Ads, IAP & Beyond Supercharge Your Game Growth - ANTONIO MANUEL RIBEIRO, Meta Audience Network

[Music] thank you [Music] so now we're going to turn our attention to looking um supercharging your game Groove ads IAP and beyond supercharging your gain growth with Antonio who's just sat down I'm going to make him stand up sorry Antonio good to see you my friend um come on through uh do you want to stand here and talk or okay well I'm Gonna Leave You in Antonio's great hands um that's just to click the green one okay yeah okay great stuff thank you

very much so I think about it to get started hello everyone and thanks for joining today uh I will be taking you through uh the results of a study that we conducted with the IDC and for this we partnered with over 500 Publishers gaming Publishers worldwide to get some real insights and how to how they run their business and how they can maximize their growth potential my name is Antonia Ribeiro I'm a strategic partner manager at meta on the Audience Network team I'm on the left by the way so don't get confused um and so to get started we could focus on a question which is are you building a great game or are you building a great gaming business hopefully the answer is that you're working towards both so we know that a great game is essential because that's the starting point for everything you want to create a game that players enjoy and get entertainment out of but at the same

time you want to be focusing on the strategic planning that goes into the the business aspect of the overall equation for success and so to build a great gaming business as we established you need a great game but you also need teams that will help you take your business further and have the talent and the skills and the expertise to be able to run all aspects of monetization and so today hopefully it'll help you with a bit a little bit of that and so we're going to focus on three main areas maximizing your growth potential we're going to have a look a little bit at how user acquisition uh relates to all of this and also looking a little bit ahead so how to plan for the future with some of the new platforms that are coming up and just before we get started into the actual numbers and everything just a little bit of context so we know and this was part of the reason why we wanted to do this study is that we know

that the last couple of years have been you know quite disruptive for gaming businesses there was obviously Apple's release of iOS 14.5 last year there's a bunch of new regulations that are still limiting the the way that we get mobile identifiers and how to attribute Revenue but the good news is that we know that high value players and the monetization opportunities they're still there they're just a little bit more difficult to find and Publishers and gaming Publishers have had to adapt in order to capitalize on that so this is how we wanted what we wanted to find out like how did they adapt in phase of these changes and so what we saw the the answer we got was that as the apricot system continues to change public Publishers are adapting and we wanted to know specifically on the impact of iOS 14.5 and while there were a few Publishers that said that they did see a decrease

in ad spend and also in uh user in ad monetization the overall majority actually said that the ad spend and at Revenue either stayed flat or increased so we have 83 percent saying this regarding ad spend and 89 saying this for uh ad Revenue and then there's also Android it's not pictured on the slide but we also know that about 37 percent of the the the surveillance they also stated that they have increased and shift some of the ad spent to focus more on Android at least for now because there's probably other changes coming but for now they've shifted to to Android and so this looks quite optimistic and that's why the light is fighting so much because apparently there's a lot of money to be made out of this because the IDC is reporting that in 2026 around 63 billion dollars uh will be paid to Publishers from in-app advertising and

Om Day is projecting for 2022 a 26 increase and for 2023 a further 18 increase in ad Revenue so these despite all the changes these are all very positive numbers that motivate people to con still continue to invest in ads and so all the potential is still there Publishers are saying this industry analysts are saying this and so we wanted to find out how many of the Publishers we survey are already using ads and the vast majority that's good news already is that's 93 of Publishers that say they're already using in iPads so if you look at the look at the reverse of that means that there's seven percent that have yet to integrate ads so we think that that number is going to keep decreasing over the next year or so because we saw that Trend over the last couple of years as well so there's still a few people needed to convince but I'm

sure we we will be working on that and so another a few key metrics that we've got was obviously in iPad's one is is great for Revenue but what other effects that is does it have on key metrics such as retention and arpdale and this is where the research I think gave really good results so over 50 percent of Publishers stating that when they use this hybrid monetization uh strategy app in iPads plus in-app ads that they saw an increase in our town thirty percent so we also have great results in terms of uh retention and LTV and even in on uh increase of IAP as well and so with that context out of the way we're going to be focusing now on what actions can you take in terms of ads monetization and for your overall strategy

so going a little bit deeper in some of these models we found out that when we asked Publishers that a lot of them are already planning for in iPads and ads when they launch the game and this is crucial because they stated that by doing this this they saw a 62 percent increase in in sorry in arpto and to also meet with their retention targets so this is crucial you're planning ahead with IAP and ads but even if your game is already live and obviously there's games that have been around for five years 10 years and they've had to integrate ads in their games while the after the games were launched 44 of the respondents also say that they see better results in our Tao and retention when they integrated ads and we're going to have a little bit more detail on that so the other key aspect is what ad formats to choose so there's a variety

of AD formats that you can that you can use today and even some games will have more than one format it's quite common to have rewarded video and banner ads for example and so we wanted to find out what was the most important ad formats for Publishers and this means that the one that was generating more revenue for them and so 23 said native ads if you're not familiar those are the kinds of ads that are highly customizable sort of match the look and feel of your of your app 23 said Banner which I don't know if that's surprising at least to me it was I thought the number would be lower but then it's important to remember that banner ads are quite popular with especially with Social Casino games with Hyper casual games so that's mostly where that number is coming from surprisingly only seven percent said reward that interstitial was their most important net format so it doesn't mean that more Publishers are using it but the most important one which I thought was lower than I expected

and then I this one was not surprising 47 saying that rewarded video or the incentivized video view is their most important ad format and we know this because then I'm gonna discuss a little bit more and spend a bit more time on rewarded video but it's that very positive value exchange between the player who gets something for free and also the Publishers and the advertisers and so we wanted to find out more specifically on rewarded video and in traditional ads what are the most common entry points or the most successful I should say uh for these types of ads you can see behind me both the now I don't know if you want to take a picture I'll say to the back but we can see both rewarded video and interstitial at least for rewarded video which I find where there's more creativity sometimes involved uh in terms of the entry points daily mission was by far the most important entry point

and then in close second we have the home screen we have the post session so the post level as well and also the in-game store the in-game store is quite particularly interesting because it can be seen or used by some Publishers as a way to get players to get into the IAP sort of mindset so that's also I think why that's so so relevant and important and so rewarded video is great for Revenue as we saw 47 percent of of the Publishers agree but there's added benefits that come with rewarded video we found so 74 of Publishers said that after introducing rewarded video that they either the number of players either stay the same or increased 29 saw an increase in lifetime value and 39 saw mentioned that they saw an increase in IAP and I love this this last number because there's always been this idea that

introducing rewarded video can cannibalize your in-app purchases this proves that you know when done correctly that's not always the case and the reason we believe that this happens this increase in IEP is that with rewarded video the the player sometimes gets free bonuses items Etc to play to spend more time playing the game to getting more engaged with the game and potentially converting to a paying player as time goes by and so with this in mind it's important to you know you master the IAP plus uh IAA uh hybrid model but there are also other revenue streams that Publishers are exploring and we ask them precisely which ones were they and what growth they expect over the coming year or so so 31 expect growth in in-appro Revenue 38 percent say they expect growth in IEP

Revenue which we've covered and now these next three which are new 31 expect an increase in uh subscriptions 31 or 14 expect a growth in uh sponsorships and Licensing as well so these are not always applicable to your game and that's absolutely fine but it can based on these results it's something that is worth exploring and so now we're going to touch a little bit more on user acquisition and you might be thinking it's strange because this is a monetization session why are we talking about acquisition because that's a topic that we could spend around 20 minutes discussing but the what I wanted to discuss here is that one of the best findings we got out of this survey is that 67 of the Publishers they've decided to do this sort of

unified strategy between monetization and ads and so we wanted to find out more why and the main benefits or ways that they say that they're doing this is that they're using this to build groups segment and demographic groups and segments within their game and also creating and using some of these groups and segments to apply different monetization options so it's quite common to see some of these groups to identify countries with large IEP penetration so they can hold off on ads in those regions but on the flip side with countries and regions with low IAP they can potentially start serving ads potentially rewarded video first and what are the benefits of this according to them is increasing our Tau another aspect of user acquisition that sometimes Publishers forget but it's it's linked with ads is cross-promotion

so if you already have ads integrated in your game whether that is interstitials or rewarded video as the most the main formats you can use the already that integration to promote other games in your portfolio within that game and we see that 83 percent of Publishers are already doing this so by creating the mechanism of in-app ads in your game to connect to whatever demand Source you already have a channel for user acquisition that Publishers find to be extremely efficient in terms of costs I'm not suggesting that this should be your only UA Channel there's much there's a lot of other options out there but it's we are inviting you to consider this as part of a balanced user acquisition mix and strategy what other user acquisition are Publishers using so 44 54 of the Publishers mentioned that they're using content creators and social media

influencers we have a case study with Wildlife Studios uh that you can read on our website precisely about this creating social communities outside the game think Facebook groups Discord groups uh and 50 53 of the Publishers are doing this and 51 are using social and sort of viral activities within the game like for example custom tournaments special events also to with the idea to acquire new users and lastly on the user acquisition what we're seeing is Publishers are more and more learning about the importance of expanding to other markets and this is particularly relevant if you your game is localized to only certain markets and you feel like you've reached sort of the maximum or Peak potential in those markets and we see that 42 percent of Publishers are now considering expanding to New Markets what regions are they prioritizing 61

are saying the US Canada and Europe and 60 will be focusing their attention on the APAC region yeah and so just to summarize some of what we said about user acquisition just wanted to the main takeaways which is that unification of the monetization strategy and the user acquisition strategy also the using those other levers and channels for user acquisition that might fall a little bit outside the traditional user acquisition channels that you're used to using and if you especially if you're if your game is in a very mature game Market uh consider also expanding globally and so in the four minutes or so that we have left gonna focus on the future so everything we looked so far has been like the current status but we also wanted to find out from Publishers what are they doing to plan for the future

and so when asked about different platforms that Publishers are considering three platforms came on top cloud gaming browser-based games or HTML5 and AR VR so over 50 percent of Publishers said that both in 2021 and 2022 that they are already developing or at least planning for cloud games and uh browser games but what's interesting in this stat for me is that in 2021 only 20 said they were planning to develop for VR but that number more than doubled so for 2022 we have 47 saying that they are now planning to develop for VR as well so we even though it's such an early technology can compared to some of the others I think if there's any VR fans in the audience that's quite exciting and it shows that the market is indeed uh more interested

in that in that platform and then obviously we work with ads so we ask the question do you think ads work well in these new environments the answer was yes so for browser and cloud gaming it's not super surprising because a lot of the ad formats some of the techniques that we use on the native apps of IOS and Android can be used in these platforms but what was surprising was VR and about 50 percent believe that advertising also lends itself well for VR it's a very early technology I don't believe that anyone cracked that advertising in VR yet but this shows that there is a lot of interest and the potential is there what other revenue streams are they exploring beside the multi-platform we asked them that as well and so 53 percent of Publishers said that they're

leveraging sponsorships or licensing deals 44 said that they're looking to uh gaming portals and new app stores as well 42 said that they're expanding distribution of their games to new partners and 28 said that they're exploring organic discovery doesn't mean that you as a publisher should be exploring all four of these plus the ones that we mentioned but hopefully this list will give you a little bit of inspiration on what Publishers worldwide are looking into and you might consider them for your business as well and so we're reaching the end almost on time which I'm quite happy about uh but this is a brief summary of everything we discussed I don't know if you want to take a photo I'm not going to cover it all in the interest of time but I think the main takeaways are the the importance of the the hybrid IAP Plus in iPads planning for your game

whether you're launching a game or your game is already live exploring some of these new user acquisition models in particular class platform if you're already integrating ads and then looking ahead what are you planning what platforms are you considering developing games for in the in the coming years you can find all this information and a lot more on our website both on monetization and user acquisition so you'll there'll be some links on the presentation and so as we reach the end on behalf of the meta Audience Network team and the Facebook gaming thanks for coming to this session if you if you scan the QR code you will be taken directly to the full report that we discussed here today so there's a lot more information there on the answers that Publishers gave us in this survey I found it very interesting so it's a I think it's an excellent resource to have at hand

and so with that thank you very much and enjoy the rest of BGC thank you