The Future of Mobile Game Monetisation - A New Revenue Stream to Your Games with In-play Brand Ads

we're on to an another sort of big topic and maybe you know a a point to the future really which is the future of mobile games monetization uh we're talking about uh new revenue stream for your games with uh in-play uh brand ads uh which is to be a superstar session from our track sponsors uh adverti uh and i'm i'm going to be very very happy to welcome uh to the stage to to introduce this uh um an old friend uh of the show and and uh and myself personally uh christian attack how are you christian i'm very very good chris and uh really appreciate this opportunity to join such a wonderful organization and speak about a subject that is probably one of my favorites so

excited about this you're looking good you're looking good what christie won't talk about in this talk is that he is an incredibly fit man so uh this man has run an iron man check it out on on online we'll look at it look at those guns this is not the gun show though this is the uh the mobile game monetization and growth show so um uh so i think i can i can um uh if you got your presentation ready you all ready to go yeah i think we're we're ready to go um i've just got a short opening line and then uh i believe that we've got a fantastic short demonstration video yes we have you wet the appetite cool all right well i'm gonna pull into the background and and i'll be here if you need me but uh over to you sir thanks very much chris well delighted to to be here today um we're gonna be breaking down how advocacy uh redefining and revolutionizing in-game and application monetization i'd like to welcome you

to the future of our area uh and with this uh i'd like to play a short video [Music] [Music] [Music] super i hope that uh each of the delegates here today managed to see how many advertisement slots were

actually positioned within the game there uh so with the the the talk here really is about again you know how advertiser redefining and revolutionizing i think it's really important to understand the the word revolutionizing and what that means for uh game developers and advertisers but i think really the most important person in all of this is is the end user so the majority of of this is how we're changing the landscape of the perception of in-game advertising and what that journey looks like for the end user it's worth here mentioning that if you have developed your game in unity uh thanks very much because this really is uh a main part of of our uh release into the marketplace using the the unity advanced tools and

applications you can see here that uh it's really really easy to utilize and position a game uh sorry an advert within the game regardless of what the background is and and how that position can be i believe that uh and utilizing this platform uh it can be done within seven easy steps uh seven easy steps on any integration uh is is always worthy of a a further investigation later on in this talk i'm delighted to share with you that we're actually having a deep dive from our cto on how you can integrate the ads within the application and hot off the press um i joined a call this morning with our ceo who's actually signed off for me to present at the end of this presentation a most wonderful opportunity for all you developers to earn a substantial amount of money and join us on a follow-up webinar on how to use the unity platform

so advocacy specialists um within this area and with the background that that we have um you know i've been around uh for just over 21 years in in game advertising and seen quite a few changes and with that always try to be at the cutting edge of technology so bringing new opportunities uh for revenue streams to to game developers and i think that if you ever get an email from me or or receive a an outreach i will be delivering you some some great news and the opportunity to explore an additional revenue channel um this particular channel we're going to be talking about here today is is the whole seamless side of advertising and to understand uh what the importance of this and again i focus really on about the the disruption of of adverts within the games and

here's a really nice refreshing balance of of how we at avatar revolutionized the in-game advertising with our seamless ad placements um if if we were to ask you know what what is or why is seeing us ads and we you know really had to work not so hard to with the publishers and with the illustrators to understand the nuances of a terrific game design and how to effectively monetize um that there are two ways there were three several ways of monetizing but the the main focus of of where i've been throughout my career is that around advertising within games and a lot of pushbacks from the the illustrators and the the productions of where to place an ad within the game that becomes unobtrusive to the user

and we'll see in just in in a few moments some examples but just just a thought to to imagine that imagine your your your game itself and monetizing through the entire game play with the majority of the focus on the user experience so the user that's actually playing your game enjoying your game uh and making money without interruption um it's worth mentioning here that advocacy is focused this particular suite of products exclusively for for brand advertising and brand advertising within games is is is not new um they they have tried it uh with with many different versions but with with our version i genuinely believe that that we have revolutionized and this is now the the real time to ultimately test if seamless ads work in in in your

game and for the advertising side you know this is a real massive opportunity in a brand safe way reaching multiple different gaming environments which which is which is a first i'm going to just talk here about um some of the examples and and i know that there are many many different examples and some marvelous examples of of in-game monetization i've chosen these here because these are particularly uh important because along my journey uh these have been chris yeah sorry but i don't think your powerpoint is showing so i wasn't sure if you were supposed to show your powerpoint alongside that or not uh yes i'm i'm in play mode uh you've got to do share screen sorry about that if you press your share screen forgive me i thought you were very engrossing don't worry i was enjoying it but as you started talking about examples i thought this must be a

so um i didn't want to disrupt you but if you've got yeah sorry i thought and then just put a print uh slideshow from there there we go pauses for that i'll i'll let you get back on and stop i should i should i'll quickly just show the visualizations on the screen thanks for that prompt chris so there's the easy integration the short little advert uh video that uh that we were showing there just just how easy it is to drag and drop those units in on the webinar we'll be taking you into a really deep dive on how that works um why seamless ads and i think that we've got to this stage and this is one of you know one of my favorite subjects talking about the uh evolution of of monetization traditionally when i started out in uh in mobile we were advertising with banners now take a step back so 20 years ago this was advertising the

actual game for a game download and not advertising within the game so things were you know really uh quite advanced at that stage and this was where you know we would advertise the game on a banner on the operator portal for you to effectively pay first and then download the game so many game developers the good old days um then moving on when we we kind of had in-game monetization banners were the first form of in-game monetization you could have banned across the bottom or a banner across the top uh and it still works very well today there's a lot of new developments with carousel banners and all sorts of uh of really funky stuff that's that's happening there and but they the the the i suppose from a perspective of looking at the app from a producer uh where you know you were kind of trying to shimmy in uh and i

used that word shimmy in because the game wasn't designed around ads uh and a lot of the time when you're playing these games that you could possibly think that you're playing the game and ultimately click on a banner when you click on that banner typical journey that we're all used to you leave the game that you're playing to the app store you can download the game and then come back into the game and an evolution of of banners which was really a monetization big changer and in particular brand started to get very excited because it was a full screen intersection it was a takeover of the actual screen itself and populated a full page really high visual image again same user journey the user would click on on the ad leave the game that they were enjoying and then and download the the actual application

is if we move forward um and this was a real pivotal um change in in the landscape of the industry with the introduction of in-game video ads we know them today as a rewarding video and this really you know changed the landscape because for the very first time it was user request based uh advertising so what i'm trying to say here uh and i think that you know we all really know what uh what that means but if if a person a user was to effectively click on the video the part with 22 seconds of their life at the end of that they would get a reward if they liked what they see they could download the the game again click to leave the game to the app store uh and then and then come back in the game then the next evolution for me really really uh fantastic where you you could actually have a small section of the game and compile that into a video but

but again make it interactive that was a playable video that that really again has uh has significantly revolutionized how advertising is within the game but these units and i've chosen these units specifically because they all have the the one thing in common and this from it from an end user's perspective or from an advertiser's perspective could require uh the opportunity for creativity and and to revolutionize or indeed modify what that most important person in this equation is which is the end user and we want to encourage them to to play the game um so looking at you know how uh the the user journey is from somebody seeing an advert from a game's perspective it's about making revenue within the game moving away from the issues around the the the production side of where to place an ad when it is an appropriate place to place

an ad or can can it be redefined and advocacy really is at the at the heart of of redesigning this whole perspective of monetization with ads in the game play and i reiterate again that we're looking at the entire journey of the gameplay that you could seamlessly populate and advert and monetize the whole real estate of the game and and that's what makes things really exciting we have two flagship products uh sorry the sun's in miami um and we look at this as as the next level of in game advertising and the the first product that uh i'll show you here today is what we call the seamless and again it's see the big word here is sema so seamless in play or sip for short and to complement sip we have our

seamless in menu or sim for short we have here a nice example uh of a game that that i'm particularly uh fond of uh this is uh for those of the unknown this is a a game called critical ops it's a pvp shooter game in an area of um existence that we would probably already be familiar with this is a street scene in barcelona uh and typically in in barcelona uh as of many other areas you will have objects of visibility that you would recognize in this instance it's it's a bus shelter and with this bush shelter uh we're displaying a full advert there of exceptionally high quality and and this is again you know be really sort of focusing in on on what the

the main attributes and the benefits of of this sort of advertising that the revolution that we have this is a really really well designed advert and populating these ads within the game typically we want you to be thinking around the monetization of the the real estate or the landscape that you actually have within the game some examples here again you know we we have some bus shelters if you have uh vehicles in the game if you have uh the game that's that's built within an arena if you have real estate uh of uh skyscrapers the the list is really endless and i i could talk all day about uh looking into games and and showcasing environments that that really do blend themselves very well to to this seamless integration and population um so just to kind of

really go go go go through again there's a short video here uh just demonstrating the in-game play and and just look how for me i'm excited because these ads just are perfect because it's every day there's there's not taking me away from the game it's not distracting in any way uh and the visual side of this is is really spectacular and from an advertiser perspective this is really hot property and if you want hot property new game with seven easy steps uh i'd be delighted to show you a little bit more um you can actually place these ads anywhere in the game and custom size and ratios using the unity platform really give us a fantastic leverage to to maximize the the opportunity within the the real estate and and moreover here we are introducing a brand new revenue stream that is

unobtrusive to the game plate itself our sister product or our uh additionally complementary product is the seamless in menu this is a 300 by 250m wreck size tile that can actually go in the game uh and this for the and the brand side is an engagement piece where the user can actually further click on the video it's important at this stage i've talked about clicks and redirects this is a clickable ad format that that renders and builds an overlay frame within the game play so it doesn't take the user away from the game it allows the user to interact with with that advert and it could be anything such as as simple as requesting some some further information once that advert is closed immediately

you're back in the game play so we're keeping people in the game and and that is is a is a revolution in itself that this ad creative format that allows an additional revenue stream that re respects the the used play and to keep the the player within the game um so just to really you know go back and and look at what those additional benefits uh or what the main benefits are for both uh the gamer itself and the the brand advertiser you're getting huge perfectly high quality uh ads uh and typically you know the brands that are advertising are brands that will be easily recognizable you're not moving gamers from the app the in play that they have into an app store for them to

the unity download here is that it can be seamlessly uh populated and simply integrate and talk about simple integrations i've been selling sdks for over 12 years to to some of the most successful uh game developers out there working with the most amazing platforms and super technology this i genuinely believe is probably one of the fastest integration opportunities to populate a new revenue stream that i've seen or indeed represented before i can really uh emphasize here the the pushback uh and the user engagement uh success story that that will complement this particular ad unit so we did a a study um a case study from a rather popular uh in fact uh a hugely popular runner game uh that that many of us will have played

before and the feedback that we received from this this study group had zero negative impact into their current monetization strategy and their benchmarks of success so typically the first one seven-day 30-day retention had no impact at all it had zero impact on the the the daily newly acquisition of players and one of the most important parts of of any of the the the cycle of of the game and is to listen to how your customers are reporting on on the feedback and with no negative feedback from the ads was really quite refreshing having read many of the reviews for uh bad placements or false click advertising uh on our ad unit uh we were very very pleased with uh with the results using the unity technology platform and arguably uh one

of the best platforms out there i've been fortunate to work with with some of the exceptional developers and and the teams over there they have a product that's integrated to support us and again thanks very much indeed for the unity platform technicians for enabling this uh this is an imp vis so one of the the main criteria for a brand is to understand that whenever they're advertising within the game that their ad can be validated this is uh the invis and you can see here some ads and very quickly when an ad has actually been administered as viewed we'll get a small skew uh on on the color of that ad to make that validation uh and then we can uh effectively charge the end uh customer um with with the imp viz um we've created uh an advanced uh measurement tool

within here and we only really want to charge the advertiser when we know that the ads have been fully perceived by the consumer uh the the the we we call this uh and it's patented so uh really well done to the advertising uh adverti team here uh and we we call this the the brain impression and it's technology based around the human eye and the automation the perception the geometry we'll talk about geometry positions of ads and the best practice tips and tricks on our on our webinar and give you a deeper dive into what that brain impression is i mentioned at the beginning of this talk that our ceo has actually signed off a competition uh this competition will be hosted on a webinar on the 24th of february from our cto uh where we will give you uh an empty

integration guide uh how simple uh to use the the unity editor platform and allow you to populate adverty seamless ads whether it be sim or sip within the game environment itself so we're going to be allowing you to monetize the full game play in the full landscape of your whole real estate of your game using seamlessly integrated adverts uh and i am told that uh that the prize on offer from from this webinar uh providing that you meet and match the the criteria set by by advocacy uh is uh a staggering uh commitment uh to the uh the development of of games and the un evangelizing of games so come and join us on uh the revolution of in-game advertising and your opportunity to to win 50 grand

i'd like to say uh thanks very much for again this opportunity and i'd be delighted to to take any further questions that that you may have so uh excellent fantastic there are questions there are many questions there are more questions we're going to get through to be pretty honest but i will get through a few of them um so here's his uh here's a there's a few questions kind of related together so i'll try and turn them in we've got a question from marty burgess saying what sort of ecpm do these ads see uh he's saying are these mobile only or available for desktop console titles i guess you're this is a mobile proposition really wherever they're focused or not yes advocacy started uh on uh again the cutting edge technology unity platform vr and ar uh and it was we're really looking at how we can bring this to the masses and with the main focus on the masses of mobile um so advocate do support

other platforms ar vr but our main flagship is is that on mobile um there are other alternatives for pc console but we believe in specializing in in the area of uh of where we are in in terms of that that range of ecpms you know we get asked all all the time you know you you can think that uh from the position uh right now if you're looking at the top end of the range of banners and the lower end of static interstitials that's around the the benchmark that we are right at the moment but expectations are the more that these are populated the more that um the the brands really can see a huge benefit that we're going to be seeing a an incline north as we have seen with ecm ranges on on various other solutions within the game okay um there's a couple of questions here that i'm going to again type together one relate to uh sort of games that this

can work with obviously the examples you're showing a 3d games and that makes sense 3d action games or racing games or what have you um is there a solution or what you know can we use this effectively in 2d games someone asked and then someone said another question related um if their games aren't suitable is there any sort of in-menu sdk or something like that or is is this all going to be in play yeah so the sdk itself very very small so no issue on sdk fatigue and the sdk is enabled for both of the placements so you know our team of experts can take a deeper dive into looking into the game it's part of the service that we do as many other uh at technology experts will uh will do for their customers so we'll review the game we'll take a deep dive on where our specific suggestions for placements within there may be and that could be

either a sip or it could be a sim um if your game you know with the real estate is not um functionable for a seamless in-play advert and then the you know the small rectangle for for sim is is perfect and that can be placed anywhere within any game within within any of the menu format it's about a three second uh interaction with the user so it's very very different to 22 seconds of a standard rewarded video play and we can enable that for for rewards as well okay so you might just answer this question but i'm looking to look at two windows at once um if if you implement the game ad with sip what happens after you click it does the player buy straight from the game or does that just where does that go and there's a question that relates to that about the ctrs of sip and sim is there any data that you can share sure so sip is non-clickable right si is the seamless in play which

is unobtrusive to the end user i knew that of course christine i'm just doing it for you for the audience i don't know you know it's it's i i i come from a world of of you know completely confusing dynamics or or understanding of of where it is so we look at this as the the channel to be unconfused so sip seamless in play non-clickable unobtrusive and it catches the user when they're there they're at the most receptive and there's no requirement for a call to action now if you want to complement that on a brand user engagement experience then we can we can marry that with the same advertisement on a sim and yes for the sim it is a clickable unit and that clickable unit brings a static overlay at the moment there is uh interrupt interactions that are currently in uh beta testing at the moment

for the support of video enablement or indeed playable enablement for that uh at the moment um we have just released sim into the marketplace so i'd be delighted to share some some further metrics with that but just you know really importantly on on the sim is that when they do click on the ad it brings up an overlay on that overlay it's a very very simple call to action they they can leave request further information or or indeed leave leave some details to to be contacted so you're not actually leaving the game to then go to an app store you're you're within the game you've said yes please call me back or please send me some further information thank you very much and continue with the game play fantastic i mean just there's still my live questions so i'm going to say to a majority of those people they should seek out um uh christian uh in the chat in the discord chat or the meeting system and and

and ask and obviously check out the webinar which is uh coming up which also have more uh answers to it but i'll end with one final question which is uh quite a simple one i guess is is how big is is this kind of in-game brand advertising right now you know compared to other revenue streams and maybe more established and how big can it get you know based on i guess what you've seen elsewhere and you know what's how how impactful do you think this is going to be so in in any revolution chris there's going to be a a a time element and a a real good feasibility on the use case typically the adoption rates of new advertising formats in game do take some time we've had some really early in early uh advancements uh and integrations with some hugely popular titles and we're learning uh a lot more about this this space what is exciting is that this is now a brand safe

channel that brands can engage directly for the first time in games across multiple different uh genres um the the size of of the landscape when we looked yeah back at the the very early days of of monetization versus where they are now comparative analysis 90 still iap 10 advertising we're going to be seeing a a levy a slight difference because brands have got a lot of money to spend and within the right game the right uh environment and the right click-throughs in customer engagement we're going to see that massively increase and if this is not a billion dollar industry this time next year then uh i might have to change my speech fair enough good good good finish thank you so much christian pleasure to talk to you as always uh yeah please do check out the webinar and the downloads and the offers and go and talk to christian in our various meeting systems after

this onwards thank you very much you