Description
Today’s guest is the VP of Marketing & Ad Monetization at Kongregate and he shares how to market a mobile game profitably and at scale. You will discover how they start A/B testing during the game conception phase, why they focus on ad engagement as a critical metric, how to use organic growth to fund UA, and how indies can better monetize their games. It’s a jam packed episode that you don’t want to miss.
Jeff Gurian is the VP of Marketing & Ad Monetization at Kongregate (a Game Stop company).
Show Notes
Testing During Game Conception Phase
They would start evaluating marketability almost when the game is conceived. They would do a lot of testing upfront to ensure they have the best marketable features.Then they would go through test markets where they would launch in different market tiers – may be start in the Philippines, then move on to Scandinavia then Canada then Australia. When they get a sense of what the CPIs are, then they would get a sense of the KPIs. Based on these metrics, combined with knowledge they have gained from all the titles in their portfolio, they have gotten accurate in bench marking where the game’s LTV will end up being six or twelve months out. From here, it’s a simple math after determining if the CPIs they are getting in marketing equal or lesser to the LTV that they have projected.
Ad Engagement as a Critical Metric
Retention, monetization, repeat buy rate and LTV are main metrics but something most overlook is ad engagement as an essential metric. Jeff focuses on how users engage with their ads as ads are a significant part of their business and they try to maximize its value as much as they can because by large, it’s a way to get revenue from users who might not otherwise pay.
Show Mention
– Fav app:
- AdVenture Capitalist: (iTunes | Google Play)
- Animation Throwdown: (iTunes | Google Play)