Alawar experience: how to increase eCPM advertising in the game by 150%
Alawar has been around since 1999. She is known for her hidden object games - more than 40 such applications are available in the company ’s Google Play account . Alawar games are released in all key mobile stores (Google Play, App Store, Windows Store, Amazon, Samsung), are sold on Steam and distributed through affiliate programs. Below is a story about why and how to use advertising in freemium games.
For 2016, Alawar planned to release several new games and update existing projects. It was an ideal moment to update the monetization strategy, and in August 2015 the company began searching for new partners for advertising in its games.
Hereinafter - screenshots from the game Dark Tales: Buried Alive
Games of this genre are usually distributed according to the freemium model: the player downloads the trial part and, if he likes, opens the full version for money. The “Free Trial + Paid Full Game” scheme works well for Alawar projects, but there are always users who are not willing to pay. They only play trial versions, and the company monetizes such players through advertising.
Evgeny Kapustin, Alawar Monetization Manager:“The main goal of any advertising in the game is to increase the total income due to the monetization of those who do not make purchases in the application. In our case, there were additional difficulties due to the peculiarity of the distribution model. We could broadcast ads only in the free part of the game, and after purchasing the full version of the game, advertising is turned off. Such restrictions greatly reduce the potential number of ad impressions per user. Therefore, it was important for us to find a partner with the highest eCPM. ”
Alawar had a long experience working with various mediation networks and services, including AdMob, AdToApp, Chartboost, Fyber, Supersonic and various video advertising providers (AdColony, UnityAds, Vungle, Applovin, etc.). But since this time we needed a partner who combined high eCPM, good fill rate and stable coverage in all countries in one solution, the company began to look for new services.
The search for the best solution began in August 2015 and lasted almost a few months.
Obviously, it was necessary to use mediation, because each country has its own advertising networks, and the company did not want to overload the game with a set of several separate SDKs.
Alawar had the experience of manual and semi-automatic advertising management: the team independently collected data from advertisers connected to the games, analyzed them and blocked weak grids, leaving only those who gave good results. When working on a large number of projects in several markets, manual control took a lot of time and effort, so I wanted to find a way to automate everything as much as possible.
The monetization strategy has remained the same - it has been worked out for a long time and just needed to be updated. Alawar games use two advertising formats - Rewarded video (videos for which the player receives a reward) and full-screen banners. Video with the award does not cause irritation for the players, and they are often used to restore hints during the game.
The user sees full-screen banners when some kind of completed action occurs (for example, the scene has ended or the head of the game has been completed). According to Alawar’s experience, full-screen ads in their games always worked better than banners or native ads. This is due to the fact that the company has many games, each with its own interface features. In this situation, full-screen banners are more convenient and easier to integrate.
After all the tests, Appodeal turned out to be the best option in terms of fill rate, eCPM, and ease of integration.
The main result is that advertising revenue in games has grown globally and especially in target markets.
Eugene Kapustin, Alawar Monetization Manager: “Firstly, Appodeal showed an objective, honest fill rate, which can be used to judge advertising coverage. In the whole world, our fill rate is now 84%, and in the target countries - 94.8%. Secondly, you can understand the dynamics by comparing eCPM in games in which ad networks have been replaced by Appodeal, for example, in Snark Busters: All Revved Up! and Weird Park: Broken Tune . Previously, these games had different grids - Chartboost, MoPub, Fyber, AdMob, now there is one solution for everything built in. The table below is a comparison of the dynamics of advertising revenues for key countries for us.
In addition, it is convenient to monitor the performance of each network. We saw, for example, that video advertising from Applovin works best in our projects in France, and from Vungle in Russia and the UK. In general, if we wanted to achieve such a result on our own, we would have to integrate each game with at least seven ad networks, then conduct tests, determine effective combinations for each region, configure and constantly analyze the operation of networks. Now we practically do not waste time working with advertising. Built in - and that’s it, periodically look in the admin panel to see if everything is in order, sometimes we run cross-promotion campaigns. Earlier, it took 10% to 40% of the working time of a person involved in additional monetization to optimize advertising. ”
A new approach to working with advertising not only increased Alawar's revenue, but also allowed the team to completely concentrate on developing games and improving their products.
Task
- Alawar was preparing to launch new projects and wanted to try new monetization solutions in them.
For 2016, Alawar planned to release several new games and update existing projects. It was an ideal moment to update the monetization strategy, and in August 2015 the company began searching for new partners for advertising in its games.
Hereinafter - screenshots from the game Dark Tales: Buried Alive
- The new partner should help achieve maximum eCPM and fill rate.
Games of this genre are usually distributed according to the freemium model: the player downloads the trial part and, if he likes, opens the full version for money. The “Free Trial + Paid Full Game” scheme works well for Alawar projects, but there are always users who are not willing to pay. They only play trial versions, and the company monetizes such players through advertising.
Evgeny Kapustin, Alawar Monetization Manager:“The main goal of any advertising in the game is to increase the total income due to the monetization of those who do not make purchases in the application. In our case, there were additional difficulties due to the peculiarity of the distribution model. We could broadcast ads only in the free part of the game, and after purchasing the full version of the game, advertising is turned off. Such restrictions greatly reduce the potential number of ad impressions per user. Therefore, it was important for us to find a partner with the highest eCPM. ”
- Alawar games are released all over the world, so the company was looking for a solution that would allow it to show ads in as many countries as possible with minimal effort.
Alawar had a long experience working with various mediation networks and services, including AdMob, AdToApp, Chartboost, Fyber, Supersonic and various video advertising providers (AdColony, UnityAds, Vungle, Applovin, etc.). But since this time we needed a partner who combined high eCPM, good fill rate and stable coverage in all countries in one solution, the company began to look for new services.
Decision
The search for the best solution began in August 2015 and lasted almost a few months.
- The mediation service should become a new partner.
Obviously, it was necessary to use mediation, because each country has its own advertising networks, and the company did not want to overload the game with a set of several separate SDKs.
- Maximum simplification and automation.
Alawar had the experience of manual and semi-automatic advertising management: the team independently collected data from advertisers connected to the games, analyzed them and blocked weak grids, leaving only those who gave good results. When working on a large number of projects in several markets, manual control took a lot of time and effort, so I wanted to find a way to automate everything as much as possible.
- Old monetization strategy combined with new tools: Rewarded video and full-screen banners
The monetization strategy has remained the same - it has been worked out for a long time and just needed to be updated. Alawar games use two advertising formats - Rewarded video (videos for which the player receives a reward) and full-screen banners. Video with the award does not cause irritation for the players, and they are often used to restore hints during the game.
The user sees full-screen banners when some kind of completed action occurs (for example, the scene has ended or the head of the game has been completed). According to Alawar’s experience, full-screen ads in their games always worked better than banners or native ads. This is due to the fact that the company has many games, each with its own interface features. In this situation, full-screen banners are more convenient and easier to integrate.
After all the tests, Appodeal turned out to be the best option in terms of fill rate, eCPM, and ease of integration.
results
The main result is that advertising revenue in games has grown globally and especially in target markets.
Eugene Kapustin, Alawar Monetization Manager: “Firstly, Appodeal showed an objective, honest fill rate, which can be used to judge advertising coverage. In the whole world, our fill rate is now 84%, and in the target countries - 94.8%. Secondly, you can understand the dynamics by comparing eCPM in games in which ad networks have been replaced by Appodeal, for example, in Snark Busters: All Revved Up! and Weird Park: Broken Tune . Previously, these games had different grids - Chartboost, MoPub, Fyber, AdMob, now there is one solution for everything built in. The table below is a comparison of the dynamics of advertising revenues for key countries for us.
In addition, it is convenient to monitor the performance of each network. We saw, for example, that video advertising from Applovin works best in our projects in France, and from Vungle in Russia and the UK. In general, if we wanted to achieve such a result on our own, we would have to integrate each game with at least seven ad networks, then conduct tests, determine effective combinations for each region, configure and constantly analyze the operation of networks. Now we practically do not waste time working with advertising. Built in - and that’s it, periodically look in the admin panel to see if everything is in order, sometimes we run cross-promotion campaigns. Earlier, it took 10% to 40% of the working time of a person involved in additional monetization to optimize advertising. ”
A new approach to working with advertising not only increased Alawar's revenue, but also allowed the team to completely concentrate on developing games and improving their products.
