Monetization reports and market data
Documents
Session: How To Boost Your Ad Revenue By Implementing Offerwall – Best & Worst Practices.
The primary purpose of this presentation is to outline best practices for implementing and optimizing offerwalls within mobile games to maximize ad revenue.
- Offerwalls typically engage a niche audience of 2% to 5% of daily active users, making them a targeted monetization tool rather than a broad-reach solution like rewarded video.
- Successful offerwall integration requires a robust in-app purchase (IAP) economy, making the format best suited for casual, mid-core, and hardcore games rather than hyper-casual titles.
- Developers should include both paying and non-paying users in offerwall campaigns, as data indicates this approach boosts total revenue without cannibalizing existing IAP sales.
Session: Ad Monetization Tips & Tricks! - Claire Rozain, Rzain.
Ad monetization has evolved into a critical, complementary revenue stream for mobile game developers, increasingly serving as a strategic partner to in-app purchases (IAP) rather than a cannibalizing force.
- Over 80% of current ad revenue is generated through real-time bidding (RTB), making technical mastery of automated bidding essential for monetization success.
- Ad monetization should be treated as a core product feature rather than a secondary revenue stream, utilizing AI to predict eCPM trends and manage seasonal fluctuations.
- Context-sensitive rewarded video placements, such as those offering extra moves or resources, consistently outperform intrusive ad formats by enhancing rather than disrupting the user experience.
Session: Remove Ads Messaging – How To Use Ads To Drive IAPs & Subscriptions - Felix Braberg.
The mobile gaming industry is currently undergoing a significant shift in monetization strategy, increasingly adopting design patterns from non-gaming app developers to drive in-app purchases (IAPs) and subscriptions.
- Developers are increasingly leveraging user frustration with declining ad quality—specifically longer durations and intrusive end cards—to drive conversions toward IAPs and subscriptions.
- The 'remove ads' messaging strategy shifts perceived blame for poor ad experiences onto the ad network, positioning the developer as a partner in providing a premium, ad-free experience.
- Implementing 'double choice' pricing, which pairs a high-value lifetime purchase with a lower-cost subscription, uses psychological anchoring to increase the perceived value of premium offerings.
Curated Panel: Leveraging Player & AI-Powered Business Insights – Unlocking Value For Hybrid.......
Hybrid monetization strategies are increasingly centered on the integration of non-intrusive, native advertising formats that preserve player engagement while driving revenue.
- Hybrid monetization—combining in-app purchases (IAP) and advertising—is increasingly essential for developers to maximize revenue, as simply adding more ad placements often degrades player retention rather than increasing income.
- NOXGAMES successfully utilized AdInMo’s in-game advertising platform to cross-promote their high-value titles within their casual sports games, effectively leveraging shared themes to drive installs for harder-to-market games.
- Strategic ad placement requires rigorous A/B testing on new installs to ensure that monetization efforts do not negatively impact player retention or user experience.
Session: Embracing New Technologies – A Must-Have For Ad Monetisation And UA Managers - Dan Bowen.
The mobile gaming industry faces significant challenges in ad monetization and user acquisition (UA) following the widespread implementation of App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and the subsequent rise in user opt-out rates.
- Publishers can achieve a 20% to 30% increase in eCPM for opt-out users by leveraging first-party data to restore value to audiences previously obscured by ATT and privacy restrictions.
- Combining first-party data with machine learning and AI allows publishers to create actionable behavioral insights, such as churn prediction, conversion modeling, and real-time bid optimization.
- First-party data serves as the foundation for modern ad monetization, enabling publishers to group users into behavioral cohorts that increase the value of inventory for advertisers.
Curated Panel: How To Maximise Your ROAS & Retention Advertising On Rewarded Platforms.
Rewarded advertising platforms have emerged as a significant, reliable, and growing component of user acquisition strategies for mobile game developers.
- Rewarded platforms are a reliable scaling source for user acquisition, typically accounting for 10% to 15% of the total marketing spend for the participating companies.
- User retention metrics from rewarded platforms are often superior to traditional channels, making them a valuable data point when presenting performance to investors.
- To maximize return on ad spend (ROAS), advertisers should implement separate reporting and analysis for rewarded traffic, as user behavior differs significantly from organic or standard paid acquisition.
Session: From Players To Profits – Leveraging The Value Triangle For Enhanced ROI -Vishal Mahtani.
The value triangle framework serves as a strategic model for optimizing rewarded advertising by balancing the interests of three core stakeholders: the user, the advertiser, and the publisher.
- The 'Value Triangle' framework balances the interests of the user, the advertiser, and the publisher to move beyond purely transactional rewarded advertising toward higher user retention and engagement.
- Leveraging rich data from Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs)—including in-app purchase data, recency, frequency, and time-on-platform—allows for more precise targeting and personalized user experiences.
- Machine learning and AI are essential for optimizing the 'Value Triangle,' enabling platforms to dynamically segment audiences into micro-groups and tailor rewards and timeframes to individual user habits.
Session: Bootstrapping Formula – Gamelight's Path To Success - Günay Azer, Gamelight
Gamelight, a rewarded mobile marketing platform, demonstrates the viability of a bootstrapping strategy in the competitive mobile gaming and ad-tech sectors.
- Gamelight maintains full autonomy and avoids equity dilution by bootstrapping, requiring a disciplined model where profitability cycles are restricted to 30–60 days to ensure liquidity.
- The company utilizes a lean startup methodology that prioritizes rapid MVP launches and real-time AI-driven optimization over founder intuition to minimize resource waste.
- Leadership enforces a strict 'no-calls' policy for founders, mandating written communication to maximize time spent on product development and scaling rather than administrative meetings.
Cracking the 4X Code: Billion Dollar Strategy (2.5gamers x @GameMakersDev crossover)
The 4X strategy genre has undergone a significant transformation, evolving from traditional, complex simulations into a highly efficient, data-driven ecosystem dominated by a new generation of titles.
- Modern 4X game success is driven by 'genre mashing,' where developers layer hyper-casual mechanics (like those in Frozen City or Legend of Mushroom) onto traditional 4X engines to lower high user acquisition (UA) costs.
- The 4X genre has shifted from simple reskins to complex multi-core gameplay, with titles like 'High Seas Hero' integrating three distinct gameplay layers to maximize engagement and retention.
- Aggressive UA strategies are now defined by massive creative volume, with top-performing studios like the developers of 'Dark War' managing up to 600 pages of ad creatives to optimize performance.
How He Sold 500,000+ Copies Of His Games (Oliver Joyce) — Full Time Game Dev Podcast Ep. 036
Achieving commercial success in the independent game industry requires a strategic shift away from chasing fleeting market trends toward cultivating authentic, niche-driven development.
- Diversify income streams—such as YouTube channels, asset sales, or consulting—to mitigate the financial risk of game development and avoid the 'quit your job' trap for early-stage projects.
- Validate market interest early by building a demo or trailer before committing years of development; for example, a poor reception to a trailer with 25,000 views can signal a need to pivot or cancel a project to save time.
- Prioritize core game loops that respect the player's time, as games that offer incremental rewards and avoid tedious mechanics often perform better for time-poor audiences.
Panel: The Experts' Guide To Direct To Consumer Strategies.
The mobile gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift toward direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategies, driven by the necessity to mitigate rising user acquisition costs and circumvent the restrictive 30% margin pressures imposed by traditional app store monopolies.
- Mobile studios are adopting direct-to-consumer (DTC) web storefronts to bypass the 30% margin fees imposed by traditional app store monopolies.
- Transitioning to web-based platforms allows developers to reclaim ownership of customer data and implement personalized monetization strategies that are restricted within app store ecosystems.
- Successful DTC implementation requires integrating merchant-of-record services, advanced attribution analytics, and scalable communication tools to manage transactions and player engagement.
Session: Proven Insights On D2C Monetisation From The Frontlines Of Major Mobile Publishers.
Direct-to-consumer (D2C) monetization has become a standard, essential component of modern mobile gaming, with over 70% of games now utilizing web shops.
- Direct-to-consumer (D2C) web shops are now a standard industry practice, with over 70% of mobile games utilizing them and some major publishers generating nearly 30% of their total revenue through these channels.
- Successful D2C monetization requires a long-term multi-platform distribution strategy rather than a one-off project, as evidenced by consistent year-over-year revenue growth in direct channels.
- Publishers should focus migration efforts on high-value players by offering exclusive incentives such as unique currency, web-only subscriptions, or specialized items that are not available in mobile stores.