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Opportunities in Games as Marketing Channels PG Connects Digital #2
The integration of advertising into indie games serves as a critical revenue stream for developers, provided the implementation balances commercial viability with user experience.
- Games are the most viewed media globally, providing a significant opportunity for brands to reach audiences through non-intrusive, integrated marketing channels.
- Developers should prioritize creative partnerships like branded reskins, product placement, and gamified loyalty programs over disruptive ad networks to maintain user experience.
- Strategic brand matching is essential for revenue, as high-paying ads—such as insurance—often fail to align with the demographics of younger gaming audiences.
Mobile Marketing for Card Games | Growing WildCard Games Ultimate Cribbage (UA Coffee)
Scaling a niche mobile title like Ultimate Cribbage requires a disciplined approach to user acquisition that balances aggressive automated bidding with rigorous creative testing.
- Scale niche titles by using a tiered geographic strategy, starting in low-cost markets like India before expanding to higher-value regions like Canada and the United States.
- Target specific D90–D120 payback windows to ensure long-term profitability rather than focusing solely on short-term acquisition metrics.
- Diversify marketing channels beyond Facebook’s automated bidding to avoid unpredictable costs and fragmented data that obscure true player lifetime value.
3Q FY2020 Presentation Material
CyberAgent’s performance during the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 remained resilient despite the economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- CyberAgent reported 112.8 billion yen in consolidated sales for 3Q FY2020, achieving 89% to 102% of its full-year operating profit forecast despite a marginal 0.7% year-over-year revenue decline.
- The Game business generated 36.7 billion yen in quarterly revenue, bolstered by major title anniversaries and a strategy focused on both new IP development and lifecycle extension for existing games.
- The media segment, anchored by the ABEMA streaming platform, grew sales by 19.2% year-over-year to 13.3 billion yen, supported by 56 million total downloads.
Alternative Billing Solutions and how to Monetise SMS Traffic PG Connects Digital #2
Alternative billing solutions serve as a critical monetization strategy for game developers and digital content providers, particularly in emerging markets where traditional credit and debit card penetration remains low.
- Alternative billing solutions, such as direct carrier billing and premium SMS, are essential for monetizing users in emerging markets where credit and debit card penetration is low.
- Direct carrier billing and premium SMS enable one-off transactions, subscriptions, and trial periods by charging costs directly to a user's mobile phone bill.
- International standard SMS allows for cross-border monetization by charging users at standard international messaging rates, providing a low-friction alternative to domestic-only payment methods.
Superstar Session: Bidstack: A New Era of Advertising for Your Game PGCD#2
Programmatic, native in-game advertising represents a transformative shift in how developers monetize 3D environments while preserving the integrity of the user experience.
- Programmatic, native in-game advertising allows developers to monetize 3D environments across PC, console, and mobile platforms by integrating non-clickable, brand-building placements via specialized SDKs.
- In-game advertising prioritizes user immersion by treating ads as natural elements of the virtual world, which empirical data shows results in superior viewability and higher user attention compared to traditional digital display formats.
- Gaming is becoming a primary destination for advertisers as legacy media channels like television and social platforms face declining viewership and high rates of ad-blocking.
Panel: What Does Success Look Like in UA? PG Connects Digital #2
Modern user acquisition strategies have evolved beyond a reliance on vanity metrics like raw install volume, shifting instead toward a rigorous, data-driven focus on long-term profitability and return on ad spend.
- Success in user acquisition has shifted from raw install volume to a focus on long-term profitability, return on ad spend (ROAS), and the retention of high-value users.
- Marketing, finance, and product teams must collaborate to align cohort-based profitability analysis with broader business objectives to ensure sustainable growth.
- While Google and Facebook remain dominant, TikTok and Snapchat are essential for their creative capabilities and influence on multi-touch customer journeys.
Influencers as Part of Your Video Creative Mix PG Connects Digital #2
The modern mobile gaming landscape is shifting away from traditional influencer marketing, which often suffers from high costs and unpredictable performance, toward a strategy centered on Influencer Generated Content.
- Shift from traditional influencer marketing to Influencer Generated Content (IGC) to use creators as actors for scalable, authentic video ads rather than relying on their personal reach.
- Leverage IGC to improve click-through rates and lower costs-per-install across major advertising platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and Google.
- Prioritize micro-influencers over larger personalities to achieve more cost-effective, reactive content that resonates with mobile gaming audiences.
Panel: What Do You Do in the Inevitable Decline of Ad Revenue? PG Connects Digital #2
The gaming industry remains fundamentally resilient, often maintaining stability during broader economic downturns due to the accessible nature of digital entertainment.
- Diversify revenue streams by combining ad-based models with in-app purchases to capture value from the majority of non-paying users.
- Avoid reactive increases in ad frequency during performance dips, as this degrades user experience and triggers algorithmic penalties.
- Prioritize long-term retention and high-quality content over short-term revenue extraction to capitalize on the expanded player base created by recent global consumption shifts.
Death of Performance Marketing: End of a Career in UA?
The landscape of user acquisition is undergoing a fundamental transformation, moving away from manual, tactical media buying toward a more strategic, integrated growth model.
- The traditional manual media buyer role is becoming obsolete as algorithmic automation from platforms like Facebook and Google replaces routine campaign optimization tasks.
- Growth strategy must shift from siloed marketing functions to a unified model that integrates short-term performance metrics with long-term brand health.
- To ensure profitability and relevance, studios must involve growth experts early in the product development lifecycle rather than treating marketing as a reactive, final-stage effort.
How to Prepare for the Future of Mobile Marketing! | UA Coffee Talk
The mobile marketing landscape is undergoing a fundamental transformation as machine learning and automation consolidate the technical aspects of ad management.
- The role of the media buyer is shifting from manual campaign trafficking to strategic oversight as machine learning and automation from platforms like Google and Facebook increasingly handle bid and budget optimization.
- Success in mobile marketing now requires a transition toward creative strategy, product integration, and high-level storytelling rather than reliance on granular, device-level tracking.
- Privacy-driven changes and the erosion of traditional tracking necessitate a convergence of performance and brand marketing to maintain growth.
Ad Creatives Framework: Optimization Deep Dive (Matej Lancaric SuperScale)
Ad creatives serve as the primary engine for profitable user acquisition in the mobile gaming industry, functioning as the most effective lever for reducing cost-per-install.
- Ad creatives are the primary lever for user acquisition efficiency, with optimization capable of reducing cost-per-install from four dollars to fifty cents.
- A balanced creative budget should allocate 70 percent to video content, with the remaining budget split between static images, carousels, and playable ads to combat creative fatigue.
- To ensure a continuous pipeline of high-performing assets, 10 to 15 percent of the total creative budget must be reserved for testing experimental concepts.
2Q FY2020 Presentation Material: January to March 2020
CyberAgent achieved record-high financial performance during the second quarter of fiscal year 2020, with consolidated sales reaching 129.1 billion yen and operating profit surging 45.3% year-over-year to 12.4 billion yen.
- CyberAgent achieved record-high Q2 FY2020 consolidated sales of 129.1 billion yen and a 45.3% year-over-year increase in operating profit to 12.4 billion yen.
- The Game Business drove performance with 44.8 billion yen in revenue, bolstered by anniversary events for Granblue Fantasy and the successful launch of KonoSuba: Fantastic Days.
- By the end of the first half of FY2020, CyberAgent had already achieved 63% to 72% of its full-year profit targets.