1st August 2019
3 Min ReadThe Melbourne-based game developer counts on Creadits to support their in-house team in building enough creative to power Google App campaigns
“The awesome people at Creadits really want to improve our app marketing efforts. They are always on hand to help us get the most from their services – a clear sign of a good business that cares!”
– Danny Armstrong, General Manager, PlaySide Studios
About PlaySide Studio
When EA Visceral Melbourne shut down in 2011, Gerry Sakkas decided to start his own studio with three of his co-workers instead. PlaySide Studios was founded and quickly made a name for itself, with a series of hits on the App Store including Catch the Ark, Icy Ropes, and Monkey Ropes.
The experience of working on AAA titles was translated into building console quality games for mobile. This proved to be a successful formula for the team, which has since grown in size to over 50 full-time staff.
The Challenges
While a small team with a flat management structure meant decisions could be made more efficiently, the limited amount of resources also proved to be a challenge.
Selection of titles from PlaySide’s library
PlaySide was keen to change the focus of Google App campaigns among their library of releases from time to time and scale acquisition for their best performing games. However, their in-house creative team was already stretched and did not have further bandwidth to produce more ads.
Furthermore, the team at PlaySide had poured countless hours of work over months into their games and became understandably attached to each character and scene. It was difficult for them to review marketing materials for the game objectively and decide on the best features to highlight in ad creatives.
These challenges prompted PlaySide Studios to approach Creadits, and we set out to work on suitable creative solutions right away.
The Solutions
A thorough understanding of PlaySide’s unique products and marketing objectives was critical in order to propose a suitable creative strategy. That is why the Customer Success team at Creadits spoke to PlaySide at length to learn about their needs during an initial onboarding meeting.
PlaySide wanted to kick off the working relationship by ramping up the acquisition campaign for one of their most popular games – Monkey Ropes. The goal was to get more downloads of the game, but who exactly was the ideal target audience?
Drawing upon their knowledge of the hyper casual mobile game genre, Creadits built a persona based on the audience Monkey Ropes should be targeting for the best results. This target audience comprised of predominantly female users aged between 26 to 45 years old, who are highly influenced by their friends and family to pick up new games.
Although they were also running ads on a number of networks, PlaySide wanted to leverage Creadits’ expertise as a Google Premier Partner to get the most from Google App campaigns.
Combining our creative best practices for Google App campaigns with a fresh third-party perspective of Monkey Ropes, Creadits suggested featuring key elements of the game on top of standard gameplay footage. Ad creatives were also designed with the intention of catching attention in the first three seconds of viewing, including fast animation and action such as swinging monkeys from the start.
The Results
- From February to March 2019, Creadits produced over 15 new ad creatives for Monkey Ropes. This increase in creative volume allowed PlaySide to easily and effectively scale their acquisition campaigns on Google.
- With more ad creatives, PlaySide could also test and optimize for performance much faster than before. The top three ad creatives, in particular, saw a 30% increase in IPM (installs per 1,000 impressions).
PlaySide saw an improvement in CPI (cost per install) with quality creative at scale from Creadits, but testing and optimizing remains an ongoing process. Our creative experts continue to analyze performance with PlaySide to uncover insights and produce even better ads for future campaigns.
