Fluent's Matt Conlin On Game-Changing User Acquisition Trends To Watch In 2024

[Music] hello world welcome back to the pg. biz podcast I'm your host Brian Bago and joining me as always is the Empress of events the globe Trotter herself Miss Peggy and salts hello Peggy how do we find you today I am feeling just great Brian and I always wonder how you manage to do that you are unique every single time every single show and that is a whole year that we've been doing this now I know our first anniversary it's we should have had cake well PG connect right London it's a date it's a date we will do that in person yes yeah it's in fact I think the first time we met was was a mobile event maybe even the mobile entertainment for him back some scary number of years ago so I know I know before your beard Brian

it was very definitely pre-beard and it was back when I was a stunning blonde um we should save the mysty reminisence for when we actually meet Peggy but um but yeah a year already and and this is of course then this makes it our first show of 2024 so a very Happy New Year to you as well absolutely and what better way to kick it off than to do a SWAT analysis of the tactics the alternative tactics the tactics you can and should take advantage of in 2024 and who better to delve into the strengths and weaknesses of these various UA channels both old and new than Matt Conlan who is co-founder and chief customer officer at fluent Matt oversees sales marketing and business development at fluent which is an industry leader in user acquisition again that overview it's fantastic to have you Matt Peggy Brian thank you so much for having me today it is my pleasure to ring in the news year with

the two of you it's it's good to have you here Matt and and user acquisition is something that we that keeps coming up time and time again on this show when no matter who we're speaking to what sort of company they come they they come from and the position they hold within that company UA is just one of the big big challenges let's let's start with a little bit about you Matt you've been at fluent for 13 years which is a fairly fairly impressive track record in itself and so you will have seen a lot of changes in that time a lot of changes a lot of pivots a lot of evolution both in the company and the industry as we kick off 2024 first show of the year um all of the new tools Tech Trends emerging channels alternative app stores what are you guys at fluent watching most closely and with the most interest and why and yes this is our predictions for 2024 section yeah yeah great yeah I think bran that's an awesome question to start off the new year with yeah there's no doubt being in the gaming ecosystem for a decade plus and digital marketing for 20 plus years you've seen a lot you have

to Pivot a lot I think what I'm most excited about is it's 2024 the New Year always brings about new possibilities and New Opportunities and I think as as marketers and creators and developers it also is an opportunity to solve new puzzles and new challenges you know I think the overarching theme that we saw in 2022 in the T back half going into 23 was a huge shift from growth at all costs to growth with roaz as the primary metric and kpi set that marketers were looking at I think the CMOS and the CFOs of organizations started saying the economy is changing it's tightening and we need to be more profitable faster and so over the course of last year we saw the kpis of most marketers changed pretty dramatically and I would anticipate in 2024 the thing that we're keeping a close eye on is how those

metrics continue to evolve and how marketers really start to shift Focus towards a shorter payback window and seeing healthier D7 D30 d180 uh performance and so you know we see a lot of our clients really leaning into getting better utility out of every single dollar that they put to work across all the various channels the obvious one that we have to touch on is recently epic won a a pretty epic uh court case against Google don't mind it I apologize for the pun but you know this is going to change the game right so not only is privacy continued to evolve but now so is the App Store economy and by the way 2023 I think the EU passed the digital markets act and apple just had to disclose at November that they are allowing third-party app stores onto the devices in 2024 right so you've got now a whole

proliferation of opportunities and new challenges to start to solve for now as a mobile marketer I have to think about which channels I'm going to Market on the tried and true Google Facebook app Lovin Unity iron Source I've got all these alternative channels that we've been championing for a long time um but now I was I gotta figure which app store do I want to acquire users through right and this is all very new but now I have an opportunity to drive users through iOS Android do the Microsoft store The Cross promotion of how you publish an app I think will be a big topic for developers and I think a trend that we'll want to keep a really close eye on this year is if if you're a developer the epics of the world have created an interesting Playbook that you're going to see a lot of fast followers start to go after I can create my own app store and allow my best most valuable users to engage directly with a a store that I've created for them wow okay and and that was question number one so I think we

can kind of encapsulate that and say that the the one constant in the games Market is change I would say that all these changes are good for the both the developer and the consumer because at the end of the day consumers want choice right all these changes especially the uh the soon to be proliferation of you know third party alternative app stores will create that choice and now consumers can look at when I'm engaging with these app stores what has the best user experience a lot of the the the ux and the design has been pretty much the same for over a decade so with the introduction new app stor is there new feature sets that become available new way of displaying games and displaying a lot of the different elements of that game itself and so I'm excited to see how consumers and developers alike will benefit from the changes that we just discussed in 2024 and Beyond phenomenal because it it seems as though that more and more of the power is coming back to the creators you know it's giving them more to do it's not just make a great game and you're set for life life it's

make a great game find your players keep your players it's like build your own app store you know we we we spoke to uh we've spoken to companies in the past who are already building the platforms to allow you to create your own app stores you know so it seems as though more and more of the the opportunity is flowing back to the is to the developers are you seeing the development Community you know appreciating this the value ad will go both ways these new app stores and developers that create their own environments will have a great appreciation for how challenging it is to create kind of Rich content and and kind of easy to use features there's a lot of thought resource energy and money that goes into creating incredible retail experiences and now game developers that have had one main focus is create great games that engage my my players for you know extended period of time now I have to think about how to create retail environments that keep them coming back and make sure they're populated with all the right types of products and features and that's not a lightt so Matt from everything you're

saying the options and opportunities are multiplying at a huge rate and changing very very quickly um and the perception of these options are going to be changing just as just as fast but one real obvious one is the is the value of an incentivized player you there are mechanisms in place to increase their numbers their loyalty to the game are they working still and can you tell us what's the profile of an incentivized player and what do they bring to the game great question Brian so no longer is there a stigma around leveraging rewarded platforms to acquire uh new users that narrative is long since sailed and you know some of the largest gain developers in the world leverage rewarded Discovery and loyalty rewarded ecosystems um to to drive new players it's all become kind of a a critical piece of a healthy media mix right and and I think it's also brought on by frankly saturation within some of the traditional channels and I think there's

also just a an keen understanding that as mobile gaming as an industry starts to mature it has to leverage tips and tricks from more mature Industries I mean just look at uh credit cards Airlines you know the the Quick Service restaurants every single one of the the industries that have been around for 20 50 100 years leverages rewards and some sort of Point mechanism to keep consumers loyal now that marketers are waking up to the idea that I can identify not only an incremental user right somebody who's net new I I wouldn't have picked up in some of my traditional marketing environments but this is a user that is is end up being loyal to my game and so I think what we're excited about is the positive feedback we get from game developers around the power of getting a a rewarded user because there's great quality there there's great LTV we did a a survey of several thousand consumers recently ly and one of the interesting data points

that came out of this survey of consumers was that 65% of users that came from a rewarded uh experience have made an inapp purchase right so this is a user that's coming in they're making a purchase they're reaching certain events and levels and they're playing that game it creates an opportunity for consumers to discover the game and for developers to show how great their game is because once they're in there they're making that first purchase they're getting first into the game they let the game mechanics take over so it creates that that really unique kind of value exchange and I think there's a crazy data point here that I I just I have to share the users that come from wed platforms are 50% more likely to make an app purchases than non-rewarded users part of that's because they have a compelling reason to they're commonly being rewarded with some sort of currency a gift card opportunity or or earning potential and so they're more likely to makeing it purchase and start to play that game it's a really critical

part of a healthy media mix also when you talk about the profile you know one of the interesting things we see is that the you know the game developers that get it are able to bid 20 30 $40 for an install for uh users that come from you rewarded Discovery platforms like those offered by fluent and those types of bid rates are comparable with the non-rewarded ecosystems right so you and the only way they can constantly bid at those levels is if they're seeing compelling ltvs if they're seeing the retention that they would come to expect and if they're seeing the progression through the game play and so we get encouraged when we start to see the bid rates increase because we know we're providing value uh to the ecosystem the early metrics are always focused on the health of you know D7 D14 D30 Raz we're seeing more and more of our partners they're looking at the the the 180 and 250 and 360 65 Raz metrics and and these

users stick and I think that's what's really changing the perception on how marketers can better leverage uh reward ecosystems and drive users that come from you know I think what was previously thought of as alternative channel that maybe didn't drive the best quality user I think that perception's changed what I'm hearing here and I'm going to piece it together is that you're looking at 2024 and you're saying it's going to be about the business of Games game devs are going to be retailers game devs are going to understand retail and as you said yourself what worked in other verticals so loyalty programs Point systems rewarding rewarded Discovery is going to have a place or a higher place but what is its place going to be in UA great question so if we think of the macro Trend first right there's been a big shift away from growth metrics over to you know Raz and and driving better profitability and tightening that payback window I think the marketers are

looking for efficiency what are efficient channels that canri Drive Great Value users Great Value players and so what we're starting to find is that rewarded Discovery platforms are great at driving two key elements highly efficient channels that are also very predictable of course they need to be optimized like any other channel you optimize for uh better progression and better retention and um and you and you have to use all those levers that are available but I think the other thing that marketers are looking for in in rewarded Discovery platforms is uh incrementality and we we like to think about is how do you identify the non-gamer gamer the consumer that doesn't self-identify as a gamer but plays plays mobile games five to 10 plus hours per week on their commute uh when they have downtime at home and I think what we find is these rewarded platforms bring

to bear those incremental users that aren't already in the ecosystem so it gives marketers new ponds to fish in when they're thinking about reaching new consumers and a really consistent Trend we hear and a theme we hear from a lot of our our larger game developers were looking for incrementality right I don't want to pay a premium for a user I could have gotten somewhere else I'm already fully saturated across the mainstate channels how can you drive me an incremental user that that I wouldn't have seen otherwise you see that as a really important point this kind of goes directly to the whole privacy kind of challenge that all marketers are working through is the value exchange right and and what we're finding is that Within These reward ecosystems consumers oftentimes are asked to allow the app to track right you have to allow the app to track because they're going to be rewarded for the more they play the more levels they reach and and and they'll earn credits towards things real world uh gift cards and and so on and so forth

but as long as there's a clear value exchange for the consumer the consumers get great value out of those games the game developers see Great Value and so I think that's where I think rewards becomes a true pillar a tent pole if you will in the mobile app marketers media mix and it all goes back to the the efficiency making every dollar work harder let's kind of move on to the sort of the the real kind of uh crown jewels here Matt you you you promised us a SWAT analysis first a SWAT for the rewarded ecosystem right so if you're if you're a mobile game developer and you're going to leverage uh some of the rewarded uh loyalty platforms out there or Discovery platforms that are out there I'd say biggest strength access to incremental audiences right that's number one your boss is GNA be very happy with the fact you're introducing new audiences new Gamers to your game number two on the strength side is efficiency so now if I can efficiently Acquire The non-gamer Gamer who is going to be playing playing my game making the purchases and value

at that's a big strength on the weakness side is there's a different LTV curve right and you have to kind of model for that separately and you know frankly these consumers behave differently there's some adjustments that need to take place to your models to ensure that you're appropriately pricing this type of inventory on the opportunity side you know there's there's rapid growth potential there's scale there's you know incredible quality that can be derived and that's only going to increase as more and more uh overall dollars go into that ecosystem and uh I think from a threat perspective is is the obvious around privacy regulation right there there's potential for more privacy changes but you know as we talked about when there's a clear value exchange and consumers are winning which in this case they are I think it it makes a very compelling case for why you know that big threat around you know uh continued privacy regulations um being less of a concern as part of that let's let's have a little look at um you know one aspect of this in terms of influencer marketing

because you know social continues to have a an a Major Impact some would say a a vastly you know over important impact but it's the number two place where players discover new games and so we know it's got a own share of strengths and weaknesses social is emerging as a new search channel right and and younger Generations are are using social to discover new products and new games if you look at Social through that lens um it starts to change your perception of how to leverage influencers to drive um to drive behavior and drive adoption of your of your product and I think there's a there's a great data point that uh statista dropped which was 55% of gen Z and 57% of Millennials think social is better than online search for learning about new products wow that trend is only going to continue right so you're talking about the next couple years 60 70% of the younger Generations will use

social exclusivity to find out about new products right so I think that's a trend you need to get ahead of and start to develop your own influencer strategy to stay ahead of that curve I think the other point is that influencer marke is clearly leading the way when it comes to Discovery I think any major game developer has a very large uh influencer and Creator management team they're developing deep Partnerships with creators to drive the adoption you saw this with with Monopoly go you saw this with a number of moon active titles like coin master and so I think you're you're seeing this a lot of large titles uh is is they're leveraging influencer in a smart way because they know it works even to that matter rethinking it completely because they're using micro influencers or even even potentially AI well interesting point about micro influencers is we find that um micro and Nano so influencers that have under typically five million followers actually have a more engaged user base right when you're talking about the

macro or Mega creators and influencers they have such a big following people just follow to follow but when you've got that smaller following they're going to be more uh likely to engage with a product recommendation or a game recommendation and so we've really started to focus our efforts internally uh when it comes to driving Discovery for for our game Partners around that uh that micro and a nano influencer base especially for driving performance right we're not talking about brand from a brand perspective want to go Mega all day but if you want to drive performance metrics Drive outcomes in terms of installs and players that play we find that micro Nano works really well you know the SWAT analysis on on influencer quickly is strength it's where the eyeballs are people are spending more and more time on these platforms than ever before it's where consumers are the weakness frankly is is attribution and you know there's there's a lot of challenges with with making sure you're clear on which creators drove the outcomes and I think that's that's part of the the challenge is making sure you have the right media mix model that that

can that can successfully work in the Creator and influencer space I think the big opportunity as we go over time is aligning with relevant creators that meet your brand right those that you can that build trust for your product and drive a more engaged user uh and that that takes time right to do the the research and find the creators that best align with your product the big thread is of course brand safety right you don't have as much control over messaging which is why you have to invest into a influencer and a creater team that can hold the hands of these creators make sure they know what to say and not to say and how to keep the brand um promise the brand message at the Forefront and you showed this also in your data that I saw during the webinar that social was the number two place right where players discover new games so you know Peg it's a great point because almost all game developers today uh marketing teams are spending on the platforms themselves so as a way to augment those spends with these social platforms to not have a social strategy

or an influencer strategy is a Miss because it's essentially a way to bypass the toll booth if you will right you can either pay the toll booth at the platform level or you pay the influencers directly a balanced mix is really important you know because it clearly it's where consumers are and it drives great discovery it's a fascinating Point M as somebody who goes back you know I technically I'm a journalist right now but I started off doing PR and it was the difference between um you know the media the proper media and uh people running their own websites so the very early days of blogs you know the blogs were getting more eyeballs but the credibility came from the media the magazines you know the broadcast channels and of course now that's that's all been flipped and it's that curation but it's that trusted content as you say and if you can form that relationship then you can you can have H an incredibly valuable Source who is telling people you should play this game unlike the app stores where you go and for all the money that you're spending You're simply being seen

alongside all of the other people who are you know hopefully also shaping their own marketing messages to say our game's great so it's it's a smart move right and you know exactly regardless of the threat I think everybody's going to have to have to get on board with this if you're counting this up in your head Brian you're saying Okay g devs they have to have their store understand retail understand the science of rewards and uh manage these agencies and the Nano influence or you know it's it's a lot on their plate from my perspective um Peggy I think it's one where it puts the power back in their hands you know they can work with agencies they can work with Publishers they can work with lovely companies like fluent Matt obviously um and we highly recommend them it becomes an informed choice you know do we want to do this or do we just want to make a game but but for me it's being able to shape not just your game but the the storefront the messages that are going out across the board about this so it

it's a hugely powerful um system it might be intimidating but wow this a whole new era in terms of curating that entire experience for your players great way to get to another difference we're talking about a whole new era in what you can do with your game well you also have to understand that the landscape is very different and we got a little bit of a treat here because Matt didn't just come and say hey I've got a SWAT analysis for you no he also is looking at the landscape and Matt you have a new kind of mobile landscape I saw it on your blog I've been studying it ever since because what I found was really intriguing about it is you have sort of like mainstream the way things were up to maybe 20 20 3ish definitely 2024 and the alternative UA channels Beyond walk me through this mobile landscape because it's not just a grouping it's going to help me shape my strategy if you take a step back what we've discussed so far is that most Global uh marketers are looking for uh new channels new

Solutions new ways to engage consumers and and what we're finding now as a result of that is a proliferation of companies coming up with great ways to engage consumers and provide value to the mobile game developers and and of course they're probably looking at how successful many of the Main Stays have been over the years and saying you know what I've got an idea that I think I can bring to Market as a unique value proposition that brings value to the ecosystem and So within the mainstream channels you have the duopoly you have the major DSP players that are just dominant forces within the the mobile game ecosystem they're reliable but they're also saturated there's a point of diminishing returns where you can no longer invest more money and get valuable users out right there is a point where you reach a ceiling and you're targeting you to the same users the same places and you're not reaching that net new and that's frankly where what we call the alternative channels alternative UA channels have started to

become a much more important part of the mix is uh it helps to broaden the reach frankly right I can reach new users you I think many years ago do you remember this there was a point where if you were to get a user off mobile web it was just a noo because you couldn't pass idfa I remember this we thought we were a Pioneer and we had a lot of our development like wait you can't pass me idfa I don't trust it and now we're finding that mobile web has its place because it does reach a different audience than might already be playing a game and and seeing some of the rewarded video content and so forth that's uh pretty prevalent within the game Community but we're finding though is that by promoting games on on mobile web environments or other kind of non-app um settings marketer able to reach and convert those casual gamers and newcomers uh who spend more of their time on open web and and different environments there's a lot of new companies that are investing into Innovative approaches that are thinking outside the box and and they're doing a great job of of helping bring a new

generation of Gamers into the ecosystem and and helping these mobile marketers reach brand new consumers that are providing Great Value it's looking great now but you could make it something that would go on our walls like in the old days remember with the the whole ecosystem because you brought it up yourself we've got rewarded we've got influencer and the emerging Channel itself which will be the alternative app stores just as a thought not that we want to extend the mobile landscape out to far but you're watching everything Matt you've been there done that we talked about the at the top of the show is there something that we're not talking about that we should have on the radar maybe not on the chart but definitely on the radar to unlock those new audiences yes yeah great question so sneak preview we've interviewed industry experts uh for their 2024 uh predictions for the mobile app ecosystem and we're able to licit feedback from a number of awesome partners and so I I was able to get

insights from folks outside of the fluent walls which was really helpful but I think a couple themes that started bubbling up number one is because we're we're moving away from deterministic targeting I think we're going to see a rise in um contextual targeting and I think marketers be looking for different ways to reach consumers in contextually relevant environments one of the other big themes we're going to see emerge as a part of that though is I think we're going to find a lot of uh mobile game developers are going to be prioritizing the collection of first-party data and first-party insights so that they can become more powerful and how they reach consumers where they are uh and I think that notion of creating your own first-party Insight investment into a CDP and and understanding who your customers are will help them Reach consumers on the right channels uh more effectively I think there's going to be a push towards what we'll call even more non traditional channels we've seen a surge in Connected TV podcasts H hyper local

events I would say that one emerging channel that we're keeping a really close eye on is Commerce media so directly after uh the transaction moment is there a relevant opportunity for game developers to participate in that ecosystem right somebody who just purchased a a flight hey need something to do while you're traveling download this new game right I think there's there's some really interesting pock of inventory and it's on us as marketers to just get creative right there is a a sea of opportunities to reach new consumers and reach your existing and so just getting creative with where you might be able to find it so I will say there will be no shortage of new channels that will be tested this year from The Savvy mobile game developers that exist that is amazing challenging challenging Brian but I mean if you think about it it makes such sense because retail is everywhere and all sorts of of sizes so it makes makes to sense feels very very

optimistic little little little little stressful little overwhelming but definitely optimistic so uh thanks for that Matt Still Blown Away have to say I think mind-blowing is is the way to put it Matt there there's a huge amount in this I can see a lot of people listening to this multiple times so everyone we have here we also look at them as people because everyone is more than a title right now we see your background and I looked at I said to myself I think a one word I think of rock not because you're Rock not because this was really cool and we learned a lot but you're also solid like a rock you know your company you've been with your company your company's gone through changes pivots Partnerships tell us how you've sort of maneuvered and navigated this past and maybe leave our audience with a little bit of advice about how you deal with rapid change you've done it already Matt and they're going to have to do it because the world is their oyster yeah you're you're right we founded fluent in 200 10 and uh it has been an absolutely

Wild Ride one that wouldn't change for the world from uh getting acquired in 2015 to spinning ourselves out two years later to the products we've developed and pivoted away from to those that we've invested further into to the incredible team members I've had the privilege of working with and partners we've had the privilege of servicing I think one thing that's helped us you know manage through the tough times and the good times is an adage that we hold quite dear here at fluent which is what one does in the face of adversity ultimately determines their Destiny it's true in business and it's true in life and frankly you know if some of these changes weren't coming about new things would not be created right and so I I I love the constant change and I think gives way to Innovation and has created a great career for so many awesome people to keep keep driving change and I can see you at that Helm Matt I can see you at that Helm exactly so there's reason the the the tagline for the show is is listen learn love and I think

there's a lot a lot that they're going to have to listen to but there's so much in there to love so Matt thank you so much we're not going to keep you much longer we we ask every guest two final questions before we we send them off to get on with their day um and it comes back to games because everything does the first is what are you playing right now what's obsessing you what's burning a hole in your pocket if it's a mobile game right now and the second one favorite game of all time oh boy okay um what am I obsessing over right now we do a lot of work in the Casual game Adventure Match 3 so I have played them all absolutely obsessed with the Monopoly goes and coin Masters and and Royal matches and and those were all incredible titles but I recently was uh QA the survival space because one of our uh longtime friend and development Partners is building a new one so I got hooked on surviv .io oh which is yeah I

don't know how often that gets brought up but it is wildly addicting and uh playing way way too much of it oh yeah no it's the the iio games are are are kind of uh not one that not ones that come up very often but I'm with you I bet it do and then as far as favorite of all time this is going to date me a bit but uh Game Loft used to create this series called Modern Combat and they had uh this one title as a first-person shooter called Modern Combat 5 that was probably one of the best games it was their Graphics it was so ahead of its time I was surprised that they could get this level of gameplay into a mobile device back in whatever that was 2016 2017 so those games don't even exist anymore right you have to you have to play against others and so I I miss those greatly I had a blast playing those I hear you and as somebody who who sucks enough not to want the multiplayer experience and is quite happy pluging along that's me yeah yeah it's I'm I'm I'm quite happy it's taking on it's the AI controlled monsters it's you know at

least I'm I'm not getting called a dumbass every sort of few deaths power same well Matt that that that really has to bring us to an end of our time so thank you again for your time I think it has been honestly incredible it just means we get you back on at some point in the near future um because that that was it was honestly astonishing I'll just second it because it is going to be one amazing article maybe even a series over at Pocket Gamer yes well this is about a whole new world so thanks for opening our eyes to that yes thank you guys I appreciate it this show is all about how to do your job better how to make an amazing game how to Market it and you have a say so if you have a story or know someone we need to shine a light on then we would love toar hear from you we want to hear from you we want to reflect the reality

of the mobile games market and all its wonderful complexity and strangeness so if you have any suggestions for us if you have any feedback for us you can always get in touch you can email us at podcast at pocketgamer.biz you can find us on Twitter at PG Biz and you can reach out to us through the pocketgamer.biz website if you're interested in listening to all of our podcasts you can find them at pocketgamer.biz podcast and we would love to hear your thoughts on future shows and we've got you covered on all the major platforms so subscribe to the audio podcast as Brian said look for us on YouTube if you want to read it hey you can do that too because we have a companion post for you as well on the pocketgamer.biz website tune in again for the next edition of the pocketgamer.biz podcast and we look forward to speaking to you in the near future until then I'm Brian Bago I'm pegan salt and that's the wrap until next [Music]

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