Collaborating with local payment partners to drive awareness and conversion
Driving payer conversion in India and Southeast Asia — part 1 of 4
Last year we published an article on tips to help you find effective approaches for sub-dollar & localized pricing. This year we are building a series of articles & case studies on other best practices to drive payer conversion in India & Southeast Asia and here is the first one. This post is the first in the 4 part series.
Google Play allows users to choose from a comprehensive set of payment methods via Play Billing (Cards, Carrier Billing, Google Play Gift cards, etc.), including many local forms of payment like UPI in India, TrueMoney in Thailand, GoPay in Indonesia etc.
However, our recent research (Google Consumer Survey, Ipsos 2020) shows that the vast majority of users are still unaware of the local forms of payment, which can become a barrier in converting them to paying users.
How can developers solve the payments barrier?
- Announce new forms of payment: use all the channels at your disposal to help make your gamers aware of the forms of payment they can use in your game, especially local forms of payment.
- Collaborate with local payment partners running cashback, promote via social media, push notifications, inbox message, create in-game event/offers
- Collaborate with local payment partners to amplify game launches & liveops moments
Why collaboration works?
Local ecosystem partners have enormous user bases of transacting users. This makes them very attractive co-marketing partners for game launches or major liveops moments. Partnering with these local ecosystem players can help games stand out and acquire high quality users.
How could developers benefit from it?
The payment partners usually amplify game offers/LiveOps/launches through varieties of channels (in-app & online media) which help developers to reach new users.
Developers see uplifts in first-time buyers, total spend, installs, etc. from co-marketing collaborations & campaigns with local payment partners.
Hear from some top developers on these implementations:
1. Lords Mobile promoted Play UPI launch in India
IGG promoted Play UPI launch via social media promotion, in-game news and email in Lords Mobile to encourage their players to pay using newly launched UPI on Google Play Billing.
They also offered 3x more items than regular packs for the Play UPI launch campaign.
“Purchases with UPI on Google Play are not only convenient but also economical! Promoting UPI payment option on Google Play billing along with the cashback offer led to a significant increase in our special campaign pack sales compared to normal packs, increasing the revenue by nearly 70% during our last UPI launch campaign.”
— Waicheong Choy (VP, IGG Global Operations, Head of Business Development)
2. Free Fire: Cashback Campaign in India
Garena ran a campaign for PhonePe Play Recharge Code cashback along with their Wasteland Survivors event to encourage Free Fire players to use Play Recharge Codes via PhonePe.
They amplified this campaign via social media, in-game communication and the Indian influencer community.
“Working with local payment partners allowed us to reach more users in India, particularly given their strong reach in the country. We look forward to more collaborations with payment partners in the future.“
- Garena
3. One Punch Man: GoPay Cashback Campaign in Indonesia
GoPay offered 100% cashback upto Rp 25.000 for One Punch Man in-game items and they co-marketed the deals on multiple channels like in-app banners, paid media, blog posts, news articles, etc.
One Punch Man surfaced the cashback event in the game to encourage their players to participate in the cashback campaign and spend using the GoPay Google Play payment option.
“The collaboration with GoPay on Google Play billing by cashback offer from payment partner helped One Punch Man : The Strongest to build strong awareness among players and has a good contribution to stabilize the high income in Indonesia.”
- Ping Huang (COO of Ourpalm Co., Ltd)
4. Yong Heroes: Google Play ShopeePay (formerly AirPay) Launch Campaign in Thailand
Yong Heroes promoted the launch of ShopeePay (formerly AirPay) form of payment on Google Play in Thailand.
They encouraged their players to pay using AirPay e-wallet through social media posts, in-game messaging, banners & email and fanpage media.
“We were very happy with the collaboration with ShopeePay (formerly AirPay), our revenue grew 14% compared to the previous period“
— Simon Jia (Manager of Oversea Business Department, 4399 Net Limited)
5. Mobile Legends & GCash: Cashback Campaign in Philippines
Moonton’s collaboration with GCash provided 50% cashback to players making their first purchase in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) on Google Play.
They used the following marketing channels to promote the cashback offer:
- MLBB: Pop Up Banner, Event Hall Banner and Social Post
- GCash: Push Notification, Pop Up Banner, In App Banner and Social Post
“We have seen an increase in the number of users paying with GCash, which has greatly increased GCash’s awareness as a paid channel among our users. Users’ feedback also shows their payment experience is smoother.”
- Lyon Chen (Game Operations & Services, Moonton)
Conclusion
There’s a lot that developers can do to drive payer conversion in India and Southeast Asia. Collaborating with local payment partners is one such tactic; they have a large base of transacting users and can help amplify your big game moments to drive awareness and payer conversion . If you’re thinking of growing your business in these regions it might be worth your time to explore such opportunities for collaboration.
Find out more
If you want to learn more check out the Games Business Fundamentals courses on the Play Academy for App Success for the Price discrimination and merchandising in mobile games lesson.
If you are interested in implementing this best practice or want to learn more, please contact your Google Play BD manager.
Check out the infographic version of this article for easy sharing with colleagues here.
