Letting a mobile game player who runs out of lives watch an ad in exchange for continuing to the next level is an "emotional breakthrough moment" that developers can use to drive revenue, a report from MediaBrix suggests.
The firm's most recent research suggests that emotional breakthrough moments (BTMs) such as the "rescue BTM" described above can garner 66 times higher click-through rates (CTR) than what online rich media ads and mobile rich media ads deliver. The MediaBrix benchmarks were calculated by averaging proprietary data collected from more than 200 social and mobile gaming advertising campaigns and over 1 billion impressions.
- Rescue BTMs also garner engagement rates that are over 543 times higher than what Facebook brand posts deliver.
- "Reward" BTMs, where mobile game players get virtual goods or other incentives in exchange for watching an ad, increase engagement by 73.6 percent.
- Online floating rich media ads generate average video completion rates (VCRs) of 11.9 percent.
- There was a 47.0 percent increase in players ages 45-65+ since 2013.
- There was also a 23.4% increase players that are college educated.
"Emotional targeting reaches players with cross-platform social game advertising as they experience emotions aligned to key moments in the gaming experience such as encourage, reward and rescue," the report says. "According to the data, the more intense the emotion, the higher the performance is for brands."
"Value-exchange" ads, as MediaBrix and others refer to them, won't be for every mobile game, and some developers may worry about whether making consumers watch videos is an appropriate trade-off. The report's data proves, however, that success comes with inserting such interruptions at the right moment within the gaming experience. As the demographic data in the research indicates, these are well-educated, mature smartphone users, so as long as the approach is transparent and genuine, this might be one way to consider improving the monetization of some mobile gaming titles.
For more:
- click here for the full report
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