Panel: In-Game Advertising – Learn From the Best

[Music] thank you [Music] one more panel to go this panel is going to be talking about in-game advertising I'm going to be learning from the very best in the industry so could I please welcome to the stage Chloe from adverty Eric from uh doodreams Otto from fingersoft and Thomas from gold Town games hi guys I'm Chloe I'm from um avrity I'm the senior director of publisher Grove and as our chief Supply just made the lovely intro of the format we're gonna

you know talk about the practices any concerns um things like that and then we would love to make a lot of intro interactions and take a lot of questions from you as well so feel free to raise your hands so I'm gonna start from the introduction so I'm gonna start from Thomas thank you so my name is tomasionason I work for golton games which is a Sports Management mobile game studio in Sweden so I am the head of publishing at Colton games yeah hello I'm Otto I'm an Administration manager at fingersoft and Burke game bit games like Hill Climb Racing one and two and and then boom cards for example and uh everything that comes to ads goes on my and on my team's table so so I think that's in a short I have a software engineer background also so a

little bit technical things might be coming too hey folks my name is Eric I'm CEO at do dreams and I do dreams we do more than games we do dreams and uh we're the developers of Drive ahead it's a gladiator car fight game you get points by knocking your friend in the head with a car 225 million organic lifetime downloads and we get feedback from fans saying I grew up playing Drive ahead it's the best feedback I've ever seen from a fan amazing so as you can see we've got amazing panelists today to discuss about in play so first question is how what's your experience within play um how long have you been using it and why did you decide to use it any anyone yeah I think I could start yeah we we are quite young in in-game advertisement in a sense like in in this sense that we have we have been talking

about today kind of like we have been using banner ads in Hill Climb Racing one for 10 years so kind of like it's a similar thing in a sense but now we wanted to transform the advertisement to 3D World and well since hill climb racing games are 2D ish in in in currently uh so then we have started with the boom cards game with the in-game advertisement boom cart is a cutting game and it's kind of like obvious that there's in a in a racing tracks there are in a real world there are advertisements and the developers had done actually like fake ads in in the game world so I was like well this is like a match made that well you should why we just don't download the monetizing ads to the game world and so we started and uh kind of like the experience has been so far good there's I I noticed there's a presentation there was quite a lot of ads that didn't fit in the game world

and that has been our main concern over there that we have we wanted to start with handpicking the ads so that we know that they will fit in the game world and since the racing is fast paced there shouldn't be that much text which still is one problem but I guess we can go go into that a little bit later so I can continue from from Otto and uh same thing with our our our team our studio when we when we launched Drive ahead seven years ago uh it's a gladiator uh Arena racing game gladiatorial arena racing game so the team put these fake ads into the game to make it feel more authentic I remember talking then like oh man wouldn't be so cool that you know since it's a car game that someday BMW would be advertising in our game and and you know what now with adverty they're one of the advertisers so back in the day the tech didn't exist or and uh and also we didn't have the

resources to do these direct deals and this is what excites me with with in-game ads and now with programmatic you could have have ads from basically any brand in the world in the game and and of course then work with your partner to make sure sure that they're relevant than good ads for your audience yeah we um we started out I guess about 18 months ago um in one of our titles which is called world hockey manager uh we're looking manager is uh quite a long time title uh in the market it's been around for six plus years um and we're looking really to see we're opportunists so we we try and find new monetization channels all the time so what we've done is we we start off with an MVP some Billboards in the arena sequence of the hockey games where it actually adds immersion I would say this format with adverty but then also we've done

custom deals where we we have been the sales people and reached out to companies like betway for example and done campaigns with them but primarily we work with adverty as a provider of a native or in play ads cure yeah from just a quick note that I hear are paying personally in the gaming in-game space for over two years now and I've seen a lot more Publishers trying these new formats and this is definitely something that you know I personally love to see so I want to back up Thor's lie a little bit so Thor mentioned in his life multiple times that the integration doesn't already take a lot of time and what's your experience is that true or not true how long did it take for you to go live well like yeah go go Focus I'm sorry I'm sorry um yeah so the integration was was uh

very very easy uh remarkably I would say compared to other techniques that that we have implemented it's my short answer yeah I was so like eager to answer because a technical question so uh yeah I think it was easy like the implementation actually we are not using adverted yet but might consider so uh it was easy in the sense that of course you put in the SDK only thing is that you kind of like put the Billboards and add placements in a send like correct places where you can make sure that the impression is is recorded this is like kind of like a big technical thing that how do you record an impression when you are putting the Billboards in in a racing game so that is like a big question and so that took a little bit time on quality assurance that uh they go in the right places so that the Impressions will be recorded when when they are that is shown Well author certainly is the best to

answer on from the technical perspective uh for me you know of course I realize also that adding a new partner a new SDK in the game kind of have negative impact and we do quite closely follow for example Android vitals uh in in adverty's case you know it wasn't wasn't painful and I remember the team complaining about it but uh and so in that sense you know I think the return on investment is great that is it's not something that's going to be a big pain for your team but it's not also the kind of thing that you just put in the game and you forget that it's going to generate revenue for you so so as Auto mentioned and you know you work with your partner to make sure that you know is there some optimization that you can do on your end for the visibility and and and or or work on different placements so so uh in order to get the best impact then you know you have to also invest in this thank you um so can we just dive in a little bit

about the performance like what kind of over performance that you you're seeing from in play from in-game ads and does it impact your player retention rate because that's kind of the most asked question uh for me when I speak to a new publisher they'll be like but it's in the game scene and what if my players don't like it so what's your experience from that and what kind of performance that you've seen so far are you happy with that well the the thing is that the of course the ads are really great for the game because they they they root the game into the real world and and they they do lend some credibility the brands lend credibility to your game uh in the in the case of Drive ahead you know it's a it's a car fighting game you know it's set in the real world so it's it's very natural to bring the ads there uh earlier for example when we had a partnership with uh Hot Wheels so the biggest toy brand in the world from

Mattel remember some fans writing feedback that I can't believe Hot Wheels knows Drive ahead for that kid it was such a big thing that their childhood favorite toy brand is in the game they love to play now and uh so in that sense you know I think I've never seen any negative retention impact of having in-game ads there you know it's more like it's pretty cool that you know like that that you can have the these Brands like uh like BMW or or maybe like you have an ad from The Simpsons or Mandalorian you know it's the stuff that people are watching and suddenly it appears in the game thank you all right uh so I can only speak for like Arena sports games or in the sports media and so on um the thing is um consumers of modern day Arena Sports media in general are primed to see ads there's if you

look at a NHL NFL Premier League game wherever there's a lot of ads everywhere and us not having ads in around the perimeter of the game deduces immersion so it's it's obviously it's a good thing for us in terms of the percentage of Revenue that comes from in play in total I would say a few percent uh in our case but like um like like tourbillon said earlier it varies depending on on your game of course yeah I could come to take it from here like uh not a single negative review on on on like in-game advertisement for us so but I don't understand the thing is that there isn't like we don't have very good like coverage like globally so it's it's like quite uh limited currently where we have the real

in-game advertisement at the moment but uh I I think to just like to broaden up the inventory we need like more networks to work with uh over there but uh but kind of like as already said here the revenue isn't isn't that high you couldn't expect like okay let's double our Revenue with the in-game ads it doesn't happen like that but everything is like a plus if if like you have the basic set of ads rewarded videos Industries so what not then you add on top of those the in-game ads so it's it's plus something it does doesn't take anything away if you if you don't get negative feedback and your retention numbers are good nevertheless yeah I could maybe expand a little bit so when when you're running a studio as a business then the question is that well what is the size of this loyal valuable user base we have so we like to bring up these numbers that make

us feel good that are big like Dau or something like that but in reality is that well out of this user base we have what portion do we do we monetize and of course yeah it's great if you can monetize with them with in our purchases and that's certainly something that you should focus on with your with your development team but ad revenue and in-game AD revenue is you're you're selling eyeballs you're selling views so it's actually quite predictable revenue and and it's it's like something that we discussed yesterday with with Thomas about monthly recurring Revenue mrr which like if you're talking to investors or different partners it's the number they're looking for and rarely game studios can provide that because the subscription model isn't so popular yet than gaming so so that's why I would encourage you to find these steady revenue streams that are going to provide you to the Baseline revenue and that's going to allow you to invest in your team maybe grow the team maybe you

can hire one meal person maybe you hire a new developer and you can grow your you can do more updates for the game you can start growing your portfolio and so show your partners that we have steady Revenue thank you for adding the notes um so if like because I've known you three for quite some time now and I've known that you've been taking into this space for quite a while so my question is have you tested other like how many in-play providers have you tested and is there if there's any insights that you can share with us and with the audience here actually if I could start uh we have been playing only with one currently because we started quite uh short while ago and that speed stack I can of course say that because you can figure that out from somewhere nevertheless and we've been like as I said that we want to pick the ads which we are showing so that this being like the feature which we have wanted to have and uh kind of like

uh the spin a better experience than I I expected so uh we've been happy in a sense as I said the global coverage is not that good but we are working on that and and also would like to expand yeah I I um we work with base like an adverty at the moment and we sort of use our own waterfall that we took forward uh for for our ad units um but I would say also that revenue from these in-play or native ads providers really vary based on region and seasonality which is a difference from for example a rewarded video or interstitials which work in other ways and the waterfall is different because of that so that's that's a clear difference between the other formats and and Native or in play we work only with adverty we've tried

another Network before and uh I think like when you're choosing a partner it's important to find the right kind of partner for yourself so somewhere let's say that you need to feel that you're important enough for the partner so does the partner play our game uh if I ask for advice and feedback how responsive are they if our team needs some support uh in implementation or or optimizing things like how quickly do they respond and uh of course now because there isn't mediation uh often you you just want to go with one unless you're able to develop your own waterfall which of course makes sense if if you have that capability and resources uh I think like now you know you just need to talk to the different partners and try to find someone who's responsive to you and and uh and if you ask them questions that they they they

they they actually play your game and they give you feedback and then you know you know okay these are these this is someone that's going to be good to work with yeah if I can add quickly about the QA which I already mentioned that was a big thing for us like okay you actually do like a QA for our implementation it was like not not usually networks do that we had to do our QA by ourselves so that was kind of like well now it's done like set up like they would like to have this like they make sure that the impressions are shown so that was a one good thing over there yeah because uh personally I've been with two different providers and um so for me I've got my personal insights on the performance and the products and how the team Works Etc so if like any of you want to know more about it like feel free to find me after the panel as well um I'll be happy to share that what I can share and what I know um that's um get into the next question

actually so so far it sounds like you know it's great incremental Revenue easy to integrate um and it doesn't impact the user retention is there any challenges anything that you've learned not so sure about it from your ends well I think like in-game advertising is currently the little brother of video ads and and it's going to grow up and and uh you know if the value proposition is like hey that this is really easy to implement and it's incremental revenue and you know that then then that's not a very strong value proposition and and I'm glad to see now because with the market development that now this in-game is growing up and it's becoming more and more important so we have increased legislation on consumer privacy and and we have limitations to ad tracking and

and game studios are it's it's increasingly difficult to launch new games so you want to grow the game you want to develop the game with the community and you need to in order to do that you have to have this steady predictable Revenue so I think what everything that happened with with the video ads is going to happen and in game but it's going to happen at an accelerated pace and and as a as a developer it's true you know if it's not such a big hassle you might want to try to do it early because then you start learning because when you if you want to grow your business you're not optimizing Revenue because revenue is an outcome of the actions you took before you need to optimize the speed of learning and the only way to learn is to have stuff live in your game and you have end users engaging with it problems with this kind of advertising relates to it being a new technology but

again as an early adopter there's a lot of Pros to it as well like we talked in the last point the the communication that you have with the provider is really a lot better with Native ads providers than with other types of monetization providers that said I think the fail rates of course is something that we where it's in on par with other Technologies yet but it's getting there um yeah yeah I could add some something uh is is that but we have been like concerned is that how do the ads fit into our game world as I mentioned in in the beginning and kind of like what I would look forward like from the networks for example the the kind of like categorize the games also that hey I have a cartoonist game yeah there's the set of cartoonist ads because in in many cases as I mentioned there was the presentation just before we are at the

states that there were ads that were a little bit out of place like this ad doesn't like actually fit into this game and that's like the biggest fear we have and if there would be like categorizing like the games cartoonists like real world game sports games so then it would be easier to like okay this games is suitable for these ads of course there might be developers who want to have any kind of ads but but we are very careful on that so and and kind of like we have been limiting for example in boom Cars that in which track we have even the the in-game ads because they are so like out of place in some of like cartoony snow world with which doesn't like okay there's like like uh some real world person in an advertisement so it feels like okay there should be a snowman but no no not like a human being over there so that kind of thing so also like sharing this kind of use cases that hey we have been doing these kind of things and uh you could like benefit from like

that kind of thing so it's easy to sell internally because like in many cases Admiral this is a manager's job is the sale kind of this kind of things internally also the developers that hey you don't have to do whatever but you can do this exact thing and that and how it will benefit the game well also the kind of like the some kind of calculations and predictions would be nice yeah for our team it was super important that the ads have to feel native and you know if you take just some ad that maybe was originally intended as a banner ad on a website then you put it on a game it's going to burn your eyes out so we spent quite a lot of time working on these shaders so that it would feel fit naturally into the lighting of a indoor or outdoor arena in the game and also make sure that the it gets registered as a view because it has to have viewability and now of course we've been told that okay like

programmatic is the solution to everything and everything's gonna just automatically happen that you put these placements here and the ads start appearing in the game and you start generating Revenue I don't know Chloe you're an expert so maybe you could tell us and educate us a little bit that what kind of developments are there happening in standardizing this ad format and are we going to someday have what what Otto was hoping that you know we could have some impact on like what style of ads they're not just like the ad categories it's um it's actually very interesting from from my end to say because my background so I was on the demand side now I'm on the supply side so I can see from both views and I can see that like brand advertisers definitely one more gaming inventory now but they don't know more about gaming inventory they don't know how to buy it they don't know they don't know the audience they still don't believe oh

it's you know women between 25 to 34. they still don't believe that and they still feel like mobile games somehow aren't premium like image wise and they they know it's like the biggest media now but they don't know they don't know enough and from developer design they want more brand ads in the games um so it's very interesting how the in-playing game format can be the bridge and and regarding the direct and programmatic demand from my end I've seen better programmatic ads compared to two years ago so two years ago I probably would feel a bit like you know a little bit scared to sell like programmatic only inventory to Publishers but now I'm fairly confident

because there is definitely more advertisers know about this format and then when when they do have creatives they have different sets of creatives for these formats and it also depends on the optimization as well and so we do see higher field rates gradually and Q4 is going to be a gray season as we all know and also on the direct demand side there is definitely more brand advertisers look into this space so I would say the demand is increasing and we just kind of need to meet in the middle and there's definitely new features being developed but it takes a whole Space yeah so for example like we're talking to the IAB to make sure that um you know there is a separate category for these formats otherwise from the Open Market Route advertisers couldn't

really split banners and in play format yeah so it's happening but if you have so we as a provider we're all talking to other providers so if you have any ideas you feel like that should happen speak to us because we do talk and then we will push it together to make it happen yeah I think I'm here because I started throwing these areas ideas at you at Mama half a year ago so [Laughter] yeah um yeah so that's just another point right I'm just happy that we just talk and then we have this amazing opportunities to talk together I you know either we are working together or we are not yeah so yeah so next question um you touch a little bit um like you know what you should do Etc so if there's any Publishers here they want to try this format is any advice that maybe you may some mistakes and

then you wish that you wouldn't do it again when you test this format design wise or a B testing wise thank you all right so I don't have the spontaneous answer but uh definitely QA is important we've we've definitely launched new ad units without properly doing uh QA but again that's a that's a real Pro above bit stack and adverty that we we just have a slack Channel directly to the QR QA department and it's a very very easy process to to run joint joint QA and you should definitely do it before releasing new ad units or updates uh I would say we haven't run into in the big problems yet but I think like kind of like actively coming up with new placements new placement ideas inside the game World kind of like we always

start with the obvious ones but kind of like at the same time should also start considering what if we would change this game a little bit from here and there and so that it would be suitable for that it was suitable because the boom cards were suitable because the developers had done already the work like putting the fake ads over there but could like what else we could do so that we could for example get more Impressions and make sure that the impressions are recorded so that kind of like is ongoing process and and kind of like would also want to have some ideas on that how what we should do and how well if you want to get started with any game and actually if you want to survive and maybe preferably thrive in the future Market you have to fundamentally change your approach to this business and and game development so when Chloe and Thor and everybody from adverty is selling this to the brands the value

proposition is that as a consumer brand you need to be present where your customers are so if playing mobile games is important for them then your brand should be visible there and and we have previously you know been talking about Performance Marketing how that's the only way to do marketing and gaming but as I mentioned increased legislation and consumer privacy and and limitations to ad tracking so so the way these ads get sold in in-game is different than Pro than the the Performance Marketing so my question is you to you is do you know your audience and many of you and we were the same we said that yes we do we know them because we have analytics and we use we read ratings and reviews on Google Play and an app store and then we go to Discord

but we didn't know our audience we didn't actually know know them only until we did in-game surveys with our partner solsten we have had almost 10 000 people answer these surveys and tell us what is their motivation to play and and pay in games and also you know what what apps they use and what brands they consume and what entertainment so we've been able to with our partner create these psychological profiles of like what are the people really like you know not just their demographics that where they come from but like what they like and value and how they think and this is the information we can give to Chloe and the team that hey that we have people who behave in this way and these are their values and these are the apps and the the the TV shows and Netflix shows they follow and this is the information that the brand Advertiser needs so if you

can't really say you just say that okay it's a racing game a little bit cartoonish it doesn't give any information for the brand to decide it is this the right match for us because they want to know this psychographics like what do these people actually think and do yeah definitely echoing that because when advertises by they because they don't know much about gaming inventory so they want to buy buy game by Jonah as Eric mentioned but that's so wrong because you don't know the real audiences behind the games so what we are pushing right now on our side is we tell the agencies we tell the advertisers we can give you the segments you know who do you want to Target forget about the titles forget about the genres so that's what we are doing right now so if you can know more about your audiences the segments and that if you are happy to share with us that's going

to make our life easier as the bridge so although you've got something to add yeah I actually wanted to add the biggest mistake we can do is that to think that players play just like we are playing we are playing totally differently or our games than our our users are playing so we shouldn't make any design choices by okay I don't like the advertisements in the game so I don't put them in the game kind of like that kind of things which I sometimes hear so so that's the biggest mistake you can make so do as Eric said that take take the data and the service and make the decisions by the data yeah what I would add is if you do want to test uh in playing game ads um speak to your providers because there's tons of ways to do a b testing either you want to roll out to certain percentage of the users in certain GEOS different games testing multiple providers at the same time there's tons

of different ways so yeah discuss it with the provider and then you know we can always come up with the the best ideas together to move forward um okay I'm gonna ask the next okay I we don't have much time left so I wanna bring up kind of like the most important question and the question that I want to ask the most so the Google new restrictions uh around the corner so it's this Friday right so do you think that's going to affect how you monetize your games are you scared to what kind of uh outcome you predict to see things like that um I could start I'm not scared if the uh the the Google's restrictions what uh there are have I I say I would say that they have already always been there but now they're just like taking a look at

like are you following these guidelines and if the ads in the game are done by the guy by the book so I wouldn't be scared so showing I guess this most they are for the industry solution so in the industries where they are supposed to be shown you shouldn't people read about anything and kind of like uh taking interest to the in-game advertisements I would say that well they can also be done wrong wrong so kind of like taking taking good care of like your game like it's it's done as it like should be done so you shouldn't be worried about yeah I've only worked in mobile games for four years something like that and since I started we had a lot of killer initiatives uh idfa for example everyone got into a big depression for a few months there and thought Oh this is it for this is it for mobile for mobile games but um I don't think this this is the case in with this change either as it wasn't for that because it's all about

being um what do you say being opportunistic and being um someone who looks out for New Opportunities so so uh if Revenue goes down it may do for some people initially who have more than like fifteen twenty percent of that of their revenue coming from advertising or specifically that type of advertising but in the longer term likely we we will overcome I I would say well nobody here wants to sell people something they don't want you don't want Force something on on people so I think that's kind of like the mentality that you have when you design the monetization that you know we have these different monetization approaches and we want to have a good Solution that's right for our game right for our audience and that's going to allow us to you know players are going to be happy they get to progress faster they're going to get more fun faster and and

with this Revenue we can invest in our team and invest in our in our games so do you predict live Revenue dip initially from Friday yes I mean we were like 90 IEP 10 ads so in in our business model so for us it's it's not as important for us for other people I I mean you always keep a look at for the numbers yeah yeah actually I I think the answer is no not not any any hits and I I would say that I wouldn't be I wasn't worried about then that much and I would still think that the money is still over there like in the market it doesn't go anywhere it's it's like how it spread and how it's like uh going into different projects and different titles it's it's

that's the different thing but the whole like marketing money it finds its way and and kind of like it will be there so I'm not that worried about also like the new legislations also it's also for the users good and we will find a way yeah just to make sure that uh whatever Partners or whoever Partners you're working with that you comply with with what they what what they asked for and and uh yeah I tried to have this long-term perspective in in like how do we want to position the games you know uh what what Market do we want to be in so that that guides us when the the features and the content we develop and and you know you're growing the audience and growing the game on the long term and uh this this kind of like uh these stuff then you just adopt to along the way thank you for for the sharing it's definitely very interesting because I basically have thrown the questions to different Publishers as well and it

sounds like I don't have the accurate number but it sounds like uh Publishers who have got more hyper control titles are probably more worried so they are doing some preparations right so probably definitely you know adjusting their monetization Stacks things like that so yeah it's definitely very interesting to hear from like different perspectives yeah we've got some time left so is there any questions um question for the panel here so I think we all know that rewarded video helped with player retention do you feel like in-game ads helping the retention as well maybe let's let's uh repeat the question for Chloe once she gets the headset sorry just one one second

hey sorry so Chloe my question was um rewarded video help with player retention so do the panel feel like is also helping them in-game ads also helping with the player retention well we've definitely seen we've done some tests before and with like different groups as well and we're actually seeing slightly higher retention rate from the group that see more ads which is very interesting but I would say every game is different that's why I really encourage Publishers if they have time run tests because you really don't know and I can't really just sit here and say you know try this it's going to be definite we really really really don't know especially with God we live Based on data so that would

be my answer but from what we see and what from what Publishers does we really don't see like retention impact from this format yeah I guess I guess I think the answer might be also that if the ads fit in the Game World you won't see at any any drop in their attention so kind of like it's it's natural that they are there like for example in the racing games and sports games yeah fully agree brilliant um so we still have a time for a couple more questions uh so I'll come just come here yeah thank you for the talk it's really good um I'm just wondering like how do you measure the performance for these uh because I'm I'm assuming that the advertisers want to know how the ads perform and I'm assuming that the game company has to figure out where to place the ads so they perform well I'm just like I don't know anything about the

like the pragmatic side of this so can you talk a little bit about that thank you I'll say this one I've got these questions a lot actually so um so 95 of the ads are brand from Brand advertisers so they always ask for viewability that's something we can track for sure and some advertisers want ctrs they just want clicks but that's kind of like conflicting to this format right so that's our job to go back to educate say hey it's brand awareness so if you see a billboard on the street do you want them to click that not really yeah so availability so Eric actually mentioned as well so make sure um make sure the ads the Billboards are seen in your game for over one or two seconds yeah so does anyone else have any uh questions that they like to ask our panelists

no okay so uh of course um if you have any other thoughts or questions or you want to uh meet our lovely panelists you can uh catch them around the venue or connect with them via meter match or LinkedIn I'm sure they'll uh give you their details in there you can happily chat away and learn more about uh their wonderful insights can we have a round of applause for our amazing panelists for today please thank you guys thank you