Churn rate has become one of the most feared metrics for any freemium game. Developers must be continuously feeding the funnel in order to maintain a stable level of revenues. This ‘formula’ may take many game alterations to perfect. Once it works, developers can scale their user base with higher marketing budgets. User acquisition strategies and marketing budgets remain essential to keep a game alive. This holds true even when you are not actively scaling, simply due to churn.
User acquisition costs keep rising across all platforms. Combined with increasing competition, scaling is often no longer feasible. Developers are also struggling when trying to scale their user base. However, market consolidation reduces the stigma around in-app purchases. Developers now master freemium mechanics to increase their LTV. Providing a better and meaningful player experiences and increasing the production value.
Nowadays, user acquisition managers should diversify their strategies across all platforms. Each platform offers different opportunities to feed and scale games. CPI prices grow exponentially within a single network. Diversifying campaign networks when scaling helps keep CPI lower than LTV.
Social user acquisition channels
Social games reside on social platforms. These platforms ensure their marketing tools perform best. This situation ties developers to just one acquisition channel, such as Facebook Ads in this case. The social network is the dominant player in terms of acquisition with their AdExchange service for publishers. Other acquisition solutions exist inside the Facebook environment, such as Trialpay. These can prove relevant if you target the correct audience. Moreover, the Smartphone changed social gaming. It gave developers new tools and opportunities to scale beyond Facebook Ads.
Mobile user acquisition channels
Nevertheless, Facebook Ads excels in the mobile advertising space. Mobile now represents the majority of their revenues. Their targeting tools and massive mobile user base make them a noteworthy acquisition channel for game developers. In addition, the demand for mobile ad inventory is far larger than Facebook can support. Users are not only present on social networks. Consequently, other mobile advertising platforms deserve consideration. Twitter, Google and other ad-networks have entered the mobile app install market. These platforms create new advertising formats worth exploring. Examples include Twitter Mobile Install and Video Ads.
Offline user acquisition channels
The market consolidation and Smartphone penetration has led also to offline advertising such as TV. Gaming companies like King successfully used television advertising. This proves that brand campaigns can grow mobile games. Brand marketing gives developers exposure to previously inaccessible customers through performance marketing. TV advertising reaches users who do not typically play games on mobile devices. If the LTV of the game can afford these CAC, TV ads can be an important acquisition channel for growth. Beyond growth, TV ads drive re-engagement. You can reactivate players who left your game months or years ago. Subsequently building trust with players as they are more confident to pay for a product that appears on TV.
Furthermore, performance marketing remains the most profitable and efficient solution for the majority of game developers. Offline marketing such as TV, radio, SEO and PR reinforces performance campaigns to create new gamers. Social game developers could learn from the performance marketing strategies of real money gaming operators. RMG operators worked on CPA basis and mastered their techniques. Many platforms forbid real money gaming advertising, depending on the country. This makes RMG acquisition managers ‘the kings’ of performance marketing where social game marketers are a step above. Social gaming marketers can apply all techniques learnt from RMG on any advertising platform. This helps them scale and diversify their marketing campaigns.
Online user acquisition channels
There are infinite conventional display ad-networks which can be used for growth. As these networks work on CPM or CPC basis they can be a double-edge sword. Finding the best ad-network for your audience requires daily optimisation control. Done well, they prove more profitable than other performance solutions. Without proper audience targeting and creative optimisation, they quickly become a waste of money.
Affiliate marketing has gained attention in the social and mobile space over the past months. Affiliates grow more relevant in the mobile and social space. They offer a flexible channel for targeting audiences and paying based on performance. This model can give you quality players, however it requires a lot of management and integrations (SDKs, pixels, reporting tools, etc.).
In conclusion, mobile platforms drive the social casino industry. Market consolidation makes all known advertising channels fit into the marketing strategy for mobile games. Facebook Ads is definitely a good option but it is only one piece of the puzzle. Big ad-networks, affiliates and web portals suffered from the migration of users from web to mobile. They must adapt to the mobile app strategy. This move has come too late for many of them, in my opinion. Still, it creates market equilibrium and makes any acquisition channel as effective as on web portals.