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Keynote: ASO Trends to Watch out for in 2023 - Emily Sugrue, AppTweak.
App Store Optimization (ASO) in 2023 is defined by a shift toward highly personalized user acquisition and the potential disruption of the traditional app store duopoly.
- Custom store pages are becoming a standard component of user acquisition, with Google Play allowing up to 35 custom listings and Apple supporting custom product pages for Apple Search Ads (ASA).
- Google Play is evolving its 'Live Ops' feature into 'Promotional Content,' which will allow all developers to highlight discounts, giveaways, and new gameplay features to drive monetization by the end of 2023.
- The European Commission's Digital Markets and Digital Services Acts are expected to force Apple to open its ecosystem to third-party app stores in 2023, though developers must weigh the potential for lower commission fees against reduced traffic, trust, and visibility.
Panel: Shifting the Balance Will NFTs Disrupt How Games, Brands & Creative Media Interact?
The gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental transition, moving away from the speculative, profit-driven models that characterized early blockchain integration toward a focus on functional, experience-oriented utility.
- The gaming industry is shifting from speculative, profit-driven blockchain models toward a focus on functional, experience-oriented utility where gameplay quality takes precedence over financial mechanics.
- Developers are increasingly positioning blockchain as invisible infrastructure rather than a central marketing hook to foster sustainable communities and avoid negative mainstream sentiment.
- Technological advancements are enabling the creation of remixable, portable assets that allow players to evolve game content, transforming static digital items into dynamic, long-term investments.
Power Up Performance – How To Maximise Performance in a Privacy-First Advertising Landscape.
In a landscape defined by privacy-first regulations and the decline of user-level data, mobile game developers must shift their strategies to maintain growth and performance.
- Creative diversification is a critical performance driver, with data showing a 32 percent performance lift when assets are effectively differentiated and iterated to prevent fatigue.
- Developers must shift from granular, user-level attribution to a holistic framework that integrates automation, measurement accuracy, conversion schema optimization, and creative diversification.
- Automation tools like Meta’s Advantage Plus app campaigns are essential for optimizing ad placement across platforms while reducing manual operational effort.
User Acquisition AI, Past, Present, & Future - PHIL SHPILBER of GameChangersSF
The integration of artificial intelligence into user acquisition (UA) represents a fundamental shift in the gaming industry, moving from human-led, rules-based management to automated, data-driven optimization.
- AI-driven user acquisition systems consistently deliver a 20% to 80% improvement in return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to traditional human-managed campaigns.
- Automated systems can process 1.5 million data points and execute 2,000 actions per month, replacing approximately 400 hours of manual human labor.
- The current UA landscape is divided into three modules: mature governance AI for bid and budget management, behavioral-based targeting AI, and evolving creative AI for automated ad testing.
Panel: The Ultimate Growth Hack: The Smart Approach to Paid & Organic User Acquisition Campaigns
Sustainable user acquisition in the modern mobile landscape requires a strategic shift away from reliance on traditional, high-cost platform advertising toward diversified, ecosystem-based growth models.
- Diversifying beyond traditional platform advertising is necessary to combat rising acquisition costs and privacy-driven data limitations.
- Carrier-led acquisition during device activation can achieve conversion rates of 6–8% by capturing users at the point of hardware setup.
- Peer-to-peer sharing and organic user-to-user recommendations account for up to one-third of daily application installs in emerging markets.
State of Mobile Gaming 2023 - Chris Uglietta, Senior Marketing Manager Gaming, data.ai
The 2023 mobile gaming market is characterized by a notable divergence between user engagement and consumer spending.
- Global mobile game downloads reached 90 billion in 2023, yet consumer spending contracted due to macroeconomic pressures and the impact of IDFA deprecation on high-value user targeting.
- Mid-core genres, including racing, shooters, and action games, experienced significant revenue declines despite maintaining or increasing their download volumes.
- Mobile advertising spend grew by 14% as total daily time spent on mobile devices surpassed five hours, highlighting a shift toward hybrid monetization models that combine ads with in-app purchases.
Device savvy, Growing Gaming Competition Along With a Volatile Economic Climate - Duncan Blackett
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a volatile economic climate characterized by a 30% decline in advertising spend and a 36% year-over-year drop in return on ad spend (ROAS).
- The mobile gaming industry is facing a significant downturn, marked by a 30% decline in advertising spend and a 36% year-over-year drop in return on ad spend (ROAS).
- Privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) have depreciated third-party data, forcing UA teams to expand from three to four members per developer to manage rising operational costs.
- Direct-to-device strategies are becoming essential, as new phone owners install three times as many applications as users who have owned their devices for a year.
Inclusive Marketing for Indies
Inclusive marketing for independent game studios requires a framework rooted in intersectionality, which acknowledges how various aspects of identity—such as race, gender, sexuality, and disability—interact to shape experiences of systemic inequality.
- Inclusive marketing for indie studios must be rooted in intersectionality, which accounts for how overlapping identities like race, gender, and disability shape systemic inequality.
- Content strategy should prioritize authentic representation over tokenism and treat accessibility as a foundational design requirement rather than an afterthought.
- Communication strategies must actively elevate diverse voices by diversifying the network of journalists and influencers engaged for promotion.
Trailmix’s Philippa Layburn on Identifying Winning Creatives
The modern landscape of mobile game user acquisition necessitates a departure from traditional performance metrics like cost-per-install and installs-per-mille in favor of granular attention-based data.
- Prioritize the 'hook rate'—the ratio of three-second video views to total impressions—as the primary metric to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of an advertisement’s opening moments.
- Move away from traditional performance metrics like cost-per-install (CPI) and installs-per-mille (IPM) in favor of granular, attention-based data to break through stagnant testing cycles.
- Integrate user acquisition as a fundamental pillar of the game development lifecycle rather than treating it as a siloed marketing function to ensure marketing efforts align with the core player experience.
2022 Year In Review Promo
The analysis of the 2022 Steam marketplace focuses on identifying successful development trends and actionable strategies for independent game creators.
- A consistent cohort of approximately 550 to 570 titles, including 473 independent games, surpassed the $300,000 revenue threshold in 2022.
- Reaching the $300,000 revenue milestone is a critical tipping point that triggers increased visibility through Steam’s discovery queues, featured banners, and promotional opportunities.
- Despite the rising volume of total game releases on Steam since 2016, the number of titles achieving high-revenue status has remained remarkably stable.
How to Find a Unified, Single Source of Truth for your Marketing Team
Mobile measurement partners function as the essential foundation for modern game marketing by providing a unified source of truth that tracks the entire user journey from initial ad exposure to long-term in-game behavior.
- Mobile measurement partners (MMPs) serve as the essential foundation for tracking the full user journey, enabling developers to correlate acquisition sources with long-term retention and monetization metrics.
- The post-App Tracking Transparency (ATT) landscape requires studios to synthesize multiple frameworks—including SKAdNetwork, incrementality testing, and media mix modeling—to mitigate reduced targeting precision and rising acquisition costs.
- Marketing teams must shift from relying on automated black-box algorithms to hypothesis-driven, manual strategies to resolve data discrepancies and eliminate duplicate attribution.
Panel: Growing Strong - Lessons in Levelling Up Your Games Audience & Maintaining a Strong User Base
Achieving sustainable growth in the gaming industry requires a rigorous, scientific approach that integrates marketing strategy into the earliest stages of product development.
- Integrate marketing strategy into the initial ideation phase of product development to ensure product-market fit and validate audience interest before committing significant resources.
- Balance aggressive user acquisition with high-quality retention, as even mature titles reaching five-year milestones rely on consistent live operations and seamless onboarding for long-term viability.
- Avoid misleading advertising practices, as they create false expectations that erode player trust and negatively impact long-term retention metrics.