Adam Smart is Director of Gaming Product at Appsflyer, where he focuses on driving growth in the vertical through product development, go-to-market strategy, and business development. He brings extensive industry knowledge to his role, having spent over seven years at Product Madness, a leading game development company.
We have had the opportunity to speak with him during these days so that he can tell us details about the world of mobile advertising and about monetization in games.
How has the mobile advertising landscape evolved in recent years and how has Appsflyer adapted to these changes?
The mobile advertising landscape has been substantially affected in recent times by changes in the privacy landscape resulting from the Apple ATT (Apple Tracking Transparency) and the same is expected from the imminent changes that will come from Google (although it is expected that the latter will not be so critical). In this sense, advertisers have had to quickly adapt and adjust to the lack of visibility on IOS. For his part, appsflyer has supported its customers in this uncertain landscape by quickly adapting to this new situation and by building and providing multiple measurement aids. On the other hand, app marketers are struggling in the current economic climate as they need to get the most out of smaller budgets and smaller teams while getting better results. Therefore, the trend now is to create precise and highly effective campaigns, leaving aside those that require a lot of elaboration.
This is not easy to achieve when global consumer spending on apps fell 4.8% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022. To keep the economic engine running, marketers will need to focus from now on keeping connections with your core audiences and prioritize spending on the channels that generate the most value.
How can mobile gaming companies leverage privacy-focused measurement to improve user acquisition and retention?
Measurement and the way we measure the success of a campaign will inevitably change with reduced visibility. SKAN’s original counters are still the best, based on their pioneering predictive analytics, they estimate the future lifetime monetary value of a user (LTV). Within the first 24 hours, this information can be crossed through the conversion value and obtain a reasonable view of the ROI.
What are the biggest challenges facing mobile gaming companies in terms of user acquisition and retention today?
As the post-Covid era progresses, a “digital slowdown”, or a return to pre-Covid conditions, is taking place. Although the effects are increasingly evident in metrics like overall app installs by consumers, the gaming app economy continues to show resilience, with nearly $27 billion invested in ad spend by game marketers and developers. the whole world in 2022 to attract new users.
As game vendors continue to navigate a rapidly changing economic landscape coupled with privacy changes, particularly on iOS, they are facing new challenges and opportunities when it comes to their gaming efforts. of app marketing. Privacy restrictions in iOS limit marketers’ ability to leverage user-level data, which was previously the cornerstone of their ability to connect campaign performance with new user engagement.
However, despite the significant increase in media costs and increasing measurement challenges, gaming apps continue to invest heavily in engaging high-quality players on iOS, and are not shifting those resources to Android. even if the approach results in capturing fewer users overall. This places greater importance on the use of privacy-enhancing technology and data cleanrooms going forward, and will also provide benefits to those who are able to leverage accurate and complete data to make the most timely decisions about where, when, and where. how to optimally invest budgets in ways that attract and retain the most valuable players.
How can Appsflyer help mobile gaming companies improve their monetization strategy?
With tools like Predict SK, which provides a predictive LTV for the user, and the conversion value study, which is easy to use, take the pain out of working with SKAN. This, coupled with the reliability of our industry-leading attribution capabilities, is a boost for any app advertiser.
What role do events play in measuring mobile attribution and how can mobile gaming companies use them to improve their user acquisition and retention strategy?
Events are very important when measuring the success of a campaign, as they give us an idea of how users of different campaigns interact with our application. Knowing that 80% of the users in campaign A completed the tutorial compared to 20% in campaign B would show that the users in campaign A are more interested and likely to continue using the app, i.e. label them as “good”. users”, of which you would like to have more.
How can a mobile gaming company select the most effective advertising channels for its app?
There is no fixed method for choosing advertising channels, as they differ from app to app and the creative you use will also influence the success of the campaign. I always encourage you to test, test, and test more to see what works best for your app. sources like the Appsflyer Performance Index They can provide insight into what works for a certain genre or niche market.