If you know anything about advertising mobile games, you know that creative is king. More specifically, I’m talking about videos – the format with the best conversion rates. In this article, we’re going to focus on how to create a high-performing video ad for ad networks.
You’ll learn:
- What are the best ad networks for advertising mobile games?
- What makes a high-quality video ad for ad networks?
- The process of creating a video ad for ad networks
Additionally, we have included practical tips for video ad creation you can try right now!
The Process of Creating a Video Ad for Ad Networks
The basic process of creating a video ad for ad networks can be broken down into three steps – market research, video scripting, and video production.
Here’s an overview of each one.
Market Research
As with any advertising campaign, you need to start with market research. Most importantly, you need to check out competitors’ video ads.
This can be a bit tricky. For example, you can’t browse your competitor’s Google ads on Google like you can Facebook ads on Facebook’s Ad Library.
However, there are some platforms that allow you to do just that. You can search mobile game publishers and see their ads for different ad networks, which is quite useful.
But the downside is that you need to have a subscription to access it, which is quite pricey.
Another thing you should consider when doing market research is your target audience. Who are the people you’re trying to reach with your ads? Define their location, gender, and age.
Furthermore, consider their behavior and interests. Are you trying to appeal to casual players with your user acquisition campaign? Or perhaps your target audience is mid-core gamers who love role-playing and strategy games?
Whatever the case may be, make sure you know what appeals to them. It will make the next step a lot easier.
Video Scripting
Once you have identified what type of strategies your competitors are using and what might appeal to your target audience, start writing a script.
The purpose of a script is to write down what happens in each scene. You can describe both the visual and the audio part.
When writing a script, consider the ad network you want to advertise on as well as different ad formats.
Learn more about how to write a script for video ads for ad networks here.
Video Production
The final step in making a video ad is video production.
This is where your video producers take all the things you’ve prepared for them, including the script, gameplay footage, and other game assets, to create the video ad.
If this sounds too complicated, or you just don’t have the time to go through this process, feel free to reach out to us and we’ll get you sorted.
5 Tips for Creating a High-Quality Video Ad for Ad Networks
1. Consider Ad Network Policies and Requirements
From Google to ironSource, AppLovin, and UnityAds – there are so many great ad networks to acquire players. All of them allow mobile game publishers to get their mobile games in front of thousands of users.
However, each of them is different.
The big thing about creating a video ad for ad networks is to follow the requirements of that specific network. That’s why video ads for Facebook and Google should be very different.
Google is notorious for having very strict rules and regulations. Other ad networks also have specific requirements and policies.
2. Try Different Video Ad Formats
Ad networks like ironSource, Unity Ads, and Applovin have different ad formats available. From standard video ads to playable, interactive, and rewarded ads.
For that reason, you shouldn’t focus only on standard video ads. For instance, interactive and playable ads have proven to be very successful in attracting high-quality users, i.e., those who not only install a game but stay engaged.
It makes sense when you think about it.
Playable ads allow users to try playing a game. When those users install that game, they already have a good idea of what’s going on and how to play it. They’re familiar with the basic game mechanics and goals of the game, which makes them more likely to be more engaged right from the start.
Also, even if your game has a slow start, or some idle element that doesn’t attract the most attention, you have a chance to showcase the good and interesting parts of your game in a playable ad.
Of course, many companies have used these ads by now, and for a good reason. Imagine that you are buying shoes, you would be more inclined to buy those that you’ve already tried on, than those that you haven’t. This works on the exact same principle.
These kinds of ads are mostly used to attract casual gamers since playable ads are currently limited on the technical part, and cannot showcase complex mechanics.
Therefore, if you opt for a playable ad for your casual game, one thing is certain – most players will be inclined to download your game if you’ve shown them that your game is easy and simple to play.
Tips for Playable Ads
For example, if you have a game where a player has to survive on a stranded island, make the playable part something simple like building a raft or a shelter.
Moreover, a Facebook study followed the case of Me2Zen, a company that had a big success with playable ads. Me2Zen reported that playable ads increased their click-through rates ten times and increased its return on ad spend by 50%. Also, they revealed that they had more than three times the increase in in-app purchases.
So not only do you acquire more users, but you acquire high-quality users and improve user retention.
However, a playable ad is much different than a standard video ad.
In the latter, it’s common to showcase different game features and benefits, introduce players to the main characters, the universe, etc. It is often a combination of animations/cinematic scenes and gameplay footage.
On the other hand, since playable ads are interactive, they need to be strictly gameplay oriented, as they allow players to play the game. Moreover, they need to be very simple, e.g., a puzzle.
It is also important to make it clear what the ad is about and how to ‘play’ it.
In the playable ad example above, you can see how the playable ad is explained – “Roll the dice to build the town.” This makes it clear that all you need to do is to roll the dice to start playing and build a town.
Keep in mind that there are two ways to create a playable ad. One is to integrate an HTML code into video footage. The second is to create the ad from scratch, using only an HTML code.
3. Highlight the Most Important Game Features
Think about what makes your game special and focus your video ad around it.
For example, let’s say it’s a word game you can play with friends. The game’s social aspect is something that’s worth highlighting in the ad.
Or perhaps it’s an action-adventure game with a ton of interesting characters and worlds – showcase them in the ad.
Whatever it may be, use your USP to make people interested in your game. The mobile game market is very saturated and knowing how to stand out is of the utmost value.
Additionally, make sure that the beginning of the video is attention-grabbing. If you can’t make people interested in your ad within the first few seconds, you’ve lost them.
4. Include a CTA
This is important for any type of video ad – always include a call to action. If you want people to install your game, you need to direct them to do so.
Whether you add a “Download free”, “Install now” or any other CTA, make sure to highlight it. You can even test different CTAs and see which one works better, i.e., which one results in more conversions.
5. Don’t Falsely Advertise Your Game
False advertising is a big issue in the mobile gaming world. Many publishers, when creating video ads for ad networks, are intentionally misleading. You have probably come across mobile game video ads that are not true to what the game is actually about and how it really looks.
While that strategy may bring a lot of users, it’s not worth it in the long run.
Let me explain.
A user sees a video ad for a game. It looks incredibly good. The user decides to install it.
However, when they start to play the game, they notice the game is nothing like the ad.
What happens next?
The player is frustrated and disappointed and uninstalls the game.
This scenario shows you that even though you might get those installs with a misleading ad, you won’t be able to keep the players, i.e., user retention will be very low. As you know, you can’t monetize a game that has poor user retention.
That’s why creating a video ad that’s authentic and true to the game is always the smarter strategy for user acquisition.
Example of a Video Ad for Ad Networks
If you’re someone who likes to learn from examples, here’s one of the top-performing video ads on Google in the US and what makes it good. It’s for the mega-popular game/virtual universe – Roblox.
According to AppMagic, a leading ad intelligence platform, it got more than 160 million impressions in the past year. Get 3 days of free access to all AppMagic’s features, as well as 10% off, by clicking on this link.
As you might know, players can do almost anything in this game. However, this ad zones in on one very specific thing – the ability to customize avatars.
Why this game feature, you might wonder?
It has to do with why people play mobile games.
Motivations for Playing
Mobile gamers are a huge, nonhomogeneous group of people – there are billions of them and they differ in terms of age, gender, location, interests, etc.
Moreover, different players play for different reasons. Based on those player motivations, we can categorize players into different groups.
One such group is players who love to express their identity and creativity through mobile games and because of that gravitate towards games that allow them to customize things to their liking.
Developers can target that group of players by showcasing various customization features – just like we see in this Roblox ad.
Ads like this one tend to perform well because they’re not trying to reach everybody or a wide audience. This Roblox ad is geared towards a younger female audience motivated by self-expression – that’s very specific, which is why it’s effective.
Learn more about these types of ads in our motivation-based creatives article.
What You Need to Do After Creating a Video Ad for Ad Networks
Your video ad is done – now what?
The first thing you need to know is that one is not enough. Always create multiple versions of the same ad.
Why?
Because you need video ad variations for A/B testing.
A/B Testing
Split testing is a scientific way of determining which video ad variation performs better, i.e., achieves more conversions (installs).
The process of A/B testing largely depends on the ad network. For example, Google will automatically create different versions of an ad and split test them. You don’t even have to create more than one video, just change the aspect ratios. The video ad variation that performs better will be shown more often.
Most other ad networks allow you to conduct experiments on their platform.
For example, if you want to test multiple creatives on Unity Ads, you need to create multiple campaigns with a shared budget. All creatives are then run across different networks and you can then see which campaign performs better.
Ad Optimization
So you have determined which video ad is the winner after the initial A/B test. Don’t stop there. Create even more variations of that winning ad and do another A/B test.
Furthermore, you need to track important metrics like CPI and ROAS.
Oftentimes, you need to play around with different campaign settings to get the desired results.
You also might find out that you’re not getting good results from a particular ad network, no matter how you set up the campaign. If that’s the case, try a different ad network – there are plenty to choose from.
The Difference Between an Ad Network and Ad Exchange
To finish up, let’s talk about ad networks and ad exchanges, as they’re going to be essential in your ad campaign.
Many people think those two are the same thing since both are a part of programmatic advertising. However, even though both ad networks and exchanges are essential for media buying, they have a different purpose.
Put simply, an ad network is a company that connects publishers and advertisers. It’s an intermediary between supply and demand sources.
An ad exchange is not an intermediary. It is a platform that allows publishers and advertisers to buy and sell ad inventory from multiple ad networks directly.
Furthermore, with an ad exchange, changes are implemented in real-time and advertisers determine the price, unlike with ad networks.
Which One Should You Use?
The simple answer is – both. Ad networks and ad exchanges are both an important part of programmatic advertising and can help you acquire more users for your game.
Which Ad Networks and Exchanges to Use?
According to the latest version of AppsFlyer’s Performance Index, the top ad networks for mobile games are Google, Unity Ads, and ironSource. Mintegral, Applovin, and Vungle are also good choices.
Here’s some info on the top three.
It’s no surprise Google is number one on the ad networks list. This is an ad network that’s hard to beat.
When you use Google’s App Campaigns, your video ads will be shown on Search, Google Play, YouTube, Discover on Google Search, and the Google Display Network.
Google’s Universal App Campaigns with the Install Volume objective are the best choice for mobile game user acquisition. Google claims UACs achieve 140% more conversions than other campaign types. A lot of work is done by Google which makes the whole process very simple.
You need to provide a portrait and landscape video, text, and some assets. Furthermore, you need to choose a daily budget, target location, and languages. You also need to choose between cost-per-install and cost-per-action campaign options. Google takes care of the rest – there’s no need to create individual ads and test them. Its algorithm will test different variations and placements, serving higher-performing ads more often.
Google’s Universal App Campaigns can also be used to drive in-app conversions.
Unity Ads
Unity Ads is a part of the so-called Gaming Triopoly, along with ironSource and Applovin. It’s both a game development platform and an ad network. It specializes in video advertising.
It’s important to emphasize that Unity Ads are primarily a monetization platform. That means your video ads will be shown in other mobile games. It allows mobile game publishers to target users that are likely to be interested in a particular game or game genre.
Video ad placements in mobile games are most commonly a combination of rewarded, playable, and interstitial videos.
What’s great about Unity Ads is that you can track where installs come from. That’s known as attribution. Furthermore, you can target specific publishers. You can block those that are not giving you high-quality users or target sources that bring you users that not only convert but stay engaged.
IronSource
IronSource is a platform that can be used both for monetization and advertising. Its app distribution platform utilizes machine learning to help you acquire high-quality users – those who stay engaged and play for a long time.
IronSource’s UA campaigns have an advanced bid optimization technology that drives high ROAS. Playable ads, interactive videos, and interactive end cards are among the types of creatives you can choose. IronSource claims that users who are acquired through interactive ads have a 35% higher retention rate.
Final Thoughts on Creating a Video Ad for Ad Networks
As you can see, the process of creating a video ad for ad networks is very complex. There are many moving parts and you need to have a large team with different skills ranging from video production to media buying.
If you’re struggling, we have both the experience and the skill to help you with this. Our talented team of copywriters, media buyers, and creatives has created thousands of video ads for ad networks that resulted in more users for our clients.
Don’t hesitate to contact us right now!
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