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PocketGamer.biz3 Oct 2016

How Gram Games evolved its UA strategy to maintaining momentum for its existing games

Key insights

6 takeaways

01
User acquisition strategies should evolve through distinct phases: starting with low-cost influencer and Vine campaigns, moving to conservative digital platforms like Facebook and AdMob, and finally expanding into specialized game ad networks.
02
Burst campaigns can negatively impact long-term metrics; an initial burst campaign for '1010!' increased DAU by 30% but caused a 30% decrease in user lifetime value due to an over-reliance on incentivized traffic.
03
When scaling UA, ensure that LTV remains equal to or greater than eCPI; a second burst campaign for '1010!' during the Christmas period successfully generated 5 million installs in 20 days while maintaining LTV.
04
Always-on UA campaigns outperformed burst campaigns, delivering 20 million installs over two months while simultaneously reducing effective CPI by 10%.
05
Dedicate at least 20% of the total marketing budget to testing new ad networks and inventory sources to avoid exhausting the potential of existing channels.
06
Developing proprietary internal analytics tools is necessary to manage momentum once a game reaches high install volumes, as standard third-party solutions may lack the granular data required for optimization.

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Transcript

hello i'm kirim user acquisition manager for Graham lanes before I start let me show you the Grampians

yeah that was us Grammy's was funded in 2012 and after with some challenging time the team created Tenten in a one day in our prototype day and we used last available fundings in marketing for Tenten and it became a unicorn for us after that we launched two three mio titles tena world March 6 we experienced a lot of things by doing tan-tan emerge ua and WeChat channeled all our learnings to six now six has a big global success it's number one and almost eight countries right now in App

Store and I'm here to tell you about what we learn by doing UI for tendon here is the journey of Tintin green ones are the organically installs and blue ones are the paid installs we segmented our journey with six points at the beginning we don't have the resources so with a limit of money we have weeded influencing campaigns a bunch of vine series and it's worked for us really good and it give the kick that we need to hell after that we start to use conservative digital channels such as Facebook and AdMob every other startup who has a product and though in digital platforms use that but at the end it wasn't enough for us for you way then we

start to begin and find out some game specialized ad networks such as 11-inch artists be on board them we try we increase our volume after that it wasn't enough we consumed all the potential of there and we start to own world new networks we had a system we you at the time we use our 50% of our budgets for onboarding new net worth testing doing test campaigns after that we wanted to scale up our da we have in-app monetize games so we need to have really good da you especially on tier 1 countries so we decided to celebrate 10th of September as worth 10 ton day and we did a big

burst campaign we just dare advertise on iOS we increase our CPI targets by 30% there a lot of incentivized votes a lots of in turn to rise traffic added influencer campaigns and content marketing and a bunch of networks and yeah we on boards at least 15 more ad networks what we get in 5 days we got 3 million installs we increase our da you almost 30% and no that was sorry yeah after that we asked ourselves what we did wrong actually we managed to decrease our lifetime with that campaign by 30% so we

did something wrong we thought that without lots of incentivized traffic that was a reason that lifetime degrees and at that time on December we needed to increase our dialect refuses to get a maximum benefit from Christmastime so we did a second burst campaign for that time we did for both platforms we did we bought just now in San twice traffic external the campaign duration a little bit more and ensure that LTV is equal or greater than e CPI or at that time at December we got five million installs in 20 days increase they like to fill the number third

search 30% or we were like in top top five in 13 countries after that we looked at births campaigns didn't work for us really efficiently we were getting we increase our D they like the future number a lot but for that we paid a lot so we dig a little bit and decided to go on always on campaign more else from that time we start to spend more always on and in two months with that campaign model we got twenty million installs and managed to decrease ECPI by ten percent it was also hard to keep momentum with always on campaigns because you can't

consume all the potential in that country we are getting too many installs so we need to dig more on our we need to elevate or our resources more so we create our own analytics tool called Sarah Graham since q2 we implemented marketing analysis in it and now we can calculate all these metrics now for a source so try always my advice is trying always new answer inventories is really important you consume all the potential and my advice at least 20% of your marketing budget should go to test campaigns with new sources do not worry

hurry time is a secret metric of user acquisition it's really important because when you try to get more installs that you supposed to get you really lost money especially on anut magnetize games it it is really important because they lacked visitor number is your equal to revenue and you need to keep fresh that inventory be always data informed if you want to optimize and keep the momentum you need to know your sources evaluate your sources really good and optimize them yeah that's what thank you

Summary

Gram Games’ user acquisition strategy centers on the iterative evolution of marketing tactics to maintain momentum for mobile titles, specifically transitioning from aggressive burst campaigns to sustainable, data-driven always-on models. Founded in 2012, the studio leveraged early successes like 1010! to refine its approach to scaling global installs. The core thesis emphasizes that while burst campaigns can drive rapid chart climbing and user acquisition, they often risk degrading lifetime value (LTV) if they rely too heavily on incentivized traffic. Consequently, long-term growth is best achieved by balancing consistent, always-on campaigns with a dedicated budget for testing new ad networks.

The studio’s methodology involved a multi-stage progression: starting with influencer-led campaigns, moving to standard digital platforms like Facebook and AdMob, and eventually integrating specialized game ad networks. A pivotal lesson emerged from a 2015 burst campaign that generated 3 million installs in five days but inadvertently reduced LTV by 30%. By recalibrating for a subsequent holiday-season campaign—removing incentivized traffic and extending the duration—the studio achieved 5 million installs while successfully maintaining LTV. This experience led to the adoption of an always-on strategy, which yielded 20 million installs over two months while simultaneously reducing effective cost-per-install (eCPI) by 10%.

To support these efforts, the studio developed an internal analytics tool, Sarah, to track marketing metrics and optimize performance across diverse global markets. The primary conclusion is that user acquisition success requires a rigorous commitment to data-informed decision-making and constant inventory testing. Allocating at least 20% of the marketing budget to testing new sources is essential to prevent inventory saturation. Ultimately, maintaining a healthy balance between LTV and eCPI is the critical metric for ensuring that rapid growth translates into sustainable revenue for in-app monetized games.