Have you ever played a game and realized you are short on lives or coins to continue playing? Suddenly, the game allows you to watch a video advertisement to receive coins or a life, to finish a level. Well, those are called reward videos.
It is a Win + Win + Win for everyone. As a player, one gets to have free access to the game, while advertisers get a “30 seconds” engaged viewer and developers get good money. This is one of the reasons, reward video ads are growing in adaption, hence popularity.
So, what has changed in Game Monetization in 2021 – 22
1 – User Acquisition + Monetization Mindset
Pre 2020, game developers designed games with a focus on what I call “user acquisition mindset’. User acquisition was, still is, expensive. As a result, game designers incorporated social sharing, milestone bragging and all other game mechanics that facilitated user acquisition. The rationale behind monetization was – let us get users first then will worry about monetization. However, introducing reward video insertion points was hard to introduce. Users must grow with monetization; not get introduced at some point.
Game designers have since started incorporating “acquisition + monetization focused” designs early on. That’s what we saw in 2021 and continue to see in 2022 as well.
2 – Advertisers are noticing better results
I watch Ads for a living, and I do SKIP ads that are not interesting or offer enough value in exchange. I would think most people are like me. That’s probably why video ad completion for non-reward sites is in single digits. In comparison, 90%+ of users who watch Reward Video Ads for watch the ad completely.
The fact that video completion rate is 90%+, click conversion is 5%+ and etc reconfirms the fact, hence the growing interest on games. I do think advertisers will continue to increase their Ad spend in 2022 and more.
3 – Welcome to the Cookieless era
We are moving away from Cookieless based user targeting. What does this mean for game developers?
Reduced revenue till the Ad-World adjusts to non-cookie-based targeting. I suspect game developers may suffer less that other sites because its relatively easy to synchronize / match cookie for registered game users. Once a user is matched, enhanced targeting inside the game is easy.
So while revenue may drop right after a complete adoption of Cookieless Ad service, revenue should quickly get back and will likely exceed 2021 earning.
A shameless self-advertisement / insertion here-) – we have a Cookieless serving capability + an ability to match user emails with relevant targeting capabilities. This certainly will help reduce the negative revenue impact developers will face as the world transitions to a Cookieless existence. AppLixir is available for HTML5 Games, iOS and Android games, Cocos Game Engine and WordPress sites.
