Beloved Card Game App Increases Install Volume by 1.5X

Background

As more apps are being put out into the market, competition within the mobile advertising space is getting intense. User acquisition campaigns must focus on acquiring high lifetime value (LTV) users, to ensure that they will continue to bring in revenue for your app.

One of the most popular app verticals to date is card games. According to Statista, card game market revenue is expected to reach $16.72 B in 2022. This presents a huge opportunity for mobile game developers for card game apps to level up their mobile programmatic campaigns.

The Challenge

A well-known game developer, headquartered in the APAC region, has been searching for a demand-side platform (DSP) partner to grow the high-value user base of their card game app. They reached out to Aarki after hearing about our global inventory and proven track record of successful campaigns, specifically for the card vertical. Together, we exceeded their campaign goals for all their KPIs.

The client’s objective was to target US users with Android devices and to acquire high-quality users at an optimal cost-per-install (CPI).

The Solution

To be equipped with the proper insight for this campaign, Aarki performed extensive research into the app. We monitored the client’s website and app store pages for special app events, new features, and updates. Along with first-party data provided by the advertiser, we investigated the app’s user behavior and previous campaign performance.

Based on this research, we produced enticing creatives and built custom machine learning models trained on the advertiser’s first-party data, and optimized the campaign towards their user behavior goals.

Creative Strategy

Aarki produced creative assets based on the most unique and engaging app features. We aimed to create thumb-stopping mobile ads that would entice users and spark their interest.

We featured challenges in the ad creatives to allow the users to decide on how to move forward with the game. The actual design and features of the app were showcased, which allowed us to be assertive with the challenging messaging.

Campaign Startup Process

For this campaign, we examine the Explore Phase and Install Optimization Phase.

• Explore Phase
  • We kicked off the campaign with the Explore Phase. Data gathering for this phase usually takes two weeks, and the initial bids are based on static data from previous campaigns. This campaign needed 50 installs and 75,000 impressions to generate enough of its own data to be leveraged in the model. A capped daily ad spend was also applied.

• Install Optimization Phase
  • For the Install Optimization Phase, we needed 25 days to gather install data, and the campaign saw an average of 37% in saving on cost per install (CPI).

Predicted Probability vs Install Rates

Throughout the campaign, increasing amounts of data points were collected and were fed into our models to improve their accuracy. Over time, the install rate (IR) became closer to the predicted install probability.

Performance Results