In this episode of The Business of Fun, we discuss what it takes to create a world-class monetization strategy for mobile games. Jonathan Fishman, VP of Marketing and Growth at mavens, Phil Suh, VP of Ad Monetization at Zynga, and Jeffrey Carlson, Head of Product, Publisher Products at Chartboost share golden tips on balancing in-app purchases, advertising, and other monetization techniques to optimize revenue without compromising user experience.
Chapters
00:00 / Intro
01:26 / Introducing Phil Suh and Jeffrey Carlson
03:01 / How should you look at in-app advertising in this environment?
07:35 / Why is now a good time to expand in-app advertising?
11:04 / Building an effective in-app advertising strategy
16:50 / Segmentation techniques
23:34 / Creating a great demand strategy
28:44 / Tracking the right KPIs
32:14 / Evaluating ad placements performance
37:39 / Understanding the leakage metric
42:18 / Future monetization stack capabilities
49:39 / Tips for hyper-casual developers in this economic environment with lower ad revenues.
52:17 / The impact of ATT on iOS and Android Privacy Sandbox on IAA
“Experimentation is key. There’s no one-size-fits[-all] for monetization for apps. They’re kind of like children — they’re all going to be a little bit different and have their own personalities. So what has worked in the past may not work in the future too, and it’s important in this experimentation to always be following the data and always be learning.”
— Jeffrey Carlson, Head of Product, Publisher Products at Chartboost
The rundown
- Gaming isn’t immune to what’s happening in the economy. Players have less discretionary income to invest in mobile games. Moreover, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework on iOS and Google Privacy Sandbox are making it harder to target installs, which has resulted in a broader funnel of installs for marketing spend. Retention has become more important than ever, and developers need to create relationships with their players to monetize them over the long term.
- In-app advertising (IAA) should be a part of your monetization arsenal. As in-app purchases (IAP) decrease, IAA can complement and supplement that loss and help developers gain more revenue.
- Now is a good time to expand IAA due to its prevalence among consumer audiences. New options such as audio ads at scale, increased demand from big players partnering with networks, and feedback from developers has led to better experiences for users while still allowing monetization opportunities.
- Building an effective ad strategy starts by setting your North Star metric to average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU), as well as retention and impact. You should focus on the supply and demand side, create different targets by genre, and set up personalized ads for specific games and different segments of players in your game.
- It’s crucial to understand user profiles, experiment with segmentation, and generate internal alignment on using ads in conjunction with IAP. When creating a strategy, you must consider maintenance costs, integration, user segmentation, and which adtech providers to partner with.
- When measuring the success of your IAA strategy, track KPIs such as total revenue, yield, and impressions of your business, as well as ARPDAU on particular user segments.
- IAA for mobile gaming is challenging, but doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel to succeed. Start with what has worked for others and become more sophisticated over time. Focus on the reach of your advertising and generating the supply. However, it’s critical to experiment, follow the data, and learn.
The players
- Jonathan Fishman on LinkedIn
- Phil Suh on LinkedIn
- Jeffrey Carlson on LinkedIn
- Zynga website
- mavens website
- Chartboost website
