How to Craft a Creative Strategy for Mobile Game Ads

In the mobile gaming world, where competition for new users intensifies each year, a compelling creative strategy is a real game-changer. This article explores the basics of what a creative strategy is, shows creative ad examples, and reveals best practices for creative ad design. Learn how to execute a creative strategy statement, including its essential components, to maximize user engagement and boost the success of your game or app through effective advertising with the SuperFaction team.

What is a Creative Strategy?

Whether you’re new to the industry or a seasoned developer, understanding creative strategy in advertising can be transformative. But what is a creative strategy? It’s a detailed plan that outlines how to effectively use creative elements in advertising to achieve business goals. A creative strategy statement should contain clear objectives, target audience insights, and key messages. As a creative game growth agency with over a decade of experience, we will delve into creative strategy and provide examples, demonstrating how well-crafted ads can boost click-through rates, enhance retention, and elevate user lifetime value (LTV). We will also provide ad creative best practices, ensuring your campaigns are both impactful and precise.

Ad Creative Best Practices

Let’s learn how to maximize your creatives to grow your user base swiftly. Discover creative ad design tips and creative best practices to captivate your audience.

1. Define Your Objectives

Begin by clearly defining your marketing objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Whether it’s increasing app downloads, boosting ad engagement, revenue focused Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) or just driving impressions and brand awareness, a well-defined goal will guide your creative efforts. For instance, if ROAS is the target, focus on great high value user targeting with specific messaging and creative for each audience.

2. Define your audience

Are you looking to create awareness for users who already play similar games? Expand audiences and attract completely new players, launch in new geos? Whatever your KPIs and business goals are, you need to build your audience strategy to support accordingly.

3. Create a Strategy Based On the Defined Objectives

A creative strategy is your campaign’s north star. For example this could be to hone in on key messages to differentiate your game vs a competitor. Or test whether more mature audiences are higher ROAS than GenZ.

4. Analyze Competitors

Research your competitors to see what creative concepts they are using. While it’s useful to draw inspiration, always test new ideas to find what works best for your target audience.

5. Choose the Right Creative Format

Selecting the appropriate ad creative formats is crucial. Here are some options:

6. Personalization and Relevance

Craft ads that speak directly to the player’s experience. Personalized ads can remind players of their achievements and goals, making the call to action more compelling.

• Match Creatives to Audience: Tailor your ads to different audience segments.
• Reflect the Game’s Nature: Ensure your ads mirror the gameplay experience.
• Humanize the Ads: Leverage personalization while using real people in your ads.
• Focus on the Audio: Use music and sound effects that enhance and support the storyline.
• Follow the Cultural Happenings: Keep track on what is happening in real life that might have an impact on creatives or what we could use in campaigns, e.g. USA elections 2024.

7. Execute Your Creative Strategy

The process of executing a creative strategy involves testing various concepts and formats. Start by A/B testing different creative concepts, then refine based on performance. Utilize tools and metrics to continuously test and optimize different creative elements to see what resonates best with your audience.
A trusted creative agency can help you go through the whole creative production cycle. DesignRush can help you find an agency that matches your requirements.

8. Monitor and Analyze Results

Regularly monitoring and analyzing your ad performance is crucial for refining your creative strategy in advertising. Focus on the below key metrics to gauge effectiveness.

Key Metrics to Gauge Effectiveness

1. KPI Metrics – User Progression

CTR: Click Through Rate

CTR shows ratio of people who have engaged with an Ad after seeing it. AKA clicked on the ad. High CTR indicates that the creative ad design is engaging and captures viewers’ interest. Low CTR suggests that users are not compelled to click and download the app after viewing the ad.

• CTR = (Clicks / Impressions) * 100

CVR: Conversion Rate

Of total impressions shown, CVR shows what % of users are converted into an install / registration. High CVR often means that the store’s layout, images, or text align well with the content shown in the ad, maintaining user interest. Low CVR might indicate a disconnect between the ad and the store page, such as poor reviews, irrelevant content, or large app size.

• CVR = (Impressions / Install) *100

IPM: Install Per Mille

IPM shows the total number of app installs per thousand impressions. It combines CTR and CVR, providing a comprehensive view of the ad’s performance. A higher IPM indicates a stronger creative’s effectiveness in converting viewers to installers.

• IPM = (Impressions / Install) *1000

CTI: Click To Install Rate

CTI shows ratio of people who have engaged with an Ad after seeing it. AKA clicked on the ad

• CTI = (Installs/ Clicks) *100

2. KPI Metrics – Cost

CPI: Cost Per Install

CPI determines the cost per install prior to launching a campaign. It’s a fixed rate that the advertiser agrees to pay the publisher whenever a user installs their app directly because of an ad shown by the publisher.

eCPI: Effective Cost Per Install

eCPI reflects the cost per install after the campaign has run, factoring in organic variations. It takes into account the viral impact of a campaign and is more complex to calculate.

• CPI = Total Ad Campaign Cost / Installs

CPM: Cost Per Thousand Impressions

Advertisers use CPM to determine the cost of their ad inventory for every 1,000 impressions.

eCPM: Effective Cost Per Thousand Impressions

Conversely, eCPM is used by publishers to calculate the revenue earned per 1,000 impressions.

• CPM = (Total Ad Campaign Cost / Impressions) * 1,000
• eCPM = (Total Ad Campaign Revenue / Impressions) * 1,000

CPC: Cost Per Click

CPC is an online advertising model where publishers charge advertisers each time a user clicks on a display ad.

eCPC: Effective Cost Per Click

eCPC is a calculated metric that estimates what the CPC would have been if the advertiser had purchased clicks rather than impressions or conversions. This metric also allows for automatic adjustments based on ad performance, such as those offered by Google.

• CPC = Total Ad Campaign Cost / Clicks
• eCPC = Total Ad Campaign Revenue / Clicks

The “effective” versions of these metrics include organic results, which often leads to debates among agencies, networks, publishers, and developers, as each may want to claim credit for the lift that campaigns contribute to non-direct installs.

3. KPI Metrics – Returns

ROAS: Return on Ad Spend

• ROAS = Revenue / Ad Spend

ROI: Return on Investment

ROI can include the internal and external cost for creative development and execution.

• ROI = Revenue / TOTAL cost

Continuously adjust your strategy based on these insights. The key to success is to continue testing to unlock the full potential of your creative strategy and ads. By following these ad creative best practices, you can craft a compelling creative strategy that drives user acquisition and engagement, setting your mobile game up for success.

Best-Performing Creative Ad Examples

Summary

As we navigated the basics of mobile game advertising, we revealed some secrets behind successful creative ads. Developing a successful mobile creative strategy for a mobile game or app involves a careful mix of creativity, data analysis, and strategic planning.
By emphasizing personalization, relevance, and variety of creative efforts, we can effectively re-engage inactive players and enhance your player base with targeted campaigns. Join us in crafting a winning creative strategy and creative ads for your game and mobile app. Reach out to us to start growing your games creatively today.