Panel: User Acquisition in 2024 & Beyond.

[Music] so we're now going to have a panel coming up I'm going to let Peggy uh bring her panelist up on stage and introduce them to you uh but we're going to be talking about the user acquisition in 2024 and Beyond so Peggy go on up we talked about brand we see that there are many ways that you can grow your game this is the growth track so my panel we're getting there and the last one so my panel is going to talk about how you bring it all together because it is about diversification that is the motto that is the Mantra that is where we are today

and where are we going be Beyond 2024 so it is nearly as exciting as finding out the secret behind Grandma uh so I won't uh worry about the kicker the kicker comes at the end so you have to stay to the end because it's going to be very exciting so I'll start with my panel I have Rafael Morgan come on up VP of marketing and Partnerships at Crazy Games yay a platform that attracts over 30 million users monthly you have vast experience you've done Partnerships with the likes of voodoo and quali he loves games so much that he has rounded his thumbs from playing all the games as a kid great to have you Raphael we'll look at your thumbs later all right next we have Kate oh I love you Kate but poon chova yes senior sales manager emia at appier fast growing company known for AI

driven Solutions you can check them out out there they're making Brands smarter and making smarter marketing decisions Kate knows how to reach New Heights not just only with her partners and her customers but also outside of work because she is an accomplished horse rider regularly competing in show jumping events worldwide Adam Adam do you need an introduction Adam smart seasoned expert in mobile marketing and director of product for apps fly and of course Adam is known for keeping it smart and simple Adam smart pun intended so he's going to help us navigate this very difficult adte world and finally Brad Shapiro Executive Vice President of Revenue at Cash KCK another company you can check them out out there 30 years of experience in Revenue growth for companies like Inbox Dollars Etc but when he's not pursuing growth he has has been leading growth ever since because

cash kick congratulations fueled a 16,000 per Revenue growth I was like that can't be a typo and the company ranks number 11 in the Inc 5000 2024 list so yes we do have a rockstar panel but I want to kick it off with where we sit I want to understand where you sit because yes we are in 2024 it wasn't easy we're looking into 2025 so just a little bit of a litmus test here Rocky road ahead or calmer Waters in 2025 have we adapted to change start with you Brad um calm Waters okay we got a calm water we got a positive guy Adam you're going to be edgy and snarky you know a couple of waves okay couple of waves mostly calm okay oh surprising Kate I think I would agree with Adam it's like a couple of waves Yeah couple of waves get couple of speed bumps all right well that's very

positive are you going to be the negative one in the no not really I'm very I'm a very optimistic person but I also think like you know we the the dark times already passed so okay so we see we actually I think the next year is going to be even greater this year was already pretty good for us so okay so we're getting better or we're getting better at what we're doing interesting because I was just at an event and appsfire had some very interesting data about shift in platforms platforms and channels and Alternatives gaining some tremendous traction very surprising um what do you have from the Striking differences in the channel mix I I can guess which event that was I can yeah was UA Society in London which is a which is a never miss event it was just last week last week unfortunately I had to be in Cyprus but word of that presentation got to Cyprus it was it was stunning it was stunning cuz we are in we are in the mix We Are mixing it up

really are I I mean to be honest I don't think in the last 15 months there's there's been that much of a Monumental shift we have seen though that uh ad networks have really sort of risen probably down to one ad Network which I can't say um but I think everybody knows what it is um that's been at the expense to begin with of dsps I think some of the the budget has been moved from from one to the other um but now d seem to have caught up again um and it sort of seems to have evened out from probably the last five or six months yeah so we have dsps I saw a number because I remember in the days when we were all pulling back it was like oh you know six seven Partners you know sort of play it spread your risk now it's like oh 16 17 absolutely no problem so dsps are back um alternative app stores are even gaining which is exciting um which I did expect and also just overall alternative

platforms be they rewarded platforms or looking more into uh other ways to spread the risk spread the money use your budget one other interesting takeaway was CTV is is has actually grown to about 3 or 4% which doesn't sound like much and you know in reality it's probably the size of a a large Network yeah but the fact that the the trajectory of that is growing and growing and growing I do think that's going to become quite a important Channel over the next couple of years and it was double digit for rewarded as well so we had rewarded double digit CTV coming up out of nowhere definitely going to be there so I said it and I've been hearing about it because I am a host for the pocketgamer.biz podcast which you should all be listening to on Spotify as well but everybody comes on the show talks about ways to diversify so I'm going to play devil's advocate give me a reason why uh games Studio

should not diversify start with you Brad I was um I don't see any reason there you go you don't want to put your eggs all your eggs in one basket it's very simple you always want to diversify in case I mean even with us with advertisers we don't want all of our Revenue coming from one Advertiser what if their budget changes so you always need to diversify yes so interestingly it used to be and there was a quote if you wanted to be successful you launch your game on mobile first uh that's changed a bit because studios are eyeing web first and that's what you're seeing so you know it is a blue ocean um it is exciting there can be pitfalls and we're talking about trying to diversify but we don't want to see increased complexity so you have a platform Raphael what do you see the leaders doing on your platform that's different perhaps from the also Brands and the others you know there's a way to

succeed what is it what is the anatomy of that success just just to add to his point I think like the tools are also getting much better like if you're talking about alternative platforms um you know so if you have a game made with unity for instance it become quite easy to get your game on the web and also other game engines which actually have really worked really well on on the web as well um I think you know going to the basics you need to have a really good game like as you you have it everywhere but the the web you have some stuff that you can I need to consider like the games need to be optimized because people who love this on the Fly um so you you do need some some sort of like um expertise and it we see that it takes it takes a little while of the first project from Studio to to get and learn how to be successful because the user doesn't have a lot of patient right so you have to get the game uh game going um quite fast but at the same time we we have like a lot of users that get to your game really fast and they actually share this with their friends very easy right you send a link across like on WhatsApp and or whatever ever and people

come and join your session and you're playing together like without downloads or anything and I think this is really powerful I think people that are looking at multiplayer games on the web right now it's um we we're seeing we're seeing like a really interesting from the players as well and and I yeah you you see as well um like games that you know people people can create their games so this is something that's happening now on the web as well so we're changing like the landscape by adding more and more cool content um yeah and I think that are some and it's a compliment it's a compliment it doesn't compete similar question for you Brad because yes we are hearing a lot about rewarded platforms again that double digit in the apps flyer data is incredible but um it's not just about acquiring numbers of users it's a real focus on the quality of users so the quality and the quantity but it's not it sounds like everyone can just jump in there and we encourage that of course but what does a studio need to

do or keep in mind before they jump in here and take the plunge you know we want them to set themselves up for success in both getting the numbers but also getting the quality what's a maybe a a checklist that they should consider yeah so I kind of uh I'd say there's an anagram that you could remember every UA manager wants to get a taste of everything there's been a proliferation of rewarded platforms over the last year even so it's kind of like what do you need to look at so I as a UA manager you want to have a taste of everything right so um I'd say taste where the first T is transparency where is this platform getting their users from how are they open with you about what they're doing if they're say driving a lot of installs to to you but their app if they're an app and the app on sensor Tower doesn't show like hey wait a minute it's they're

driving more installs than their app even gets um it's a little questionable so you have to look at transparency uh a uh ask other UA managers so um everyone talks so you you can find out by asking other people in the industry what have they heard about the different rewarded platforms s scale so that's important you make it work but now you want to grow it so the the rewarded platform has to be able to scale T trust do you trust the people that you're working with do you trust the company that's probably one of the most important parts um uh I'll just leave that alone it's pretty easy um and E experience do the account managers that you're working with are they looking to partner with you are they are they in extension of what you do or is it okay when you have that meeting two weeks later that you're reviewing and you're

like wait a minute I didn't have time and you realize wait a minute it's not my Raz is really low this isn't working um are you working you you need to work with a team or account managers that are looking at and focused on performance of your campaign they should be proactive proactive should dive in exactly proactive as opposed to reactive thank you I love the fact we have a checklist and we have a word we can remember what are some of the problems or common I wouldn't say issues but what is it that where you see marketers let's say struggle with rewarded platforms because there's going to be a run on them we can see that in 2025 yeah the the most interesting thing for me as as we've grown and we've worked with more um of the game studios is what your traditional lifetime value curve of a user is with rewarded platforms it looks entirely different so you have to really understand what does a rewarded platform

LTV curve look like versus um other channels um typically what you'll see it's really strong performance early on and it starts to taper off and I think that's a challenge for all rewarded platforms right now how do you um extend that retention so it's something at Cash KCK that we're really focused on working with the uh uh with the studios to extend that retention of users of course part of building that retention is is the engagement and I come to you Kate because I was just thinking this morning um wasn't quite a decade ago when I was writing an article for Forbes and I took a lot of grief for it because I said there can be no UA in the future without Ai and they're like nah guess what here we are and that's exactly it because you're powering that but you know it's not just about having AI as a tool we'll all soon have that we need to differentiate on the basis of AI so how would you suggest using this Playbook

that marketers integrate that more into their UA efforts yeah so at appier we see AI first of all not as a tool but as an assistant and for example let's think of we are publishing the game we have several stages of publishing the game for marketers like it's launching it's optimizing and scaling and then we have retargeting and in this case AI not as a tool but as an assistant first of all is able to make the decision by its own so if we think about this stage of launching it's where we need just to get the user base but we don't want to spend the budgets like on every user right we want to have the users that would actually bring the revenue to the game and in this case AI could be a massive assistant it could be strategical it could be creative and uh in terms of this strategy AI could first of all understand the users and also predict what would be the users that can bring the revenue eventually and Target

precisely these users and if we think about the optimization and scaling of course there's a lot of things that may affect the game it may affect the promotion not only the game monetization but sometimes the events like seasonality sometimes it also hits right and in this case AI could help with the budget it can switch the budget to the sources to the places where it has more nice users in terms of the revenue and it can optimize the creative and create the creatives for exactly this users so we can Target really those who are bringing the revenue and if we think about the retargeting we first of all need to understand which users we should bring back not every user would convert into a purchase and not every user will be a revenue for us eventually right and in this case AI could distinguish this users and also help to make the materials for it because we can't just retarget these users with a any creative right we need to make something that could be really really associated with these users that

would be attractive to them and AI could be strategic it could be creative and it could be like 24/7 help that's an assistant that always on handy and that is always um um helping and um making decisions by its own so co-creating with AI and it's really important I heard that predictive word that magic word that is the prize predict in the future what are some uh challenges that uh marketers can expect because it it will be co-creative but um you know you will have to think about the journey as well as the user as well as the segmentation so there's a lot to be offloading onto AI how's that going to work out in marketing teams for example that is true so I think we have all a bit of a fear that if AI comes then it will take kind of a job of a marketer of a designer or anyone in the team and in this case it could be oh it's going to be challenging should I switch to AI or should I keep

my team working and in this case AI again it's not a tool it's not a change it's an assistant so the more you understand where at What stages you can use thei as an assistant the more powerful it could be so any challenge that the marketer and any challenge that any of the team members can run across the AI could be a massive help to make it less stressed less easy and the best idea is just to figure out at what stage it would be the best to use it mhhm well feels like The Avengers here we're going to be empowered we have these superpowers we have all these options here but you know we can't forget the fact that we're going to have a rising requirement about for for user segmentation player segmentation I'm hearing it all day long personalization very important but we also have signal loss that makes it a little bit more difficult I mean yes but we're we're adapting we said we're in the waves we

are we are smooth but at the same time Adam you know it will be becoming more of an art than a science and I'm wondering you know what does that mean for smaller Studios that maybe don't have the appetite for risk they have to they have to balance that very carefully I'd argue will it yeah I mean you know we're seeing we're seeing probabilistic taking over from a lot of a lot of scan at the moment you know scan was brought in we've got um Android uh privacy something or other coming in very very soon and I think you know that people when scan first was said about and first brought to the brought to the world everyone was sort of saying you know attribution is dead it's all going to go through scan Apple haven't enforced that to the point of of taking probabilistic away you know there's still loads of question marks over that we're waiting for it but until it happen I'm seeing a lot of Studios that were

adamant that they were going to run scan are now switching across to probabilistic because that's the only way you can compete right now so like my question back to you is is it like I I kind of feel at the moment for you know if you're if you are a smaller Studio there's only one way that you're going to go right now like you're you're going to you're going to push forward with probabilistic you don't have an option really um I think if you're sensible and and a small studio and pushing forward with probabilistic you're going to be running scan in the background to start to verify those numbers to start to make sure that you're able to uh to visualize everything just in case you know the world end scenario does actually happen at some point um so I kind of whilst whilst I agree and on paper it's it's uh everything is getting harder and harder there aren't it's not as handicapping as as uh as you think it could be it's more like a plan B is what

I'm hearing it's like yeah we're doing fine we're gonna have it testing also with Android privacy sandbox you can't ignore that um and people are saying that be prepared there you go went completely I just did a webinar on it Adam I'm want ahead of you so it's all fresh in my mind so we will deal with signal loss but the other challenge is you know having the effective ads the effective approaches to fill the funnel and a rewarded platform it's about engaging but what does a really good rewarded experience look like I mean how personal can that get because we're hearing that that's going to be a differentiator going forward so it's interesting I I think one of the things that really differentiates is what does that reward structure look like so it can change and whatever structure when we start a campaign for a game Studio whatever reward boarded structure we start with it's going to

change multiple iterations because the objective is keep adjusting that reward structure to optimize and increase arpo and so our objective is always to give the highest arpo because the higher the RP obviously the higher the RAS for the for the game studio so I think it's really understanding that reward structure and the user progression through the game um and having it more customized for uh let's say cohort groups as opposed to right now it's just a whole you know it's pretty much to everybody that's interesting with the progression because that is becoming so key it is it is partially again as Art and Science it's very much understanding the motivations that is very key in that as well um what kinds of motivations are there unrewarded I think it's getting very broad now that it's not uh necessarily the uh the motivations we thought before

it's becoming more and more integrated in the game play is what I'm seeing as well it's within the game I mean I'll say you know the rewarded platforms bring more eyeballs right to the to the games and for the studios so it allows them to grow it's showing them users or introducing users that may normally might not have otherwise even known about the game so we're really kind of like expanding the market um I guess uh that would probably be the the focus yeah no that's that's what I want to make that point is that it's becoming more and more integral to the game and that's built in it's baked in and I'm thinking about engagement again you know we need these engaging ads and experiences they're beyond human capacity to make them at that scale but let's talk about that that's sort of that tradeoff because winning ads have emotional connection or they motivate as Brad was saying and they they reach

something in you but with AI how can marketers use that best to grow that scale but still meet that human need yeah so this is actually a very interesting question because if we think about emotions it's something that we associate with human first of all so there is the question then how the AI could help and how it could be connected to it and we had happier see it so as the human brain has left and right sides so the left side is more about strategy decision making and right side about the creative art intuition so we see AI also having this right and left side of the AI brain and um there is a great example that we have with a zir mobile and um so the left side of AI brain is analyze the users and the audience and eventually we came up with the um data that the pregnant women are more likely to spend much more Within the game and play more

than for example someone who loves sports and then on the right part of the AI the creatives that the ey generated it was fully connected to the state of these women to what the interest at exactly moment for them is and can we say in this case it was the emotional connection yeah probably because we were right at the right time for the right person with the right creative so yeah here you go you have the emotional connection and it's and it's building those fr works and building on them as well there's a learning process there what about you because you need to build community you need to drive some connection and you need to convert you've got three Heavy Seas on a platform that uh that marketers have to get their head around yeah absolutely how do they grow on that absolutely I think like one really cool thing about crazy games as a whole is like we our audience it's like we have a very young audience so they're discovering their first games their first IPS they're like I say this with kids as well like right they talk about like have you seen that

what just came out they share with them so there's there's way more virality in that regard about sharing this stuff with their friends because they're not they're not used to it even and and I think that's that's also really cool to see and and and actually um you know see the user engaging in in sharing this and and going back to to the point I mentioned before I think accessibility about the web it's about what what makes it things very easy and interesting as well for a marketing standpoint right CU um you actually we'll be working at different markets like so you can use Google ads or and different things and you have different placements for for for where you can actually um we can conserve your as but I think all in all the audience is it's it's a very engaging very entertaining and and they come keep coming back and uh so yeah there's a lot of trial and error there but we're talking about diversification that's what we'll be doing there'll be trial and error next year as well as we are swimming through our waves so I just want to close it with um before we take questions and maybe uh a few interesting

uh topics that we open up but um I like to end it with sort of we talk about red flags and blue uh red flags and green flags so let's talk about red light green light right what marketers need to stop doing now in order to take advantage of these opportunities and diversification and what they need to start doing now so stop start right I'll start with you Brad you look so excited oh I was actually thinking what what do they need to start what do they need to start doing what do they need to stop doing well I think be it goes back to the diversification I think they should be open to diversifying and um looking at alternative platforms to grow your audience and I think um rewarded Platforms in general they've been around for a long time and I think within different Industries they've kind of gotten a bad wrap um because at some point along the way

some senior executive at some company worked with a rewarded platform and they kind of lost money with it and so they're like yeah stay away from the entire industry um and so I think they need to uh start being more open-minded um and uh stop being closed-minded that goes back to your transparency and your tea we're back to The Taste we go full circle Adam what about you I I was going to go green open-minded sorry I I mean it it's kind of open your mind to everything like like brand marketing for instance is becoming more and more of a thing now you know being able to really look for niches in influencer marketing or there's so much out there and so many different ways to get your game out there now to to Really open your mind to what is possible um and to stop just

spending money with the top five indeed that's what your data shows I mean don't stop but yeah yes got it got it well there's a lot of possibility which means a lot of opportunity also to work with AI I remember talking to one marketer he's actually like this is great now I'm a creative director as well as a UA director I'm sort of you know very very Central and very Avant guard but again green and red for you yeah I think I was start with red and it's uh just to stop thinking that AI is always a tool but start to think is more of a assistant and someone that could actually help and empower the work that you're already doing in terms of like marketers and for the green one I think yeah be open-minded and very you start uh visiting our booth B7 we are very welcoming guys I heard someone say a while ago that AI can make you a junior at any role yeah I like I like that there you

go career jump Rafael you're next um well I think yeah it's open minded try new things um be and talk to people learn what's going on and I think the industry is very nice because you can actually approach everybody as for reference see how things are going so I do that I think that's a that's that's a good one um and I don't know for red one um I think um yeah just I don't know I I I could I think just again just reiterate on just being open-minded and and just checking the options like the industry is changing so much there's so much things happening on the background right now like that you know especially on the WB space we can say so uh so what what's true right now will be very different six months so we see like big companies coming on the space and and and actually trying to to to change the things um so yeah I think that's I'll stay with only with the green we'll stay with open we're all green we're all positive and uh yeah to that point I mean we didn't even touch upon what I was hearing in the other

sessions you know open up shops and go D to see there's so much out there and Oscar we're open to questions so open up the floor Oh I thought it was a hand just there it was a watch check um anyone anyone got to ask a quick we the mic the speaker there anyone got a question that they want to ask no let me try and think of something so I think we talked a little bit about using data using AI essentially kind of creative side of things oh there is hand at the back hand at the back hand at the back I didn't see that right just coming much better than me asking s to interrupt you osar no no we love your questions you hear from me all the D time I heard a sales pitch coming thank you uh Irena cute group uh Adam mentioned brand marketing and do you mean brand awareness campaigns for gaming and if yes uh do you have any practical experience uh or is it just a trend and hype or

maybe you have some um practical uh things to share with where you I don't know um decrease the CPI or anything I I honestly I think it depends on what type of company you are and what type of games and the whole scenario so it's very difficult to give generic advice um we've also got 30 seconds left so I would happily catch up with you after after this and we can talk more about about it more specifically absolutely uh good I the question I was going to go for um was um with the use of AI in terms of helping with Creative Design is there a risk of us go getting into a revision to the mean because one of the issues I see with the way AI operates is quite often we end up with increasingly generic output and is that a risk that we need to pay attention to and I know we even got 30 seconds but I you know indulge myself yeah I think we are going into minus but I will be very

quick the risk is there but it's actually minimizing based on what it so the ey works the best if you give the right direction so the moment you do it uh the AI would be very assistant and it's again about what I said if you see it as a tool then there is a risk but if you see it as an assistant it's much better yeah no I completely agree cool anyway on that note thank you very much guys I think you wanted to do a quick selfie so Absolut a rockstar panel and a rockstar audience let's up if we can get the audience if you guys can W or thing that be really appreciated okay let's see what we can do here come come with a panel like this how can you not I am the shorter one so okay and audience [Applause]

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