Creative Insights to Elevate your Simulation Game


simulationgameinsights

The global gaming market is forecasted to be worth $152 billion by the end of the year. Of that, $68.5 billion or almost half of the gaming market share is attributed to mobile gaming. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, since 74% of consumer spending comes from mobile games. Let’s look into a gaming category that has been winning the hearts of gamers all over the world: simulation games.

Out of the 20 gaming app categories available in the app stores, simulation games have a significant share, with 26% of users playing this gaming vertical. The concept of a simulation game is to emulate a specific activity, like running a business, fishing, or designing a home, as close to real life as possible. According to mobile app performance data provider Apptopia, the month of September had more than 92 thousand simulation games available for download on the two major app stores. The category generated 55 million downloads and $54 million in revenues. With that much competition, how will your app attract attention?

Make Your Ad Creative Stand Out
Creative strategies are crucial when planning your next mobile ad campaign. An analysis has determined that 49% of a brand sales’ lift is greatly impacted by the quality, messaging, and context of the creatives. Based on our experience with simulation games, here are some creative insights that may work for your mobile app:

#1 Put your best foot forward
Highlight the best features of your mobile game by displaying items that are sure to attract your target audience. By showing your best items, you’re giving users a peek into your app and what makes it special.

Based on data we gathered from a user acquisition campaign for a dress up simulation app, the best performing ad creative displayed the best features of the game. It elevated the return on investment (ROI) 2x more compared to other creatives. It also increased the click-through rate (CTR) by 7.55% in a few days.
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#2 Feature different kinds of gameplay
As simulation games are made to emulate real life circumstances, gameplay will focus on that concept more often than not. If your mobile simulation game offers other kinds of gameplay, you can use that as the focal point of your ad creatives. Re-engage your users by offering them another exciting way to play your game. If you want active users to play another game mode, attract them by showing some incentives for trying different gameplay.

On a retargeting campaign we executed for a home design simulation game, the ad creative that showed the most promising performance displayed a different gameplay where users could design areas of their home which will then earn votes by other players. It achieved a 4x better ROI than the set goal. The home design game was able to increase its conversion rate (CR) by 10% in less than two weeks as well.
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#3 Venture towards out-of-the-box ideas
There are a variety of possible strategies that can be used to design a successful ad creative. You can make the creative interactive or show sneak peeks of new updates in your app. There are literally endless possibilities when designing your simulation ad creative.

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With Aarki, you can create rich media ads with the use of our proprietary creative suite, Aarki Studio. We make use of multivariate testing to optimize your creative performance with the most effective design combination for your ad. Do you need help to elevate your simulation game? Let’s work together!

 

Topics: Creative Insights