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Advertiser’s Playbook to Win the 2024 Holiday Season

Unity — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 19:47:44 +0000

As the holiday magic unfolds, savvy marketers are ready to connect with consumers like never before. Unity surveyed 4,094 U.S. adults aged 18+ to uncover insights that can help your brand land on the nice list. Ready to maximize your impact? Let’s dive in! Be proactive and precise with your holiday advertising With the holiday season quickly approaching, preparation and timing are crucial, and as our data shows – it’s never too early to think about your holiday advertising strategy, since holiday shopping for most is a year-long activity. 24% of shoppers plan to buy the majority of their holiday gifts during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, while 21% do their shopping throughout the year. Most notably, only 12% of respondents plan to do their shopping in December, highlighting the need for brands to engage consumers early.

When do you plan on buying the majority of your holiday gifts this year?

🎄 DEEP DIVE Gen Z shoppers are most proactive, with 25% planning to buy their holiday gifts throughout the year and 21% starting their shopping even earlier—kicking off in October rather than waiting for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. When it comes to holiday spending, consumers are ready to invest in gifts this year. 32% of Gen Z shoppers plan to spend between $101 and $250, while 31% will spend less than $100. As the generations get older, there’s an increased willingness to spend more: 35% of Millennials, 43% of Gen X, and 47% of Boomers plan to spend between $251 and $500+ on gifts, highlighting a strong commitment to holiday shopping across all age groups. Overall, Millennials are planning to spend the most, albeit by a small margin.

In total, how much do you plan to spend on holiday gifts this year?

And here’s how they plan to purchase these gifts: Across all generations, 48% of respondents intend to use their mobile devices for holiday purchases. → 50% of Gen Zs plan to use their mobile phones for shopping → 47% of Millennials plan to use their mobile phones for shopping → 48% of Gen X plan to use their mobile phones for shopping → 39% of Baby Boomers+ plan to use their mobile phones for shopping TAKEAWAY: As shoppers begin their holiday shopping earlier and increasingly rely on mobile devices, brands must start engaging audiences now. Tailor your holiday campaigns to align with these early shopping behaviors and leverage mobile to connect with consumers at the right time and place ahead of this festive season. Leverage the power of mobile gaming this holiday season The holiday season invites moments of togetherness and offers a chance to unwind at the end of the year, but it can also bring its share of stress. Mobile gaming can help offset any holiday stress – in fact, 44% of respondents identified mobile gaming as the ultimate stress reliever over the holidays, with Gen Z (47%) and Millennials (44%) leading the way. Additionally, about 35% of all respondents say they turn to mobile games to combat holiday boredom.

Which of the following statements do you associate with mobile gaming in the holiday season? (Check all that apply)

Turning to mobile games as a source of comfort and entertainment, audiences anticipate spending a considerable time gaming. 37% of Gen Z expect to increase their playtime during the holidays, while 29% of Millennials feel the same way. Don’t overlook Gen X and Baby Boomers+ though, as the holiday season won’t deter them from enjoying their gaming experiences either.

Do you expect to spend more or less time playing mobile games during the holiday season?

A significant 33% of Gen Z, 44% of Millennials, 46% of Gen X, and 37% of Baby Boomers+ say they’ll play over 3 hours of mobile games per day during the holidays. This dedication to mobile gaming underscores its role as a key source of relief amidst the holiday hustle and bustle.

On average, how long do you play mobile games per day during the holidays?

🎄 DEEP DIVE 13% of respondents say they’ll likely play for 5 or more hours a day, of which 59+ year olds were the most likely to at 14%. (That’s almost 30% of their entire day! – if they’re sleeping 8 hours~) With so much time spent gaming, it’s no surprise that players are eager to embrace the holiday spirit through their favorite games. In fact, 23% of respondents say they are more likely to engage with holiday-themed in-game content, while 18% plan to spend more on in-game purchases this season. TAKEAWAY: The holiday season offers a prime opportunity for brands to connect with audiences, as 44% identify mobile gaming as a key stress reliever. With many players eager to engage with holiday-themed content and increase their gaming time, capitalize on this trend to drive both engagement and leave a strong impression. Gamify your ad strategy for the holidays Mobile ads play a significant role in shaping holiday shopping decisions, especially among younger audiences. 45% of Gen Z report that ads in mobile games influence their holiday gift purchases. As the audience ages, the influence of ads decreases, with 32% of Millennials, 27% of Gen X, and 16% of Baby Boomers+ saying they are influenced by ads.

During the holiday season, which ad categories are you most likely to engage with?(Check all that apply)

🎄 DEEP DIVE Audiences are most likely to interact with ads for electronics (41%), followed by food and beverage (29%). Rewarded video ads and playable ads are the most popular formats, with 38% indicating they would most likely engage with them. Offerwall ads come in close behind at 33%.

During the holiday season, what types of mobile ads are you most likely to engage with? (Check all that apply)

🎄 DEEP DIVE Gen Zs show a preference for interactive ad formats, with 42% favoring playable ads and 40% preferring offerwall ads that provide rewards. In contrast, Gen X and Baby Boomers+ lean towards rewarded ads. To maximize engagement, brands should focus on delivering creative and interactive ad experiences. TAKEAWAY: The preference for engaging ad formats indicates that brands should invest in creative, gamified advertising strategies to effectively reach and resonate with audiences during the holidays. Leverage rewarded or interactive ad units to reach new audiences and ensure audiences are open to seeing your ads. As the holiday season sparkles with cheer and connection, may your brand sleigh the competition and spread joy to audiences far and wide! *Of those surveyed, 54% identified as female, 30% as male, 11% as gender fluid, nonbinary or genderqueer, and 5% preferred not to answer

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4 key strategies to drive scale and revenue for your app during the shopping season

Daniel Godley — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 08:46:11 +0000

As most app marketers know, time spent on device peaks during the holiday season. Between November and December, households across the globe are on their devices, shopping for holiday deals, ordering takeout for family gatherings, booking their vacations, or just spending some downtime with their favorite mobile game. The key to making this seasonal uplift in new users, engagement, and intent work for your app is tackling it from all angles – from optimizing existing channels to expanding into new ones.

1. Build holiday-themed and urgent creatives that spike conversions

The challenges app marketers face during the holiday season are the same as those throughout the rest of the year – only amplified due to the high competition for users’ attention. To drive growth, you need to optimize your channels, generate strong content and creatives, reach your target audience, look for real-time marketing opportunities, and collect and analyze data to improve performance. The key difference between this season and the rest of the year is the opportunities available to maximize your app’s growth through creatives. And there’s a lot of data to back up this claim*:

Conversions are significantly higher throughout the holiday season due to more engagement in apps and on phones (2021, US, iOS)
Game installs surge 3x during the week of Christmas (2021, US, Facebook)
Advertisers test 2x the amount of creatives during the holidays, which means you don’t want to be left behind

*Data from the Unity Playworks platform, 2021-2022 This makes the holiday and shopping season prime opportunities to use your creatives to drive growth. It’s also the time when consumers are most likely to be engaged by emotional triggers, like nostalgia – since it’s a time traditionally affiliated with friends and family. These triggers are a useful tool for building high conversion creatives. Your creatives can use users’ emotional responses to these triggers to connect your app with the mood of the season. By playing to these emotional responses you’ll stand a better chance of encouraging users to download your app. Another effective emotional trigger to motivate users is urgency. Time-limited promotions and time-sensitive messaging are two great ways to insert urgency into your creatives. Urgency is an effective tool as it motivates users to engage as soon as possible or risk losing out – whether that’s on a special promotion or just the chance to get ahead of the shopping crowds, availability issues, or lengthy delivery times. Some tips to help you ideate creatives that spark the holiday feeling include:

Use real footage of real people that show emotional, heartwarming scenarios
Test holiday symbols in your creatives – think snowflakes, witches, pumpkins, and turkeys
Leverage narratives that center on family and community

2. Set up an offerwall campaign to exceed your ROAS goals

The offerwall is a user-initiated, rewarded in-app marketplace with three main constituents: developers use the offerwall to drive revenue, retain users, and motivate app engagement. Advertisers use the offerwall to reach unique, high-quality audiences that are looking to exchange engagement for rewards. Users engage with the offerwall for rewards, app discovery, and brand discovery, all while getting more of the app they’re already using. Here are 3 best practices for mastering this ad unit during the holidays: First, the most important thing to keep in mind is timing. You want to ensure that you have enough time before the shopping rush to reach a large audience, while also making sure that you’re not leveraging shopping season themes before the season is top of mind for users. Second, like with your creatives, it’s important to create a sense of urgency with your offerwall campaigns to drive engagement. With holiday shopping starting earlier and earlier each year, it’s important to remind users that the holidays are coming and that right now is the time to shop. You can provide this sense of urgency in your messaging – by labeling deals as time-limited or tying them into specific holidays. Third, use special promotions like double rewards on key shopping days, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Double rewards typically look like doubling the amount of in-app currency that users receive for completing a task – for example, offering users 40 gold coins instead of the 20 they would usually receive for the same task. Consumers will be inclined to engage with an offer that gives them extra rewards. As an advertiser, you can double down on your bid – the reward is higher, the traffic is higher. In fact, we’ve seen around a 35% lift in conversions during special promotions. Overall, the offerwall is an effective placement to engage high-intent users and drive high ROAS – particularly if implemented correctly in your growth strategy.

3. Use device set-up placements as new phones enter the market

The holiday season has tons of new devices entering the market – with all the major players releasing the latest versions of their best-selling devices, many shoppers buy new devices as gifts to themselves and others. As such, device sales traditionally increase heavily in this period. And new models entering the market mean many users will be setting up their new devices. New device activation is when users are most likely to install – the first 48 hours of unboxing their new device is when they’ll install over 50% of their apps. That makes this window the most impactful for app marketers looking to drive scale. Aura from Unity partners with top device manufacturers and mobile carriers, like Vodafone, Samsung, and Orange, to deliver app discovery experiences directly to users on their devices, starting with device activation. This gives Aura the ability to get your app recommended during this pivotal moment of app discovery. On top of that, Aura uses opt-in data to personalize recommendations – helping to ensure that the users discovering your app will be those most likely to download it. To make the most of this unique channel during the holiday season, there are three things to keep in mind. First, like with traditional channels, holiday-ify your creatives. Second, like with offerwalls, timing and creating urgency is vital. Third, prepare for a longer LTV curve. On-device campaigns typically have a slower LTV return than traditional channels, but make up for it by showing greater ROAS in the long run. Running an on-device campaign, you should begin to see user engagement increase on D14 or D30. This is because, when users download an app during device set-up, it’s usually not because they plan to use that app right away. They might download a recommended travel app, for example, during device set-up, but then only first login to the app when they’re starting to plan their trip a month later. The upside of using a channel like this is that you’re already there when users are looking to book that trip, instead of competing for the install when users are searching for their next travel app in the Google Play Store.

4. Reach users at moments when they’re already looking to spend

On-device channels are not only confined to new device set-up placements. The ability to reach users directly on their devices to drive app discovery extends to throughout the device lifecycle. Another impactful on-device placement is native touchpoints. Because on-device channels are directly integrated into the operating systems of users’ devices, they enable advertisers to reach users with display ads that appear as native notifications. This represents a key opportunity for advertisers to engage users with messaging related to contextual triggers. You can send users a notification that appears like a notification from their carrier or device manufacturer, letting them know that a holiday sale is currently running on your app. This is a great way to leverage urgency and tie your app into the holiday season. An example of this could be a banner that appears on users home screen, letting them know that Black Friday is around the corner and that your app is currently running a related time-sensitive sale. These native display ads enable your app to reach users as they’re already looking to spend – and help you get a head start on the competition. Having a multi-channel approach to your holiday advertising strategy and knowing how to optimize all of those components is critical. If you’ve made it this far, you should have all of the best practices you need to drive growth this holiday season.

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Implementing ads without cannibalizing subscription conversions: A brief guide by ad format

Daniel Godley — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 07:35:09 +0000

2024 has seen many premium subscription service apps expanding their business models to incorporate an ad-tier into their offerings. At first glance, this shift makes sense – traditionally only 3-4% of users are likely to subscribe to a premium subscription-based app. Ads offer premium apps and streaming services a way to monetize the remaining 96% of users who would otherwise not generate revenue. While converting users to subscribers still offers the highest ROI for these apps, they would leave significant revenue on the table without ads. Still, some apps are hesitant to incorporate ads into their monetization strategy. Beyond more general concerns about ads causing churn due to a negative experience, there is also a concern that an ad-based tier would cannibalize subscription conversions. The reasoning is that if a user can access an app’s services through an ad-tier, they won’t be incentivized to purchase a subscription. But with the savvy implementation of an ad-based tier, subscription cannibalization can be avoided, as well as exposing an even greater cohort of users to the benefits of your app’s premium content or services, perhaps leading to more subscription conversions down the line. Below, we go over what you need to know about implementing ads without cannibalizing subscription conversions, broken down by ad format.

How to implement ads, by format:

1. Display ads Display ads are one of the most widely used types of ad formats, including formats like banner, MREC, native, and splash ads (splash ads are pop-up ads that trigger when users open their app). Their popularity is often attributed to their ease of use and unobtrusiveness – display ads require minimal development work from publishers and do not overtly disrupt app usage. Users experience display ads as digital ‘posters’ and are still able to use the app normally when display ads are on screen. As minimally disruptive as display ads are, they’re system-initiated, so users can’t opt out. As a result, there is still some risk of users bouncing. To prevent this, users should be primed to expect ads with messaging related to the tiers – the ad tier where they’ll receive some premium features for free with ads, and the premium tier where they can access all the features of the app without ads. Priming users that ads are present can help to avoid churn since users are less likely to see the ads as intrusive as they’ll be expecting them. Notifying users that they’re on an ad-tier can also work to incentivize subscription conversions – ad-tier users get a taste of premium content, which may make them want to subscribe to unlock the full experience and receive all premium features. Another option for an ad-tier is to give users full premium features but with ads with an option to access an ad-free experience by subscribing. Preferably, users should be primed with a notification from the start of their app experience. A good place is in the sign-up flow since this is when they’ll have the option between using a subscription or ad-based tier for the first time. Moreover, a sticky notification in their account settings is another great place for the notification. There should be a CTA alongside the notification to become a subscriber, which can work to convert users who initially chose the ad-tier of your app. 2. Interstitials Interstitials offer even better revenue generation potential than display ads but can be more intrusive. Like display ads, interstitials are system-initiated, but unlike display ads, users can’t keep using the app until they have either completed or dismissed the ad. So, implementing them correctly is even more important. Like with display ads, priming users is essential. And since interstitials can interrupt the user experience of the app, it’s doubly vital to prime them that ads are present. 3. Rewarded videos Rewarded videos (RVs) are one of the best ways to monetize users, since, like some interstitial ads, they are a more engaging 15-30 second video, but unlike interstitial ads, RVs are user-initiated. In other words, users opt-in to watch the ad until completion in return for access to in-app currency or content. This makes rewarded videos premium placements with high revenue generation potential – RVs incentivize higher engagement and so advertisers are willing to bid more for them. Thanks to this, RVs can actually positively impact your conversion and retention rates. They enable you to give users a taste of premium content in exchange for watching ads. Some users will want more of the premium content and subscribe, while others, who may have otherwise churned, will stay for the premium content they received from the rewarded video. The primary difficulty with RVs is that they come with some development needs. To implement them, you need a way to categorize content so that it can be exchanged for ads watched. With the right resources and expertise this is entirely possible (Unity has an in-house dedicated consulting team to help publishers accomplish this), but it does take some work. 4. Offerwall Offerwalls take the value exchange-driven engagement of RVs one step further, offering users in-app currency or unlockable features for not just watching ads, but also completing tasks in other apps. Users can be tasked using a range of offers, like downloading another app, making an in-app purchase there, or progressing far enough in terms of levels or engagement in that advertised app. Like RVs, offerwalls are also an opt-in, user-initiated monetization strategy, meaning that they are less likely to cause users to churn because users are actively choosing to engage with them. However, just like RVs, there is some development work required. To implement an offerwall you would also need to categorize your features and content. But, on top of that, offerwall implementation also requires you to have some form of in-app currency that users can receive in exchange for completing tasks. Users also then need a storefront in your app where they can spend the in-app currency they earn. Though the requirements of offerwalls can be steep, if you can implement one properly, it can offer a key way to diversify your monetization strategy, giving you a way to monetize highly engaged users who are committed enough to engage with outside offers to access premium content in your app, but still might be on the fence when it comes to purchasing a subscription. Ultimately, all ad formats have a lot to offer in terms of revenue generation and diversifying your monetization strategies. The right one, or the combination of ads, will depend on your app and audience. But, regardless of which ad format is right for your app, all ad format implementations share one commonality – the importance of using segmentation to prevent cannibalization.

Segment users to prevent cannibalization

For a subscription app diversifying into ads, it’s critical to use a monetization platform that allows you to segment users, ideally by region, device model, OS, and more. These segmentation options enable you to tailor your ad implementation to ensure that high-potential users get an app experience that drives them to convert, whereas users who are less likely to convert to a subscription package are routed to an ad-based tier. For example, users from a tier-1 region, like the US, are more likely to convert than those from tier-2 regions like LATAM, so segmenting tier-1 users out of the ad-based tier will help to prevent losing high-quality users who might have otherwise become subscribers. With a monetization platform that enables you to segment users in this way, you stand the best chance of reaping the rewards of implementing an ad monetization strategy without the cost of cannibalization – especially when used in conjunction with priming.

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Beyond 50: An untapped audience

Ziva Shapiro — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 12:41:14 +0000

While many marketers heavily concentrate on reaching Gen Z and Millennial audiences, an often-overlooked yet rapidly-expanding demographic has emerged within the mobile gaming sphere: adults over 50. There are over 52 million people over the age of 50 playing mobile games in the US, according to a 2023 AARP Research study. These numbers suggest that mobile gaming isn’t exclusive to Gen Z and Millennials – games are a prime place to reach the 50+ demographic. To dive deeper, we surveyed 1,533 U.S. adults* aged 50+ to uncover insights into their current mobile gaming habits, advertising preferences, and health considerations. Here’s what we learned:

1. 42% of respondents play for more than an hour each day and of this group, 7.7% dedicate over 5 hours daily to mobile gaming

Takeaway: For brand marketers and advertisers, regardless of industry, it’s important to recognize that audiences over 50 are engaging with mobile games throughout their day. If you’re looking to reach these audiences, make sure your programmatic partners can offer you the flexibility, scale, and reach to connect with them during their mobile gaming sessions. You might even want to double down later in the day, which seems to be a particularly great window for engagement.

2. 46% of respondents play mobile games for fun or to relax

Respondents report playing mobile games for various reasons: 46% for fun, 45% to relax or take a break, 40% to pass the time, 39% to keep their brain sharp, 20% for mastery, and 9% to connect with friends and family. The preferred game genres were card, board, casino, and match-3, perhaps indicating some nostalgia for real-world gaming experiences. Takeaway: Reach the over 50 audience on their favorite mobile game genres and use custom playable or interactive end cards in your in-app mobile strategy to offer fun and immersive experiences. Try a word search or match-3 interactive playable to encourage an enjoyable interaction with your brand.

3. 72% of respondents indicated some level of interest in improving their physical health

A significant portion of respondents over 50 recognize the importance of maintaining or improving their health as they age. 3 out of 5 respondents (60%) reported that they’re currently taking vitamins or supplements, which suggests a proactive attitude towards health maintenance. Takeaway: For health and wellness brands, mobile gaming might just uncover an untapped audience. Reach health-conscious audiences playing mobile games with products aimed at maintaining and improving health and well-being.

4. 55% of respondents currently shop for over-the-counter health/wellness products online

Over half of the respondents (56%) expressed openness to shopping for over-the-counter health and wellness products online within the next 12 months. Factors motivating purchases of over-the-counter health-related products include price (51%), product effectiveness (48%), brand reputation (39%), recommendations from healthcare professionals (32%), positive customer reviews (25%), and personalized promotions or discounts (17%). We also found out how much this group is spending: Takeaway: Leverage programmatic solutions that offer a variety of ad experiences to facilitate an easy transition from ad viewing to product purchasing- especially for those products within the <$100 range.

5. More than half of respondents express some level of likelihood to engage with in-game rewards

Advertisements have an influence on what health-related items this group chooses to buy, with 13% saying they’re influenced to a great extent and 41% stating some influence of advertisements. 52% of respondents expressed some likelihood to engage with in-game rewards, with 24% indicating they’re very likely and 28% saying they’re likely to do so. We took it a step further and asked respondents what types of rewards or incentives would encourage them to engage with health and wellness advertisements. Takeaway: Tailoring the messaging in your creatives is essential for every audience. Consider incorporating incentives like discounts, free samples, and loyalty points in your health and wellness product ads to effectively engage with adults over 50. Advertising on mobile games presents a unique opportunity to reach audiences over 50, especially those who are actively seeking ways to improve their health and wellness. By understanding their mobile gaming habits, health considerations, and advertisement preferences, advertisers can tailor their strategies to effectively capture attention, drive engagement, and ultimately, influence purchase decisions within this growing market segment. *The survey encompassed 45% female participants, 46% male participants, 5% who identified as genderfluid, nonbinary, or genderqueer, and 4% who preferred not to disclose their gender identity.

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Ad revenue and churn: A balancing act

Daniel Godley — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 07:29:14 +0000

A diverse monetization strategy is vital to provide your app with long-term resilience. Using varied revenue streams, you’re able to ensure that your app keeps running and growing even if one stream fails to deliver. For subscription and IAP-based apps, ad monetization can offer this resiliency. When IAP and subscription conversions are low, ads enable these apps to continue monetizing and generating revenue, making them a valuable addition to their monetization mix. But, some apps are cautious to adopt ads, since, if left unmonitored, they can lead to churn due to negative user experiences or poaching from competitor apps. Furthermore, if a user has a negative ad experience in an app, that could cause them to view the app negatively too. To effectively monetize using ads, developers need a way to monitor the ads they run, identify those that are problematic, and balance the churn that some ads cause alongside the revenue they create. To that end, let’s dive into how ads can cause churn, why that needs to be an element of how you understand your ad monetization and tools that can help you find the right balance between churn and revenue.

How ads can cause users to churn

Churn here refers to users leaving your app once they’ve already installed it and are engaging with your content. Many factors can lead to churn: an unfriendly user interface, failing to meet the needs of a user, or even fulfilling the user’s needs to a level where they no longer need your app. But another cause of churn can be the ads running in your app. To help break down how ads can cause user churn, we can use two distinct categories – negative ad experiences and competitor ads. A negative ad experience can mean a variety of things but generally can be defined as ads that create frustration. This frustration can be the result of the ad being difficult to close due to a hidden or tiny close button, the ad length being too long, or even ad content that is seen as inappropriate. Then there’s competitor ads. This is when an ad gets the user to leave your app to download another. We can separate the source of these ads into two categories, direct and indirect competitors. Direct competitors are those that have an app offering that is in the same vertical as your own, offering the same or similar services. Indirect competitors are those apps that take a share of attention away from your app. Social media apps, streaming apps, and news apps (to name just a few) are all in indirect competition with one another, as a user typically goes to each from a similar motivation, and can only be focused on one at a time. Whatever the reason, churn can cause major damage to the long-term success of your app. So, preventing churn should be a top priority.

The other side of the coin

As important as preventing churn is, there’s another side here. The ads that will be running in your app most often are likely to be those from direct and indirect competitors – they’ll be the primary source of demand for your placements since they have the most to gain and have the best chance of converting users. So, to effectively monetize with ads it’s important to include those that originate from competitors. However, doing so without taking into account the churn they could cause can be harmful to the longevity of your app. Effective ad monetization is about striking a balance between the churn and the revenue generated from ads.

Necessary tools to balance revenue and churn

Solving for the right balance can be a daunting task, particularly since for most apps, seeing which creatives are running can seem like peering into a black box. Luckily, there are many tools available to help, including Ad Quality from Unity – but to make sure you’re able to use them effectively to find that balance between revenue and churn, there are several important functions you’ll want to consider. 1. Churn management Obvious but vital is the ability of these tools to reliably measure user churn on a per-ad basis. This is your canary in the coal mine and your best defense against ads that are causing users to leave your app. Churn management allows you to monitor user churn across the user journey, which means you can see when users are leaving your app and which ads they engaged with before they did. 2. Creative overview Also important is the ability to see all the creatives currently running on your app. This allows you to review the creatives users are seeing manually, so you can spot problematic or inappropriate ads and report them. Used in conjunction with churn management, you can see which ad a user saw that could have caused them to churn. 3. Revenue per creative To make effective use of an ad management solution without negatively affecting revenue generation, you also need to be able to see the revenue individual ads are bringing in. Without this visibility, it won’t be possible to calculate your revenue/churn balance. 4. Competitor ad detection Another essential is the ability to detect competitor ads. Solutions that offer competitor ad detection let you set which ads can run on your supply by source. If an ad is coming from a direct competitor, you can set custom triggers to report the ad before it runs.

Finding the right balance

Ideally, your ad management tool should allow you to see which ads are causing churn, block ads from competitors that you see as harmful, get an overview, and manually review all ads that are running, and see how much revenue these ads are generating. Using this information, you can start to find the right balance between revenue and churn. You can do this by examining the ads’ CTR (click-through rate) and churn rate. If you see that an ad’s CTR is high, but revenue is low, you’ve found an ineffective ad. What these data points are telling you is that users are clicking on the ad, which then causes them to leave your app, without generating revenue sufficient to justify allowing it to keep running. Similarly, if an ad’s bounce rate is high and the revenue is low, the ad is causing users to leave without generating revenue sufficient to justify it. These are the most simple outcomes of the revenue/churn equation, but what happens when CTR or churn is high, and so is revenue? The answer depends on your goals and app. For an app that is still scaling and attempting to acquire loyal users, the correct choice could be to block this ad as it is negatively affecting retention, but for an established app with a loyal user base, the answer might be to keep it running. This is the balancing act of revenue and churn. Whatever your needs, to find the right balance for you, a prerequisite is the visibility and control that an ad management solution affords, like Ad Quality from Unity. Talk to a Unity expert about how we can help you effectively manage your ad monetization while protecting your app and brand.

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4 ways to help your app scale during major sporting events

Daniel Godley — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 10:58:40 +0000

Major sporting events often mean an increase in both app engagement and interest from users for relevant apps. And the 2024 Olympics and Euro Championship, kicking off in July, will likely have billions tuning in to watch their nation’s athletes compete. As they watch, viewers will be looking to place their next food order, check the latest commentary, and buy their team’s merchandise. For marketers of QSR, news, e-commerce, and sports streaming apps, among others, this represents a huge opportunity to scale with highly engaged users. To help you accomplish this, here are 4 ways to revitalize your campaigns for an Olympic surge in screen time this July and August.

1. Update your creatives with sports-themed elements

Updating creatives with themes related to a specific time or event has been seen to generate improvements in performance. Themed creatives are a powerful tool to connect your app with what’s top of mind for users. They also work as reminders for the event, igniting interest in related purchases. Leading up to and during major sporting events like the Olympics or Euro Championship, update your creatives with sports-related imagery and themes to link the event with your app and make the global contest a part of your marketing. One simple way to do this is by featuring objects associated with the event in your creatives – like gold medals, podiums, scorecards, trophies, and flags.

2. Engage your audience with interactive polls and contests

Audience interaction is a core pillar of community building and brand recognition. And few things get an audience as emotionally engaged as asking for their opinion on their team’s performance and competing against others. By running interactive polls and contests you can incentivize users to engage with your social media channels, building brand awareness. An example would be to run a poll on your app’s social media account asking followers who they believe will win in a given Olympic category. You can also run contests, like the first to respond with the correct answer to a Euro Championship trivia question wins a prize, to incentivize users to engage.

3. Create FOMO using time-limited seasonal offers

Fear of missing out (FOMO) is an incredibly motivating force. Limiting the availability of offers to a specific window is a great way to leverage FOMO to your advantage. A case in point is McDonald’s Szechuan sauce offer, which was only available for a limited time using the app. The limited offer generated international publicity for the fast-food giant and worked to drive users to place orders through the app. Use major sporting events as an opportunity to create a limited offer associated with the event. This could be in the form of a discount on a subscription, a special sale on a particular product, or even releasing a themed product that ties into the event.

4. Diversify your marketing channels

The massive viewership of the Olympics, Euro Championship, and other major sporting events presents a golden opportunity to grow your app. Make sure you’re getting the most out of it by using a diverse mix of marketing channels. The more diverse and varied your channels, the better your chances to reach users when they want to make that next purchase or install their next app. This is also a great time to innovate on top of what you know works – don’t just stick to social and traditional channels, try performance channels that enable you to reach new users in new ways. On-device channels, like Aura from Unity, are an example of how you can complement your existing channels with native placements directly on a user’s device which appear when they are most likely to install.

The post 4 ways to help your app scale during major sporting events appeared first on ironSource.

Introducing the all-new Unity LevelPlay

Unity LevelPlay — Wed, 22 May 2024 11:16:34 +0000

Partnering with a strong mediation provider has never been more important. As the shift to bidding and mounting privacy regulations present challenges for app publishers, using a mediation that can boost your business across both monetization and user acquisition is critical. In 2024, LevelPlay is releasing significant product updates designed to help you drive more revenue, connect with high-quality users, and streamline the experience from game creation to growth. The combined updates will be transformational, making the ad mediation an all-new LevelPlay. In the first phase, LevelPlay has already released support for a dedicated package in the Unity Editor Package Manager. This powers a dramatically easier integration process that is only available for Unity LevelPlay, simplifying mediation setup to enable Unity developers to start monetizing faster. Developers will be able to complete their mediation integration in the same place they build their games, with the LevelPlay integration a native part of Unity developers’ workflow. The package also reduces overhead for publishers by enabling them to upgrade their SDK without being required to update the whole Unity package. But that’s not all. Over the coming months we’re releasing a series of additional product launches designed to maximize app growth and simplify growth management from every angle. Upcoming phases of the roll-out include:

Major upgrades to network UA tech. Powered by a new generation of machine learning tech, the Unity Ads and ironSource Ads networks now make LevelPlay publishers’ UA more impactful than ever. Publishers who run automated ROAS campaigns are already seeing meaningful uplift in both scale and quality on both networks, and additional optimizations will be released on a rolling basis through the rest of the year.

Multiple ad units. Publishers will be able to load multiple ad units simultaneously, which means they can create a dynamic waterfall setup and customize the waterfall by in-app placement. This gives publishers more control over their ad strategy with additional ways to optimize for key metrics like latency and ARPDAU.

One home for Unity growth data. We’re centralizing data from Unity’s leading growth solutions into a new platform homepage, giving publishers an instant snapshot of the health of their app portfolio in one clear view. This new page will allow publishers to view UA and revenue data side-by-side, compare performance over set time periods, monitor their brand safety, and see combined network performance for Unity Ads and ironSource Ads. In addition to the two networks, the homepage will include LevelPlay and Ad Quality data, with Aura and Tapjoy Offerwall data coming next.

Platform experience revamp. We’re also updating our platform UX to make it simpler than ever to grow your game. It’ll take fewer steps to manage and optimize your ad strategy with smoother functionality and greater ease-of-use. The platform revamp will be wrapped up in a new UI reflecting Unity’s look and feel for an even more seamless flow from game creation to growth.

Stay tuned on the Unity Grow LinkedIn page and your email inbox for ongoing announcements.

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How to maintain control and transparency with in-app bidding

Savannah Cookson — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 14:48:54 +0000

Compared to traditional waterfall instances, in-app bidding can be advantageous. However one concern raised within the context of in-app bidding is the loss of manual tweaks to fill ad requests. Given the automation with in-app bidding, it can raise concerns about losing control and transparency. To help mitigate concerns around moving to in-app bidding, there are tools and services that help you maintain transparency and control. This article looks at three key pillars to addressing those concerns: testing, granular reporting, and understanding your ad experiences.

Maintain control through robust testing

In the automated in-app bidding environment, you need to be able to test, learn, and adapt ad strategies to see long-term success. A/B testing gives you greater understanding of your monetization metrics, from average revenue per user (ARPU) to retention. Knowledge is power, and A/B testing is the only way you can truly measure the impact of different in-app bidding strategies. Running an A/B test can give you the answers you need to feel secure in this new landscape. Certain KPIs you can look at to help determine success could be: overall average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU), ARPU growth, increase in the number of impressions per user, and fewer managed instances. Tracking ARPDAU before and after you implement bidding measures overall revenue, not just performance by network. In addition, A/B testing gives you granular insights into your strategy so that you can continue to optimize and build a dynamic marketplace in this new ecosystem. Unity LevelPlay has a robust A/B testing solution that allows you to test a wide range of variables including bidding vs. traditional waterfalls, mediation groups, new networks, instance pricing, and ad strategy. Among LevelPlay customers who A/B tested integrating the Unity Ads bidder, the test group won in 78% of the cases, and those who applied the changes saw ad ARPDAU increases of up to 7%. Overall, A/B testing brings you peace of mind when transitioning to an in-app bidding world, confirming the switch is right for your app. After switching, a robust A/B testing tool continues to give you control over the bidding environment, allowing you to test and implement new optimizations. Learn more about A/B testing.

Gain transparency with deeper reporting

Having transparency into your ad performance can help you make informed changes to accelerate your app’s growth. In-app bidding is an automated setup which will run based on general best practices, so the ability to make real-time, data-informed choices for your app is incredibly valuable, giving you a leg up on competitors. Features such as real-time pivot from LevelPlay provide granular visibility into monetization performance and the ability to make instant changes. Publishers can detect performance changes as they occur, compare revenue over time, and analyze network performance. Trackable KPIs such as eCPM buckets, ad latency, impressions, DAU, DEU, and sessions per DEU can help publishers understand not only ad performance, but user engagement patterns as well. These metrics can be sliced and diced by country, time, ad source, and more to give a deeper level of insight to determine what, if any, changes are needed. “In 2024, Unity LevelPlay remains focused on giving developers more control and transparency through granular analytics that provide actionable data in real time, to help optimize their monetization strategies and maintain user experience to drive higher retention and ARPU,” Omer Adato, Senior Director of Product Management at Unity says.

Experience ads as your users do

Another concern raised is that since in-app bidding operates in real time and your ad space can be filled quite quickly without you even knowing, having transparency into the ads being shown in your app is key to ensuring you’re selling ad space to advertisers that won’t disrupt the user experience. After all, seeing a frustrating ad or having a glitchy experience can quickly cause users to churn. However you can gain insight that supports both brand and safety as well as revenue. Gaining oversight of your users’ ad experiences supports not only branding and safety, but revenue as well. By blocking troublesome ads initially, you cultivate a healthier ecosystem until networks address issues. Once resolved, lifting blocks on revenue sources restores income while maintaining a quality user experience. Overall, targeted blocking and unblocking empowers monetization through cooperation on ad quality. Ad Quality from LevelPlay is designed to give full transparency into your ad experience. You can access a gallery of all the ads shown in your app, ad analysis, and user journeys. Publishers can also define a set of triggers in Ad Quality, called custom notifications. This feature proactively alerts publishers if a specific creative, advertiser, content rating, or buggy ad appears in your app, so that you can immediately respond to any critical needs. While in-app bidding is running automatically in the background, a feature like Ad Quality gives you much needed transparency into how your ad space is being filled. “Ad Quality helps us ensure that ad content in our apps is appropriate for our audiences. We get notified when titles with high content ratings are displayed, so we know when to reach out to the networks. This visibility is key for us.” — Stefano Accossato, Head of UA & Ad Monetization at TutoTOONS In an in-app bidding environment, working with a mediation platform that has the right features to maintain control and transparency over your ad strategy can help make the transition from traditional waterfalls easier and help create a top performing ad strategy. Learn more about Unity LevelPlay and how you can get started with A/B testing, Real time pivot, and Ad Quality.

The post How to maintain control and transparency with in-app bidding appeared first on ironSource.

Social networks are not enough: why you should diversify your app marketing channel mix

Daniel Godley — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 09:46:14 +0000

App marketers now have more capabilities than ever before to reach new audiences. Yet, despite the wealth of options available, many app marketers choose to rely solely on social ad networks (SANs) for their user acquisition (UA) efforts. This is in part because many app marketers believe that SANs are sufficient for effective UA. But, this misses the significant impact that SDK networks can offer apps in terms of scale, optimizations, and resilience. All of which is left behind when marketers choose to only utilize SANs. Here we’ll address the reasons app marketers should be leveraging SDK networks, as well as the common misconceptions that lead app marketers not to do so, and the impactful resources left on the table when choosing not to diversify UA marketing channels.

Capturing untapped growth opportunities

Scalability is the measure of app success, and effective scaling requires access to as wide a pool of users who can be converted as possible. While there’s no doubt that social ad networks offer substantial growth opportunities, they are not, or even close to, the totality of the market. In other words, limiting marketing channels to SANs means losing out on the untapped scale that is available through SDK networks, and as a consequence limiting your app’s growth potential. Using SDK networks in tandem with SANs mitigates this loss of scale.

Resiliency to market and channel policy changes

Expanding beyond social networks also has the added benefit of resiliency to market and channel policy changes. SANs operate under a set of requirements different from SDK networks, needing to conform to standards unique to them. While your app may be currently compliant with these guidelines, they continue to evolve and update. When changed, your app would need to quickly adapt or stop running UA. Diversifying your marketing mix enables you to create a buffer with additional avenues for growth. And that’s just at the regulatory level. On a business level, the companies behind these social networks frequently change their policies. A change in policy could mean extensive work to meet the new requirements, which could then result in a loss of growth. By adding SDK networks to your marketing mix you can create a more resilient UA strategy that isn’t totally reliant on one set of policies that are subject to change.

A bigger toolbox for optimizations

A significant benefit to a diverse UA marketing mix is having multiple processes for reaching high-quality users. Each SDK and SAN has its optimizations for finding you the right user for your app. But, with differing solutions come differing results. This is a weakness when marketing channels are siloed from one another, or used in isolation. However, used as a part of a comprehensive and diverse marketing strategy, this means you get access to more tools to reach high-quality users at the right price. Each network prioritizes users differently. So while SANs may miss the users you actually want, SDK networks could help you fill in those gaps, and vice versa. The larger your toolbox of algorithmic solutions, the better you can optimize and the more likely you’ll be able to find the right users for your app.

Common misconceptions: Implementing SDK networks

While there are many clear upsides to integrating SDK networks into your UA mix, some app marketers have been reluctant to do so. A large part of this reluctance is connected to the higher investment needed, both in terms of personnel and capital. But, this reluctance is for the most part based on two common misconceptions: Misconception 1: SDK network implementation and optimization is highly manual A common myth around SDK network integration and optimization is that it requires a lot of manual management in order to drive results. While this was true in the past, the industry has since become far more efficient and automation driven. This is particularly true for optimizations. Thanks to advancements like automated bid optimizers, much of the manual heavy lifting has been taken out of the equation. The ironSource Ads tCPA optimizer, for example, uses machine learning functions to optimize bids based on certain actions. In the past, this would all be done manually, but it’s now a streamlined process that only requires the setting of which action and price you wish to optimize for. Misconception 2: ROAS is difficult to solve for An important metric for utilizing SDK networks successfully is return on ad spend (ROAS). This is the measure of revenue generated in relation to the cost of running the campaign. To effectively leverage SDK networks, app marketers need to know what ROAS goal they should be solving for. Without it, spending could exceed revenue, meaning that your UA could cost you more than it earns you. A common concern is that efficient ROAS is tough to identify and that generating a reliable ROAS benchmark requires a deep understanding of SDK networks and their optimizations. While this was historically the case, the industry has evolved to account for this difficulty. Most SDK networks offer account managers to assist marketers in calculating their ideal ROAS. Plus, solving for ROAS is now an established science – with the correct formulas and tools, it’s now far easier.

Diversify your marketing mix for better UA performance and more resiliency

While SANs offer performance and scale and should be a part of your UA channels, there is significantly greater growth potential in adding SDK networks into your marketing mix. On top of this, having a diverse marketing mix gives your app a more resilient UA strategy that can adapt to changing policies, both on the regulatory and business levels. Combined with easily accessible automated optimizers and comprehensive account management, app marketers can now easily integrate SDK networks into their marketing mix for a more diverse and efficient UA strategy. Let’s get you started. Talk to a Unity account manager today.

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