Gamer Motivations: The key to low CPIs for your game’s ad creatives
In past articles, we’ve unpacked gamer motivations and various takeaways from our study of 450,000 gamers, but we’ve yet to explain in detail how they can be leveraged in ad creatives. In the context of both rising user acquisition costs and market saturation, standing out from the crowd and ensuring a positive return on investment from your games’ creatives is crucial.
Below, we share examples of how games from various genres, including idle clickers, puzzle, and strategy, can increase IPMs (installs per one thousand impressions) and in turn lower CPIs by targeting the emotions of their target audiences in creatives, based on a solid understanding of gamer motivations. In each of the examples below, the end result is a profitable user acquisition campaign which scales quickly. Let’s take a look.
The importance of being idle
At a time when idle clickers were a relatively new game genre, Codename Entertainment CEO Eric Jordan wanted to learn more about the psychological profile of these gamers ahead of a user acquisition campaign for their game, Crusaders of the Lost Idols.
Our team at Quantic Foundry conducted an audience report for them, and the results were surprising. For a genre of games in which progression is achieved by idly clicking away, often turning into self-playing games, we expected the audience to be casual gamers. However, of the three idle clickers we surveyed, a mere 10% identified as casual gamers, with 70% identifying as core gamers and 20% as hardcore gamers.
We then looked at their motivations. Our research revealed that the motivation profiles for all three idle clicker audiences were consistent. They were most driven by completion (collecting stars, completing all missions) and power (levelling up, getting powerful gear), and least driven by excitement (fast-paced gameplay full of thrills and surprises) and fantasy (being someone else, somewhere else).
Using the information we collected, Codename’s marketing department performed an A/B test with their creatives. In one version, they used the game’s existing tagline, and in the second version, they used roughly the same number of words and sentence structure, but aligned the tagline with the key motivations we had identified: completion, power, and strategy. The message was: “Assemble a party of champions and master the art of Formation Strategy. Upgrade your heroes, collect unique gear, and unlock new Champions in regular new events.”
In the end, the IPM of the revised campaign performed significantly better than the original, with a mid-double-digit improvement. This ultimately reduced Codenames’ CPIs — since more users were installing, Codename could lower their bids and generate similar ROAS.
Pieces of the puzzle
A well-known Turkish developer of casual puzzle games understood that a significant motivation for their audience was challenge. They leveraged this for their creatives in two ways for a hit match-3 title, and saw great results. In one video ad, they emphasized challenge by conveying a sense of failure: the creative showed a user trying to complete the puzzle, ending with a large red ‘FAIL’ sign appearing on the screen. Compared to a previous ad this game ran, which only showed gameplay without leveraging challenge (or any other motivation from our model), this creative achieved an increase of 83% and 402% for its CTR and IPM metrics respectively.
Meanwhile, in a playable ad, they focused on a more positive challenge-based message by demonstrating how to solve a level of the game: it begins with a hand on the screen pointing where to tap, and then the user has to complete the puzzle in a certain amount of moves (they’re given more than enough to succeed). In both versions, the developer was tapping into the users’ desire to overcome a test.
Hyper-casual developers are also leveraging challenge in their creatives to boost IPMs, which generally in this genre are some of the highest in the industry. Check out the examples below.
The taunting seen above isn’t the only way to go about leveraging challenge in creatives. Gamers who score high on challenge are driven by the ability to practice and master a skill, so developers can tap into this in their messaging. One message that instantly comes to mind is the board game Othello’s slogan: “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master”. A similar message could see positive results when applied to casual and hyper-casual creatives.
The art of war
For strategy focused role-playing games (RPGs), our data suggests strategy and story are two of the biggest motivations, which should be used to boost IPMs in creatives.
Gamers who find strong appeal in storylines enjoy games with a deep web of possible interactions and relationships, and characters with their own histories and personal dramas; gamers who score high for the strategy motivation want long-term strategies they can plan out and execute. Games they enjoy playing integrate complex decision-making into the gameplay that require them to anticipate a number of potential contingencies.
With this in mind, an effective message a handful of RPG games have leveraged in creatives is: “Discover your characters, explore and fight”. The high-performing creatives typically begin with a roster the user can scroll through of the game’s heroes and their special powers (story), before displaying a map from the game and a call to action that plays on the strategy motivation, such as “recruit heroes and explore far and wide”. In these cases, targeting the right emotions of the audience led the creatives to achieve high IPMs and in turn better CPIs.
With seconds to grab the attention of users, understanding the motivations of your target audience and how to leverage this effectively in creatives can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful UA campaign. At a time in the industry when creatives are the last available lever, it’s all the more important to ensure the right emotions are being leveraged.
