Hybrid-casual games include simple, marketable core gameplay with additional engagement layers designed to create a richer gaming experience. Unlike hyper-casual, these games aren’t solely designed for maximum fun and playtime. They have sophisticated meta, deeper game loops and a balanced economy that are built to engage players for 60-90 days.

By allowing for deeper engagement through strategy building and offering the ability to progress in the game, hybrid-casual games have higher retention and lifetime value (LTV) rates than hyper-casual games.

Monetizing your hybrid game

While marketability isn’t the highest priority, it’s still important during the early stages of testing. With a deeper product and balanced game economy, hybrid-casual games monetize mainly through In-app purchases (IAP) and Rewarded Video (RV). Hybrid-casual games also use interstitials, although it’s not the main monetization method. Interstitials are only used for specific groups of users or during certain stages in the game.

Hybrid-casual gaming vs. hyper-casual gaming

While both hybrid-casual and hyper-casual developers aim for high-scalability and low cost per install (CPI), the genres differ when it comes to design and monetization.

Game design and monetization

Hyper-casual game design prioritizes quick, entertaining gameplay loops and may lack deeper virtual economies or content often found in hybrid games. They monetize primarily through banner and interstitial ads. And because they are structured to provide maximum fun so users will keep playing, hyper-casual games show users the maximum number of interstitial and banner ads.

LTV for hyper-casual games is low because they are made with a lean product and monetization strategy in mind. That’s why marketability is a must. Hyper-casual games only take around 4-5 months to develop, compared to the 9-12 months it takes to develop a hybrid-casual game.

Going hybrid

In response to market changes, many hyper-casual publishers are exploring hybrid gaming opportunities. The best part – you don’t have to start from scratch. Hyper-casual games that show signs of good engagement (D7 retention between 5-10%), can be converted into hybrid-casual games. Learn more here.

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Supply Path Optimization (SPO) is an industry-wide effort to remove intermediaries in the programmatic flow and create a more direct path to publishers. In other words, SPO helps advertisers identify the most strategic supply paths, so you can reach your audiences efficiently.

How SPO works in programmatic marketing

Over the past decade, more and more advertisers have added programmatic marketing to their strategy. Programmatic marketing uses data insights and automation to show the right mobile ad for the right price, while providing transparency and efficiency for advertisers of all sizes.

That said, the road between the advertiser and the publisher can be long. That’s where SPO comes in. SPO removes unnecessary intermediaries that drive up costs, bringing you closer to in-app ad supply and increasing efficiency.

The benefits of supply path optimization

SPO improves your brand’s buying power.

1. Reduce costs: Get transparency into fees and reduce costs from reseller intermediaries, extending the impact of your ad dollars.

2. Drive performance: Ensure your dollars are flowing to premium, quality ad space that has been authorized by the publisher for sale.

3. Maintain quality partnerships: Manage your publisher-partner relationships more effectively and ensure you’re buying from trusted direct sources.

4. Get full transparency: Gain visibility into which supply sources the publisher has authorized to sell their ad traffic.

Top methods for supply path optimization

The goal of SPO is to provide transparency in choosing the right supply path to reach optimal impressions, all while reducing intermediary costs. Mediators make SPO possible by enabling you to:

1. Utilize supply chain transparency tools: Get transparency into the supply path with tools like app-ads.txt, sellers.json, and the Supply Chain Object.

2. Evaluate scale and source of inventory: Ensure you have access to quality developers and ad formats to maximize ROI.

3. Buy direct from the last stop on the supply chain: Mediation SDKs are the ultimate decision-makers for which ads will be shown to end-users. To optimize access to ad space, partner with mediators to get as close to publishers as possible.

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To earn more revenue, developers use a mediation platform to aggregate and monetize with multiple ad networks. But how exactly does the mediation platform choose which ad network gets to fill the open ad slot? The waterfall is designed to answer that.

Ad waterfalls are a system that enables developers to manage the ad networks they monetize with – by listing and organizing their instances from highest to lowest eCPM. Once the developer sends an ad request to their mediation platform, that request cascades down the ad waterfall – asking one ad network instance, or waterfall instance, at a time whether it’s willing to fill the ad request.

How does an advertising waterfall work?

The mediation automatically places waterfall instances with the highest eCPM at the top of the waterfall. Developers also have the option to override eCPM and give their instances manual rates – this way, they can prioritize high-potential instances that are less likely to get an ad request.

The ad network instance at the top of the waterfall gets the first opportunity to fill the ad slot for that eCPM – if they reject it, the opportunity passes down to the next instance in the waterfall – ensuring the highest price will always be granted.

If the network chooses not to fill that ad slot for the requested instance, the waterfall moves to the next instance in line. The waterfall continues to trickle down, and once an ad has been shown, the process starts over with a new ad request.

The difference between waterfalling and header bidding

The biggest difference between waterfall instances and bidding instances is that bidding instances are automated in real-time, whereas waterfall instances have pre-set price points – with much less flexibility.

Waterfall instances ask one ad network at a time to manually fill an ad slot, tricking down to the next highest bidder until one fills an ad request. However, the gaps in between each bidder may lead to missed revenue opportunities – perhaps a different ad network would have filled the ad slot for a higher price.

Bidding instances, or in-app bidding, on the other hand, are not tied to any specific price point – it asks all the ad networks to name a bid price at the same time in a transparent auction. This way, every bidder gets the chance to offer a bid on every ad request in real time.

Waterfall model advantages and disadvantages

Waterfall instance advantages:

• Using waterfall instances enlarges the portfolio of ad networks you can work with – accommodating to ad networks that aren’t using bidders

Waterfall instance disadvantages:

• Developers prioritize their waterfalls by eCPM, but miss out on potential revenue from ad networks that would have bid higher
• To minimize price fluctuations on their waterfall, many developers manually optimize them, which can be demanding and time consuming
• Waterfalls can have latency issues – it can take a few moments for each ad to show up in the waterfall

Learn more about automating the waterfall with in-app bidding

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Learn more about running a brand advertising campaign with ironSource

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(marketing costs over a certain time period / (orders over the same time period)

The marketing costs are just costs on a specific platform, like Facebook or Google. To keep costs per order down, it’s best to both understand previous spending and estimate future spending, setting clear, informed targets. When estimating future cost per order, companies often overlook the operations costs like shipping.

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According to the Media Rating Council (MRC), a “view” has to meet a certain set of criteria: an ad must cover at least 50% of the user’s screen for more than one second (two seconds for a video). If an app owner doesn’t place their ads in the correct spot, and users can’t properly view the ads as a result, the advertiser doesn’t have to pay for the transaction.

Learn more about running a brand advertising campaign with ironSource

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Learn more about agency trading desks with ironSource Exchange

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While it’s not completely automated, it saves mobile app marketers valuable time that can be used to optimize their campaign in other ways. One common type of programmatic advertising is real-time bidding, an open auction choosing inventory prices in real time. Other options include Private Marketplace (an invite-only open auction) and Programmatic Direct (selling inventory at a fixed cost per mille).

Learn more about running a programmatic advertising campaign with ironSource Exchange

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