SocialPeta presented an overview of the mobile game advertising market for 2021. The company spoke about global indicators of creatives, average metrics and gave a forecast on the main marketing trends for the current year.
Advertising market statistics for 2021
- According to SocialPeta data for 2021, about 65 thousand mobile game advertisers were registered in the world.
- North America remained the leader — 41 thousand advertisers, which is 18.72% more in annual terms.
- However, the growth of advertisers in the field of mobile games has decreased relative to 2020. SociaPeta recorded a 5% increase in the number of gaming advertisers in 2021, compared with a 44% increase in 2020.
Growth in the number of advertisers from 2017 to 2021 (and forecast until 2023)
- The average duration of the broadcast of creatives was 32.5 days — an increase of 87.9% in annual terms.
Average duration of advertising creatives (2017-2021)
- In 2021, 5.6 million creatives were placed in the video advertising format — 73% more in annual terms.
Distribution of advertising creatives by type
- The largest number of advertisers — 18 thousand — was observed in the casual games segment. However, RPG had the most creatives — over 6.6 million.
The number of advertisers in each genre
- The CPM of mobile games on the Meta platform increased by 34% in 2021. At the same time, the CPM of mobile titles in the USA exceeded $28 — an increase of 93% in annual terms.
- The average CTR of mobile game ads was 1.28% (a drop of 29% compared to 2020).
CPC, CTR and CPM on the Meta platform
Assessment of the situation on the market of advertising creatives for mobile games
1. Creatives with casual gameplay are used to promote hardcore genres
- Most advertisers in the segment of strategies and simulators show casual and hyper-casual mechanics in their creatives.
- Advertisers use this strategy to attract the widest possible audience, reducing the total cost of UA.
- Despite the fact that players attracted in this way show low retention, some advertisers continue to use this strategy to continuously attract users and reduce overall advertising costs.
Examples of similar creatives
2. The use of celebrities in advertising continues
- Advertisers resort to creating commercials with real celebrities to promote hardcore projects. A similar strategy was used, for example, by Lilith Games to promote the Warpath strategy.
- It is believed that such an approach increases brand loyalty and downloads directly, because famous personalities have a fan base that happily consumes any content associated with the star.
- From recent collaborations, we can recall the participation of Cristiano Ronaldo in Free Fire advertising, the promotion of Family Island with the help of Mariah Carey and the appearance of Norman Reedus in State of Survival.
3. Creatives for casual games are still created with the expectation of a female audience
- Since it is generally believed that casual games are primarily played by women, then creatives are created primarily with them in mind.
- One of the most popular topics in such advertising is the broken heart of the heroine, child care, self—care, family problems, etc.
- Creatives were originally built to show the unhappy life of the heroines. This should make the players feel sorry and want to help them by downloading the game.
Examples of creatives for Family Farm Adventure and Project Makeover
4. To promote casual genres, the most intelligible creatives are used
- The average viewing time of simple advertisements for casual games is 4.2 seconds.
- Therefore, advertisers strive to show the gameplay itself in creatives, so that users immediately understand the essence of the game.
- A frequent technique was to demonstrate the gameplay using the hands of a real person. This allows you to show that the game can be easily controlled with one hand.
- Other popular creatives include a vertical comparison of game progress, creatives with a bad ending and short viral videos.
Examples of popular types of creatives