10 Proven Techniques for Lowering Mobile Game CPI
This story originally appeared on the MAF blog.
Struggling with high CPIs?
You’re not alone. In today’s mobile games market, the average mobile game CPI (cost per install) is higher than ever before, leaving many game marketers banging their heads against the wall.
However, there’s no need to despair. We’re bringing you a list of tried and true strategies that can effectively lower your game’s CPI!
But First, What Lies Behind High CPIs?
Generally, one of the main causes of increased CPIs is market saturation, especially in the hyper-casual market.
But, you can’t blame it all on the market.
In most cases, the main reason your game is getting high CPIs is that the audience didn’t like your advertising creatives.
Your ad creatives are the initial point of contact with your game. As such, they need to grab the users’ attention and make them hit the install button.
How to Lower Your Mobile Game CPI: 10 Best Practices
When it comes to ad creatives, even small details can make a big difference for your mobile game CPI.
The key thing is knowing which details to focus on.
To help you with this, we’ve handpicked 10 best practices for lowering mobile game CPI, tailored for casual and hyper-casual game marketers.
1. Get the First 5 Seconds Right
The attention span of a typical user is only 3–5 seconds.
Therefore, your ad creative has only a couple of seconds to win or lose their attention. If it starts off boring, the majority of viewers will rapidly head to the “close” button.
To prevent this from happening, don’t make the audience wait for the main action — deliver it right away. According to Supersonic, if viewers can sum up your game after watching the ad for 5 seconds, you have a strong creative.
2. Prioritize Gameplay Clarity
Hyper-casual and casual games should be immediately understandable to a wide audience, regardless of their age or location.
For this reason, you need to make sure your ad clearly highlights your game’s mechanics, controls, and objectives. From the players’ perspective, this means you should address three fundamental “hows”:
- How to play?
- How do the controls work?
- How can I win?
However, it’s equally important not to overwhelm the viewer with information. To ensure you’ve achieved the right balance in gameplay clarity, make sure to think about the following:
- Is everything displayed in the video necessary?
- Is there too much information?
- Are the rules too complicated?
3. Make it Eye-Catching
Humans are visual creatures.
Besides what you display in your ad creatives, it’s also important what it looks like.
When it comes to hyper-casual and casual games, it’s recommended to use an art style that appeals to a wide audience. Generally, bright and cartoonish colors tend to attract a larger audience than darker ones.
Another effective way to make your ads pop is to harness the power of contrast.
Most game advertisers achieve contrast by swapping the background gameplay colors with darker tones. They then brighten up the game elements they want to highlight, such as specific characters or objects.
By highlighting these key elements, you direct users’ attention exactly where you want it, making your ads instantly understandable and impossible to ignore.
4. Highlight Joy or Frustration
You want your ad creatives to cause an emotional impact on the viewer, positive or negative.
Let’s say you’re using winning gameplay.
In this case, you want to emphasize how satisfying it is. You can achieve this by adding affirming words, numbers, or animations to the video. For example, words like “Amazing”, “Wow”, “Awesome” and confetti explosions will do the trick.
This strategy is used in famous Candy Crush Saga ads, which often contain words like “Sweet” and “Divine”. Not only do they highlight emotions, but they also follow the game’s theme.
5. Go for “Fail” Scenarios
Speaking of emotions, one that tends to drive engagement is — frustration.
For this reason, advertisers frequently use losing gameplay rather than winning one. If a video contains a scenario that seems like an easy win but results in a “fail”, this should trigger the viewers’ reactions.
Ideally, the “fail” should occur within the first 5–7 seconds of the video. To emphasize it, the failing scene is typically followed by a “fail” sign, blooper sounds, or red-colored effects.
Utilizing this strategy can contribute to lowering your mobile game CPI, as it can result in these effects:
- Making viewers think, “I could do this so much better” and sparking their desire to try the game for themselves
- Leaving users craving for a positive scenario
- Making the game seem more challenging
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