When you’re developing a promotion strategy for a mobile game, mobile advertising should be your number one consideration. There is no way to get closer to your audience than targeting them while on a mobile device. While it’s important to use PR, have a viral component and a game review strategy, those channels can’t provide consistent and measurable results, like mobile advertising can.

1. MOBILE ADVERTISING
BEST PRACTICES
FOR GAMES AND APPS
WHITEPAPER

2. When you’re developing a promotion
strategy for a mobile game, mobile
advertising should be your number one
consideration. There is no way to get closer
to your audience than targeting them while
on a mobile device.
While it’s important to use PR, have a viral
component and a game review strategy,
those channels can’t provide consistent
and measurable results, like mobile
advertising can.

3. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
Start With the Creative Targeting
The first step is to develop a creative messaging Mobile ad networks offer a number of different
strategy. It’s no secret that consumers are more targeting methods—so many in fact that they
likely to click on ads from brands they recognize. provide auto-optimization systems that track app
If you have a well-known brand, you should lead downloads and optimize your campaign for you.
with that. If you’re launching a new game, try to As the buyer of advertising, it is important to
associate it with a brand consumers will recognize. clearly define your target user by operating system
EA does this well; they always brand their TV and region. If you’re promoting an Android game
commercials with EA at the end, so consumers in English, then you only want to target Android
know it’s an EA quality game. inventory in English speaking markets. You don’t
want to spend money on inventory where those
If you don’t have a well-recognized brand, then users can’t use your game.
you’ll need to do a great job presenting users with
a superior value proposition. The best way to do Depending on the type of game, some non-English
this is to offer the game for free, during the launch markets may still perform. The only way to know
and use advertising to help push the app. While is through testing. Consider localizing your game
you want the ad to look good, you don’t want to or app only after exhausting all of the English
do this at the expense of the messaging. It’s easy language markets globally.
to become overly concerned with the imagery and
visual aesthetics.
3 www.inmobi.com

4. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
There are many English speaking markets outside the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
English Speaking Markets
English is used widely in Asia in Singapore, Hong Kong, and India. It’s also spoken in all Scandinavian
countries, and across much of Africa. Targeting high-end devices such as the iPhone4s, Galaxy Nexus,
Galaxy SII will increase your chances of reaching an English speaking user.
4 www.inmobi.com

5. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
Your App Store Landing Page of your app. An Apple employee once said, “Why
The goal of your landing page is to convert in the world would Apple ever feature an app in
potential views into downloads. Once a user lands the store that didn’t look brilliant? Good design is
on your app store page, you have less than core to the Apple brand and is something that we
3 seconds to captivate them, before they leave. evaluate carefully when selecting featured apps.”
Apple will also look for apps that take advantage
It’s important to have a detailed, well-written app of the latest OS version or device hardware. Google,
store description. It should articulate the value HTC, Samsung and others want to feature new
proposition in the first sentence, so people can apps that showcase their device or OS capabilities.
decide right away if they want to download it. Infinity Blade 2 and Real Racing HD are a
High-resolution screen captures that demonstrate few examples.
your app visually are also important. Be sure to
carefully monitor customer feedback, and promptly How Much Do I Spend On My Campaign?
address their comments, both positive and negative. Once you have the creative, landing page, and your
Most users scan through the comments to get an advertising strategy in place, you are ready to
idea of what others thought of your game. launch the campaign. First, you need to determine
exactly how much to spend. There is no simple
For example, the Words With Friends landing page answer and it varies from app to app and developer
(see pg. 6) is clear, concise and easy to read. The top to developer.
area is used for special messaging and promotions,
a bulleted list explains key features, and links to One method is to optimize your spend to the Life
their social media pages are provided along with Time Value (LTV) of your users. This method is
high-quality screen captures. The app has a high popular for games that have virtual economies
rating and over 55,000 reviews. with in-app purchase systems, because the LTV
can be very high. You start by determining what
Your icon and name are also extremely important. is the RPDAU (Revenue Per Daily Active User).
The icon needs to be eye-catching to stand out. To do this, divide the total revenue generated in
Your name should be short and clever. One of the one week (include all revenue sources such as in-
most important criteria for “featured app” selection app purchases, advertising, offers and any other
in iTunes App Store is the overall look and feel monetization sources) by the number of active
5 www.inmobi.com

6. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
The Words With Friends App Store landing page is a great example for developers to follow.
Links to Social Media:
Specific accounts
for each product is
important. Users want
to use this channel
Frequent Updates:
to get support, make
This helps demon-
suggestions and help
strate that the app is
promote the app.
actively maintained.
Buyers are wary of
apps that are not
well supported.
Cross Promotion:
Promote the free Screen Captures:
version in case a High quality screen
user is not interested captures are essential.
in buying the Words With Friends
paid version. created a custom title
page to use here.
Bulleted Description:
Simple bullet points
that call out key
features are an
effective and easy
to way to explain
the game.
6 www.inmobi.com

7. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
Here are some creative examples of campaigns that have performed well on the InMobi network.
Since this ad lacks a well-known brand, it leads with the
free message and gives the user the option to access
multiple games.
This Uno ad leverages a well-known brand and has a clear
call to action, plus an offer.
The Sega and Sonic brands are well known and the “Tap to
Play Video” call to action is compelling.
Infinity Blade II is one of the most popular iPad games. The
creative is simple and concise.
This Evolve Your Dragon ad has a great value proposition
and is extremely easy to understand.
7 www.inmobi.com

8. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
users in the same week. Now divide this number by
Mobile Gaming Advertiser
seven. This method takes into account weekly
usage patterns. Case Study
To determine LTV, multiply the RPDAU by the MONSTER GALAXY
average number of days in one month a user is
Objective: For their new app, Monster Galaxy, Gaia
active in your app. Most apps have a one or two
wanted to drive app downloads and increase their app
month lifespan. The number of days active can ranking in the iOS App Store.
vary from app to app. Use a method of unique
Results: 72 hours after the start of the campaign, Monster
tracking to find this average. This number could be Galaxy ranked in the Top 25 in all targeted categories
and subcategories for both Free Apps and Grossing. Two
anywhere from 2 to 10 days, but it can be higher
weeks later Monster Galaxy peaked at #3 in Free Apps,
for some apps. #3 in Games, and #3 in Top Grossing.
“The focus of driving valuable, non-incentivized users via
How to Calculate LTV detailed optimization planning is the key to success of
Monster Galaxy campaign.”
(Advertising + Virtual Item Purchases + Offerwall) Total Weekly Revenue / Gene Juang,
Average Number of Weekly Active Users
Account Manager, North America
7
“
= RPDA (Revenue Per Daily Active User) InMobi is a thought leader in mobile user
acquisition. You can count on InMobi to help
RPDAU * (Average Days Active Per User a Month) = LTV
you convert an app into a hit game and build a
profitable mobile gaming business.
John Dionisio, Gaia Interactive
Now that you have a good idea of what your LTV
$$$
is, you know how much the maximum amount of Cost Per
Install
money you should spend to acquire one new user. Spend
Most marketers recommend you optimize your
$$
spend to this number only. Advertising is a market
driven economy and you can’t always acquire users
for the price you want. In fact, many times it will
$
cost more to acquire new users.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Burst
Campaign 1
Burst
Campaign 2
8 www.inmobi.com

9. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
App developers should consider acquiring users at that individual game. This requires the ability to
prices above their LTV in the following scenarios: measure the impact of cross promotion from game
to game in your portfolio. You also should consider
developing “gateway” games that are intended to
A New Game Launch: During the launch of
1 funnel users into your app game eco-system.
a new game, it’s important to get new users
to try it and build buzz. You will most likely have
While there are lots of metrics that help game
to do this at a loss, as consumers are not yet
developers optimize their marketing spend, it’s
familiar with your game. They will need a lot of
still ultimately an art, not a science. Strategically
encouragement to try it. If the game catches on, you
monitoring and optimizing on a daily and weekly
should carefully optimize your spending to acquire
basis is the best way to ensure success.
users for less.
Peak Season: During the holiday season,
2
activity is high on mobile and lots of new
devices are being activated. This is a great time
to drive download. Users are interested in trying
new apps on new devices they might have received
as gifts.
Highly Competitive Environment:
3
If competitors are actively targeting your user
base, you should increase your marketing spend to
acquire new users. This helps block a competitor
from acquiring them because you lock in the
advertising inventory.
Ability to Leverage Existing User Base: If you
4
can leverage your existing user base to cross
promote multiple games, then you should consider
acquiring users at a price higher than the LTV of
9 www.inmobi.com

10. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
Tips for Success
Keep your app under 20 MB 1
The iTunes store imposes a 20 MB limit on app installs across a wireless network. In the Android Marketplace the limit is 50 MB.
Keeping your app under the 20 MB limit dramatically increases the number of installs from advertising.
Advertise on multiple ad networks 2
Spread out your ad buy on multiple ad networks in order to get the most reach. Ad networks have different sites and apps on
their systems and you will not reach the total market if you stick to just one ad network.
Rotate your creative often 3
You want to update your creative as often as twice a month, as your creative will lose appeal overtime. Also, matching the
creative to seasonality and other external events should help increase the relevancy to your customers and improve performance.
Prioritize the English language 4
Most smartphone users are in English markets or understand English well enough to be able to use most apps. Culturally neutral
apps, such as Angry Birds, are popular around the world since they require limited English skills.
Build a portfolio of apps 5
The most successful app developers have a portfolio strategy and develop lots of apps. Having more apps allows you to cross
promote games and build upon what you have learned from one app to another. This tends to be a hit driven business.
Focus on acquiring users not clicks
6
This is a common trap many marketers fall into. They measure and optimize to clicks when they really need to measure acquiring
users. Don’t evaluate campaign performance on your click through rate; evaluate it on how cheaply you can acquire new users.
10 www.inmobi.com

11. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
About the Authors.
Gregory Kennedy Harish Thimmappa
Director, Global Marketing Director, App Advertising Sales, North America
Gregory Kennedy has over 10 years Harish has been leading InMobi app market
of experience in digital media, in both strategy and sales since 2009. Previously,
advertising and publishing. Prior to InMobi he was a strategy consultant at IBM, where
Gregory was Global Creative Director for he helped several multi-national companies
LiveJournal, a highly regarded blogging with emerging market entry strategy. He is
platform and open source pioneer. Born in extremely passionate about high-tech gadgets
New York City, Gregory started his career and all things mobile.
with bleeding edge Silicon Alley firm Oven
Digital, where he pioneered the use of Flash
rich media and was the recipient of two
Gold Pencils.
11 www.inmobi.com

12. MOBILE ADVERTISING BEST PRACTICES
WHITE PAPER
Contact the office in your region.
2 London
4 San Francisco 5 Tokyo
1 Bangalore
3 Nairobi
1 Bangalore, India 4 San Francisco, CA, USA
Pebble Beach, Ground Floor 1200 Park Place, Suite 290
Embassy Golf Link Business Park San Mateo, CA 94403
Off Intermediate Ring Road
5 Tokyo, Japan
Bangalore - 560 071
Fuji Building 7F 701-B,
2 London, UK 3-2-3 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku
265 Strand, London Tokyo, Japan 100 0005
WC2R 1BH UK
3 Nairobi, Kenya
Contact us: sales-team@inmobi.com
Eden Square Building, 7th Floor Block 1
Follow our Twitter: @InMobi
Chiromo Road, P.O Box 856-00606
Facebook: facebook.com/inmobi
Nairobi, Kenya
www.inmobi.com
12 www.inmobi.com