#Marketing

I paid $25,000 for an influencer collaboration... but they brought in only $96.89.... and that was 11 months ago. Did that mean we stopped working with Influencers altogether? Absolutely not. The results of singular collaborations are NEVER an accurate sign of the potential of influencer marketing as a whole. In fact, you will have campaigns where 70% of your influencer collaborations may be unprofitable.But there’s 2 key things to remember with that Once you’ve got your ideal set up, even if only 30% of the collaborations are profitable, the returns will usually be enough to meet your overall goals.The unsuccessful collaborations are as important as the successful ones to collect data and flash out your strategic understanding.It is SO important to treat every influencer collaboration and campaign as a learning and data collection opportunity. With each campaign, you need to […]

“IAP doesn’t work in our game. Our players just don’t spend.” I’ve heard this line from dozens of teams — and almost every time, it’s wrong.Not because players don’t spend.But because the game doesn’t give them a reason to.When IAP underperforms, it’s rarely about the audience.It’s usually about the offer strategy.Here are the usual suspects:🔻 No value framingPlayers don’t buy “gems.” They buy progress, speed, power, customization, exclusivity.If your offer doesn’t communicate why it matters, no one bites.🔻 Poor timingYou’re showing the shop when the player has no context, no pain point, no motivation.The best moment for a sale is when a player wants something and can’t get it yet.🔻 Everyone sees the same shopSegmented pricing, pacing, and bundles are standard practice now.Beginner whales, veteran free-to-players, and returning users all need different offers.🔻 No emotional hookLimited-time? Milestone reward? Progress multiplier?If […]

🎮Is 24-Month Payback the New Normal? 🎮 Zhen Jie (ZJ) Sim joins us from UA financing company, PvX Partners, to discuss insights from UA data they’ve gathered from over 300 games in 2024. 📊Here’s what they found:Rising User Acquisition Costs 💸: User acquisition costs have surged, nearly doubling in the past year, particularly on platforms like AppLovin and Unity. This increase is primarily attributed to heightened competition, especially during peak seasons. Some studios are exploring alternative channels like TikTok to mitigate these costs.Monetization Trends 💰: While monetization has improved, it hasn't kept pace with the escalating UA costs. PVX is observing a growing trend towards hybrid monetization models, where traditionally IAP-focused games incorporate rewarded ads, and vice versa.Declining Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) 📉: ROAS performance has declined by approximately 20%, resulting in extended payback periods for games. Some games are now projecting […]

Last Case Study before MAU! ✈️ Are you a gaming company monetizing through IAA?🕹️ Then this case study will definitely be of interest to you.Four months ago, I was among the first to publicly test Meta’s new adROAS campaigns (feel free to check my earlier posts). Since then, I’ve been consistently testing them across different games.Today, I want to share something that has happened not once, but three times—with three different games:👉𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐚𝐝𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐒 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐬 "𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐲" 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠Don’t get me wrong— These campaigns work really well on Android and have delivered strong results for me. But it seems there’s a ceiling: as you start to scale spend, efficiency drops and the breakeven point gets pushed further out.Here are the three main issues I’ve observed:1️⃣ Efficiency drops despite continuous creative rotationIn this last case, I have tested +100 creatives with […]

🔥Short Drama Apps are set to earn over $2 billion in 2025🔥 💸The top 25 Short Drama Apps have earned $140 million in IAPs and subscriptions in the last 30 days, with another $35 million in IAA revenue. Reelshort and Story Drama Box collectively generate over $65 million monthly in revenue. This is undoubtedly one of the fastest-growing new genres in mobile. 🎥Short Drama Apps let users consume short dramatic content in chapter form. Each highly dramatized series is about 60-90 minutes long but divided into chapters. Users can also engage with the story arcs by choosing character choices for in-app coins. 🎬Productions generally cost $100- 300k, and a giant industry has emerged where production companies and low-cost geos rent out their content to multiple short drama apps. Popular content usually features Vampires, Love, intrigue, and affairs with billionaires. 📣 […]

In this article, I want to take a step into a speculative future. This isn’t about optimizing your battle pass conversion funnel, tweaking ad placements, measuring ROAS for your campaigns, or refining your LTV curve — it’s something you don’t see much being posted about as everyone’s so focused on “what’s happening now”. This article is about what happens (/could happen) after we leave the current monetization meta behind and look at mass-scale games with truly mass-scale engagement and monetization models. We’re talking about games as dynamic ecosystems — game-worlds where hundreds to millions of players can interact, influence, and co-create (/participate), not just in terms of user-generated content but in e.g., systemic, strategic, and factional layers. These are games where monetization isn’t just layered on top of gameplay — it’s embedded in the social fabric and systemic interdependence of […]