you spend a significant portion of your time manually managing campaigns and updating bids across multiple platforms with thousands of supply sources. Limited capacity to update and optimize bids manually, constantly, and at scale makes optimized UA difficult.

In fact, there are three main issues preventing UA managers from executing efficient strategies. First is limited capacity to update and optimize bids manually on a large scale. Second is the complexity in finding an efficient methodology to optimize towards true ROAS. Third is the lack of accurate ad revenue measurement data, which would provide you with complete ARPU data to better understand the true value of your users.

Take advantage of a bid optimizer to speed things up and lower CPIs. In fact, ironSource offers game developers an optimizer that optimizes towards ROAS.

How does the ROAS optimizer work? It automatically calculates and updates thousands of bids a day in real-time, using both in-app purchase and ad revenue data to inform its decisions.

The benefits of the ROAS optimizer

Constant auto-adjustments

Daily automated bid adjustments save you hours of manual work.

Optimize new supply

The algorithm knows not to overbid on a low-performing new app or underbid on a high-performing one.

Stay up-to-date

The optimizer prioritizes recent data to keep your calculations as accurate as possible.

React quickly

It adjusts bids early with data gathered immediately following any supply changes, such as app launches, first position deals, holidays, etc.

Buy users at the right price

It automatically set different bids for each country, genre, publisher, and source.

Case study: ITI.inc

ITI.inc is a Japanese hyper-casual publisher with over 1,000 games in their portfolio.

Working with ironSource, ITI.inc launched a new game globally called Golf Nest. ITI.inc used ironSource’s ROAS optimizer in combination with the ad revenue measurement tool to automatically work out the optimal bid every day, for each source, according to the actual ARPU of their users.

In the end, ITI.inc scaled their UA efforts by 16%, hitting an IPM of 49 and increasing ROAS by 25%.

Want to learn more about how ironSource helped ITI.inc automate their user acquisition? Read the full case study here.

5. Don’t waste impressions

As a UA manager, you’d never want to deliver ads to users who already have your game installed - it's a waste of impressions and ad spend. The most surefire way to avoid targeting existing customers during user acquisition campaigns is by utilizing a suppression list.

When running a user acquisition campaign, advertisers share an audience suppression list with their advertising network who then exclude users on the list from seeing the ad.

There are three types of suppression lists:

1. Static: Lists all device IDs that have previously interacted with your app

2. Dynamic: Dynamically passes on the device IDs that install your app

3. Custom: Mainly used for retargeting campaigns, where ad networks would only target users who already have your app downloaded with the hope of re-engaging them.

Your campaign is more likely to produce a higher IPM when using suppression lists. After all, your IPM isn’t being dragged down by users who don't install since they already have the game.

This also means you are able to divert that spend from users who have already converted and installed to potential new users.

But suppression lists aren’t just for existing users. The frequency with which a given user sees an ad can have a huge impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of your campaign - especially if the ad is served a high number of times in a short space of time. Repeated ads can lead to ad blindness, lower CVR and IPM, and can even be annoying and create a negative brand association. Using suppression lists on users who’ve seen your ad multiple times is also helpful for boosting IPM.

One leading gaming publisher saw IPM rise at much as 61% in the 7 days after sharing their audience list with ironSource. Compared to figures from prior to sharing their audience lists, they also saw an increase of 288% in installs in the 7-day period after.

Learn more about suppression lists here.

6. Optimize the top of the funnel with ASO

Traditionally, app store optimization was only about improving your organic channels. However, it’s becoming an essential strategy for maximizing IPM and lowering CPIs, as it ensures that users who land on your app store page from paid campaigns are primed for download.

Here are a few expert tips:

1. Focus on app ratings and reviews: Did you know that 67% of the top 100 free iOS apps have received a 4-star rating or better?

2. Perfect the icon: Your icon is the first impression a user gets of your app. While Google and Apple have a number of guidelines regarding dimensions, lighting and shading, there are still many things that are in your control. Make sure your icon is simple, with bright colors, unique shapes, and inviting imagery. A good rule of thumb is to do your research and take a look at the top-rated apps in your category.

Remember, you don’t have to get it right on the first shot. Even the biggest players are constantly updating their icons to attract attention.

3. Consider both app stores: Apple’s App Store and Google Play are designed differently, and this means that you should optimize each page accordingly. For example, on the App Store, users first see a large app icon and 1.5 images or videos of gameplay, whereas on Google Play users first see a much smaller icon, but 3.5 images of gameplay or 1 video of gameplay. Focus on the right assets for each store.

4. Test, test, test: There are many solutions available to test your store’s page. Google Play has a native A/B testing tool that allows developers to conduct tests and then implement those changes right away. For iOS, there are third-party services that will help you test various assets. Whatever store you work with, or whatever solution you use, the important thing to remember is that testing is critical.

Let’s review what we learned:

1. Test marketability before greenlighting a game

UA isn’t just about CPIs, but also about whether or not there is a big enough market to download your game.

2. Run a creative soft launch

You can learn a lot about how users interact with gameplay before the global launch. If you see that ads with one character converts best, use that same character during your tutorial.

3. Focus on creative optimization

It’s the only part of the funnel where UA managers can directly appeal to potential users and encourage them to install the game.

4. Automate your UA optimization

Take advantage of a bid optimizer to speed things up and lower CPIs.

5. Master attribution ad fraud and learn how to get around it

Remember, don’t buy on channels that don’t have direct SDK access to users.

6. Don’t waste impressions, use a suppression list

Save on ad spend by avoiding delivering ads to users who already have your game.

7. Optimize the top of the funnel with ASO

Make sure that users who land on your app store page from your creative are primed for download.

Let’s take your game to the next level

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