User Acquisition reports and market data
Documents
Poly Bridge and Social Media: A Love Story
Poly Bridge demonstrates that integrating seamless, one-click replay tools directly into a game’s core loop is a highly effective strategy for driving organic growth and community engagement.
- Integrating one-click replay tools directly into the core game loop is a highly effective strategy for driving organic growth and community engagement.
- Designing for shareability at the architectural level, rather than as an afterthought, allows community-generated content to serve as a primary marketing asset that outperforms traditional media coverage.
- Treating player failure as a creative opportunity rather than a penalty fosters a self-sustaining feedback loop that transforms the player base into a primary design engine.
Influencer marketing: No pain, no gain
Influencer marketing has emerged as a critical user acquisition channel for mobile games, particularly as younger demographics shift away from traditional media toward platforms like YouTube.
- Influencer marketing can achieve 100% ROI when executed through sustained, multi-phase strategies rather than one-off campaigns.
- Tracking links undercount actual performance, as 20% to 70% of users bypass them to download apps directly from the store after viewing content.
- Successful influencer campaigns typically require a three-to-four-week preparation period and the coordination of 15 to 30 influencers.
The good and the bad of influencer marketing
Influencer marketing serves as a critical bridge between game developers and audiences, leveraging the unique trust and long-form engagement inherent in creator-led content.
- Effective influencer campaigns require a dedicated testing budget between €20,000 and €100,000 to achieve statistical significance, as single-video tests are insufficient for performance evaluation.
- Developers should prioritize deep engagement metrics and audience alignment over vanity metrics like raw subscriber counts, which often lead to inflated costs and poor conversion rates.
- Marketing success is driven by integrating brand messaging into a creator’s natural storytelling style rather than relying on transactional, generic gameplay sponsorships.
For mutual benefit: Working with influencers
Collaborating with influencers has become a vital strategy for game developers seeking to increase downloads and expand their social media presence.
- Prioritize channels based on actual view counts and audience engagement metrics rather than total subscriber counts, which are often misleading indicators of value.
- Influencers prioritize games that offer high 'fun factor' and ease of play, as these titles allow creators to focus on audience engagement and producing compelling thumbnails rather than mastering complex mechanics.
- Treat collaborations as professional business partnerships by initiating transparent discussions regarding financial compensation, as influencers view their work as a career rather than a hobby.
The growth techniques that every game developer should know about
Game developers often face the challenge of high user acquisition costs that far exceed the lifetime value of their players.
- To maximize organic growth, integrate native sharing tools that allow users to easily capture and share unique, personalized gameplay moments rather than generic marketing content.
- On average, 80% of users open a game only once, making the initial onboarding experience critical; A/B testing often reveals that removing tutorials and dropping players directly into gameplay improves retention.
- Delay requests for push notification permissions until the user understands the value proposition, as asking immediately upon launch creates friction that leads to high opt-out rates.
Engineering success: The CSR Racing 2 story
The development of CSR Racing 2 by NaturalMotion serves as a case study in scaling a successful mobile franchise through iterative design, technical refinement, and a commitment to player-centric live operations.
- CSR Racing 2 achieved global market dominance upon its June 2016 launch, reaching the top-grossing racing title position in 126 countries.
- The game utilizes a 'digital collectible' model that drives high engagement, with the average player owning 16 cars and top users collecting over 1,400 vehicles.
- NaturalMotion scaled the franchise by leveraging four years of quantitative and qualitative data from the original CSR Racing to inform the sequel's development.
Influencing the mobile game universe
The mobile gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift in marketing strategy, moving away from rigid, scripted advertisements toward authentic, partnership-based collaborations.
- Mobile gaming marketing is shifting from scripted, performance-based advertisements to authentic, partnership-driven collaborations that integrate games into a creator's personal brand.
- Modern audiences prioritize high-quality, television-style production over high-volume content, showing a marked preference for genuine enthusiasm over forced promotional messaging.
- Long-term engagement is driven by cultivating loyal fanbases through original concepts and transparency, specifically by avoiding deceptive practices like rigged gameplay or fake giveaways.
Building an effective paid UA operation for mobile apps in a multi-channel environment
The primary challenge in modern mobile user acquisition (UA) is the operational inefficiency inherent in managing a diversified, multi-channel advertising portfolio.
- Diversifying beyond dominant platforms like Google and Facebook is essential to mitigate market saturation and maximize ROI in mobile user acquisition.
- Centralized management software enables teams to scale by providing a unified dashboard for cross-channel campaign execution, asset management, and bulk optimizations.
- Operational efficiency is achieved by aggregating performance data across platforms, allowing for real-time budget reallocation and the identification of underperforming campaigns.
The app is dead – How post-app store games increase social conversion
The gaming industry is undergoing a fundamental shift away from standalone applications toward a post-app store ecosystem.
- The gaming industry is shifting toward a post-app store ecosystem where games are hosted directly within super apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and Line to bypass traditional download hurdles and high acquisition costs.
- HTML5 technology enables instantaneous game launches, which is critical for user retention because players are less committed than those who download standalone applications.
- Developers must capture user interest within 15 seconds and design gameplay loops that last approximately 30 seconds to maintain engagement in this frictionless environment.
What you need to know about the future of mobile monetisation
The mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a transition from a period of rapid user acquisition to a more mature, saturated market.
- Publishers should transition from manual, waterfall-based mediation to real-time and programmatic header bidding to increase eCPMs and fill rates through competitive demand-side platform bidding.
- Vertical video ad formats should be prioritized over landscape alternatives, as they consistently deliver 10% to 20% higher conversion rates.
- Interactive playable ads are now an industry standard that effectively increase both install rates and long-term player retention by allowing users to sample mechanics before downloading.
Don't go it alone – How choosing the right partner is key to success
Achieving sustainable growth in the mobile gaming industry requires a strategic alignment between a game’s core design and its user acquisition framework.
- Developers should implement a waterfall bidding strategy for game launches, setting specific deadlines for partners to submit bids to maximize revenue during the high-traffic opening weekend.
- To optimize monetization, developers should use placement segmentation to show ads to specific user groups, such as serving high-CPM ads to non-paying users while limiting ad exposure for those already engaged in in-app purchases.
- When selecting user acquisition partners, developers should define clear goals and budgets based on their game's genre and target geography rather than relying on a generic number of partners.
Does paid user acquisition make sense as a way to scale my game?
Paid user acquisition (UA) serves as a critical engine for scaling mobile games, yet success depends heavily on a developer’s ability to interpret metrics and maintain profitability.
- Scaling paid user acquisition requires a shift from soft-launch metrics to global performance, as install costs typically rise and lifetime value (LTV) fluctuates when targeting broader audiences.
- Developers should establish a baseline of approximately 1,000 installs to achieve the statistical confidence necessary to justify increased marketing budgets.
- Successful UA strategies prioritize a focused set of core indicators—specifically retention, average revenue per user, and behavioral milestones—rather than tracking an excessive volume of metrics.