Is Your Rewarded Video Ad Placement Right?
The world is already winning with Rewarded Video Ads, but this winning streak involves more than simply showing a rewarded ad. The meteoric rise of monetization with rewarded ads is backed by the measured science of ad placements, amongst other key reasons.
For those lost in the world of ad placements, it’s time to go through the rudiments. And for those already monetizing, now is the time to monetize better with a simple re-look at your placement strategy.
The different types of rewarded placements that you can expose your users to are:
Storefront (The most common placement)
Your user can visit the storefront during the gameplay to buy those quintessential power-ups, crystals, or in-game virtual currency to progress. At this point in the game, place ads giving non-paying store visitors an option to watch a video in exchange for rewards like coins, level up, and so on.
- Discoverability — This placement has limited exposure as only 1%-5% of users visit storefronts, but each impression is highly valuable in contributing towards high eCPMs.
- Opportunity — Overall, the placement is high eCPM, low total revenue opportunity.
- Frequency — It is best to limit the number of rewarded videos to five per day, per user. Also the option of watching the video should be capped in a fashion that the reward value earned doesn’t exceed that of in-app purchases.
Upfront Menu
Instead of making your user go through multiple hops to finally land on the storefront, expose it at the start of every session. Place ads at the upfront menu, giving non-paying store visitors easy access to watch a video in exchange for rewards like, coins, level up, and so on.
- Discoverability — The low exposure rate of storefronts can be overcome by presenting users with an upfront storefront or menu.
- Opportunity — The overall placement is high eCPM. And a significant jump in discoverability makes it a moderate revenue opportunity.
- Frequency — Similar to the storefront, it is best to limit the number of rewarded videos to five per day, per user.
Gameplay Placements
a. Start of Gameplay
Place ads at the start of gameplay, giving gamers an option to begin the game with an extra boost in exchange for watching the video.
- Discoverability — If your app enjoys multiple gaming sessions within a single app session, this placement gives high CTRs as the likelihood of a user opting-in to watch the video over repeat sessions is very high.
- Opportunity — Overall, the placement is moderate eCPM and gross revenue opportunity.
- Frequency — The ‘watch video’ option should be exposed in subsequent game sessions, and should be limited to five per user, per day. Showcasing ads in the repeat sessions will also allow more time to pre-buffer the video ads, and will avoid the case of a no-show if the user requests for a video.
b. End of Gameplay (Currently a rage in the market)
Place ads at the end of gameplay, giving gamers an option to continue with the game in exchange for watching the video.
- Discoverability — This placement enjoys high CTRs, contributing to overall revenue as the likelihood of a user opting-in to watch the video in order to continue gameplay is very high.
- Opportunity — Overall the placement is high eCPM, and total revenue opportunity.
- Frequency — The ‘watch video’ option should ideally be shown only once during an app session. Otherwise the value of each video view will decrease as the user will opt-in only to increase the length of the gameplay.
It will be only prudent to think through your rewarded placement strategy to achieve the right mix of user experience and revenue. And like someone has famously said,
“When in doubt, ASK”.
