The Ultimate Guide for Marketing Card Games in 2023

by Andrea Knezovic, February 9, 2023

Marketing card games may seem like a daunting task, especially when you don’t have a lot of marketing experience.

But don’t stress – I’m here to help.

In this guide, I explain everything you need to know about mobile game advertising through practical tips. You’ll also learn how to create the perfect ad for a card game with examples from top publishers. In the last part of the article, you’ll get insight into key mobile metrics and statistics for 2022.

Let’s get started!

Top-Grossing Card Games in 2022

Solitaire Grand Harvest
Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel
JJ斗地主
Tiki Solitaire TriPeaks
哈利波特：魔法觉醒
Hearthstone
欢乐斗地主
Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links
Phase 10: World Tour
Solitaire Home Design

Data source: AppMagic. Get 3 days of free access to all AppMagic’s features, as well as 10% off, by clicking this link.

Tips for Marketing Card Games in 2022

Having a successful game and actually making money off of it is the dream of every developer or publisher. It’s what makes all the hard work worth it.

However, the path to success is not a straight line – it’s full of ups and downs. What’s important is to arm yourself with knowledge and push forward.

It’s possible to reach the top charts if you play your cards right (pun intended).

To get you started, I have put together simple and practical tips for marketing card games that will help you make smarter decisions and achieve your goals.

Understand Who Plays Card Games

You might think card games are primarily played by boomers.

And you would be wrong.

Actually, there are a lot of young people who play them. You’d be surprised how diverse card gamer demographics are.

Traditional card games like solitaire and poker are loved by almost everyone, regardless of their age and gender. Being able to play those classic games on phones, rather than using physical cards is really convenient. There are also card-collecting type games like Yu-Gi-Oh which are very popular with children and young adults.

Above is an interesting age and gender breakdown for Three Magic Towers, a mobile card game by Mobile Games Entertainment.

As you can see, the audience for this game is quite young. 34% of the audience is aged 18-24 (13% female and 21% male) and 29% is aged 25-34 (8% female and 21% male). Only a very small fraction of the audience is older than 44. This shows you that card games are popular with millennials and even gen Z.

Besides age and gender, it’s also important to understand the behavior and interests of your target audience.

What are card players looking for in a mobile game, what are their gaming habits, what type of ads do they respond to, etc. In general, card players play to pass the time, which puts them in the category of casual gamers. Furthermore, they like simple games that they can get into right away.

Defining the interests and behaviors of your target audience helps you to not only improve your game but your user acquisition strategy as well.

Master ASO and Grow Your User Base Organically

Paid user acquisition campaigns are one of the best ways to get more users. And we’re going to be talking about that later in the article. However, you’d be surprised at how many users you can acquire organically through the app stores.

That means you need to take app store optimization to the next level.

Here’s how.

Keyword Research

As you might know, keywords are an important ranking factor for the app store – they help you increase the visibility of your card game. To break it down, keyword optimization is pretty much SEO for the app store.

It consists of finding phrases that would lead someone to your card game, i.e., potential search terms and words that best describe your game. When choosing keywords, you need to consider relevance, competition, and search volume.

App intelligence tools can be very useful for keyword research because they give you access to top keywords and keyword suggestions. Furthermore, you can spy on your competitors and see which keywords bring them the most traffic.

For example, keywords one card game uses for the US market are card, solitaire, casino, brain, spider, mind, strategy, puzzle, free. All of these are great keywords for card games.

Localization

Localization is a crucial part of app store optimization that often gets overlooked. It can be a total game-changer because it allows you to reach a global audience. Plus, Google Play and Apple App Store give advantage to localized games because localization improves user experience.

So not only is it important to localize the game itself, but also the app store ranking factors like keywords, description, icon, images, preview video, and even the game title. Basically, every single aspect of your app page.

According to MobileAction, localizing an app results in 130% more downloads and a 25% increase in revenue.

The Apple App Store is available in 155 countries and you can localize content for 40 different languages. For Google Play, you can choose from 77 different localizations. However, that doesn’t mean you need to localize for all languages – choose the ones based on your target market.

App Store Promo Videos

While writing a good game description and adding screenshots to your app store page is important, there’s nothing like a good promo video. It contains all the necessary game information and encourages users to download it.

Creating an app store promo video is similar to creating a video ad. However, a promo video is typically longer and contains more information about the game.

For card games, it’s crucial that you explain how the game is played. Users should know right away what the game is about. Furthermore, you should highlight the most important features and benefits of the game, i.e., a multiplayer feature, leaderboards, different card decks, etc.

Boost Downloads With Paid User Acquisition Campaigns

To take a user acquisition strategy to a new level, you need to start advertising on social media and multiple ad networks.

When it comes to social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are the ones you need to focus on the most.

According to AppsFlyer Performance Index, the best ad networks for advertising mobile games are Google, AppLovin, Unity Ads, ironSource, Apple Search Ads, Mintegral, Vungle, etc.

To help you get started, here’s a simple guide for Facebook Ads.

How to Structure Facebook Ad Campaigns for Card Games?

If you’re new to setting up Facebook Ad Campaigns, you might get confused by the process.

So here’s a simple example of how to structure a Facebook ad campaign.

The first phase is testing the ads.

When setting up the campaign, choose the lowest cost as the bidding strategy and set a $100 daily budget. Then, create 3 ad sets for 3 different age groups (13-24, 25-44, 45-65) with 10 video ads for each set.

Run the video ads for three days. Then analyze them and identify the winners from each set, i.e., the ads that have the lowest CPI.

Then you move to the second phase where you choose a bid cap as the objective and a daily budget of $1,000.

Create 2 ad sets. The first one will target a broad audience (13-65), while the second one will target lookalike audiences (people who watched your video to 50%). Add the winning ads from the previous step into both ad sets.

That’s it!

This simple process can greatly improve the effectiveness of your user acquisition strategy.

However, this is only the beginning. There are advanced Facebook Ad strategies you can use to get even better results.

If you need help with running Facebook Ad Campaigns for mobile games, feel free to reach out – it’s what we do best!

Keep It Simple

My last advice is to keep it simple.

Here’s the thing.

Generally speaking, people who love classic card games like Solitaire or Gin Rummy are drawn to simple mobile games. No need for out-of-this-world graphics and complicated gameplay.

You don’t need to invent anything new or groundbreaking. When creating a card game, you simply need to take an existing card game and ’transfer’ it to a mobile device – most of the work is already done for you.

Just like you don’t need crazy effects and flashy visuals in a classic card game, you don’t need complex ads with extremely high-production value. The key thing when advertising a card game is to make what it is and how to play it instantly clear.

Video Ad Examples From Top Card Games

When running paid user acquisition campaigns, video ads are of the utmost importance for a couple of reasons.

First, video ads are the perfect format for getting people interested in a mobile game. It allows you to showcase all the amazing features of your game. Moreover, video ads allow you to explain to users how the game is played, which is really important for card games.

Below, you can see how top publishers advertise card games.

Gin Rummy Plus (Zynga)

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger

Duration: 00:22

Ad Copy: BEST CARD GAME on MOBILE! ♥♠♦♣

Video Ad Analysis

As it was mentioned before, for card games, it’s very important that the users understand how to play it right away. This is why Zynga’s Gin Rummy Plus video ad is basically a tutorial on how to Rummy. However, through this tutorial, we also get a chance to see what the game and its main mechanics look like.

It’s a very smart strategy for marketing card games.

Also, notice how simple and straightforward the ad is – there’s no unnecessary details or crazy effects.

The second strategy Zynga uses to advertise Gin Rummy Plus is the tried-and-true method of puzzle-type ads that challenge users. You have seen these all over the place – pretty much all mobile games use this advertising strategy.

I can hear you say, “But this ad has nothing to do with Gin Rummy?”

And you’re right, it absolutely doesn’t. Gin Rummy or any types of cards are not even mentioned in the ad.

But here’s the thing – it works.

And that’s what matters.

Marketing is about data. Sometimes you need to leave your common sense at the door.

Solitaire Grand Harvest (Supertreat)

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger

Duration: 00:30

Ad Copy: Relaxing Solitaire, Challenging Levels, Join The#1 Solitaire Game!

Video Ad Analysis

Solitaire Grand Harvest is a classic solitaire game with a twist – you can run your own farm while you play.

The ad for Solitaire Grand Harvest is more like a promo video or a product pitch where all the main game features are highlighted (fun bonus games, play with the farm family, challenging levels, daily missions, etc.).

You’ll notice that the ad is very calming and relaxing which mirrors the game itself.

This is why understanding your target audience is important. If one of the main motivations for card players is to wind down and relax while playing, that should also be the mood of the ad.

A dynamic ad with quick transitions, explosions, and upbeat electronic music would not work for this type of audience.

Solitaire TriPeaks Journey (ME2ZEN)

Platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, Messenger

Duration: 00:30

Ad Copy: 🔥Highly Addictive!🔥100% Fun and Free. ⬇ ⬇ Download NOW ⬇ ⬇

Video Ad Analysis

This is another classic solitaire game, but with puzzle aspects. That’s visible in the ad, which consists of a fun puzzle that’s basically a picture match card game.

That’s a smart decision because puzzle-type ads are very effective. They pose a challenge for the users and that drives installs.

You’ll notice that the ad depicts a noob player who fails to match all the cards, which triggers the appearance of a dragon villain.

Here’s the basic psychology behind that.

When someone watches the ad and sees the fail, they want to prove that they can do better. It’s a tried-and-tested trick that gets users to download the game.