Before committing to an ad campaign, a crucial step is figuring out what resonates with your target audience and what is likely to produce results. Testing a range of advertisements holds many benefits for your campaign, and in Igloo Gaming’s experience, absolutely critical to maximize its success.
Games are complex artistic and technical endeavors containing many different aspects, and it can be challenging to discern what will draw players to your title. For some, the narrative is paramount, whereas other potential players might be more interested in PvP content or social features. A robust ad testing plan can minimize uncertainty about what your audience finds appealing about your game and help you craft an informed ad campaign.
Testing Ad Sets
Though there could be a temptation to test one well-made ad, in our experience, we’ve found it’s better to create a set of ads for testing rather than one. With one ad, it’s impossible to sufficiently showcase a game’s feature set. By dedicating your budget and resources to one ad for testing purposes, you run the risk of acquiring data that isn’t useful for your ad campaign, whereas using multiple ads allows you to focus on several key features of your game, which should result in more usable data.
We’ve found that using ad sets containing three to five ads is adequate for testing purposes. Each ad ideally should focus on a different aspect of the game, such as gameplay, narrative, graphics, and social features. With each ad published, click-through rates, engagement, and overall levels of interest in each of the game’s aspects can be measured.
With clear data supporting which ads are performing better and an understanding of which game aspect your target audience is most interested in, you can take advantage of this information and take your ad campaign even further.
Targeting Different Demographics
Further to using ads highlighting different aspects of your game, it’s possible to target different demographics. If your audience is international, it’s good practice to create ads to appeal to the international market. Creating alternate versions of ads in different languages is a common example of this, as is crafting different versions to cater to the variety of English dialects.
Though it might potentially sound like a waste of resources, especially if you’re working with a tight budget, it’s important to serve your international audience. With a wide range of ads covering different gameplay aspects in various languages and dialects, your campaign should perform well in an extensive market.
Capitalizing on Ad Results
With the performance results of your ad set in tow, you can make an informed decision about where to take the campaign next. If, for instance, the advertisement focusing on the social aspects of the game yielded the best results, the next step would be to craft another ad set that focuses on the social aspects of the title exclusively.
With a new set of ads, it’s possible to cover more specific facets of social features, such as leaderboards, co-op gameplay, player-versus-player content, and more. This serves as a method of investigating players’ interest in your game’s social features even further to find out what specifically excites them. Using this method, it’s possible to create highly-targeted ads informed by the data gathered from the previous ad set’s results.
Looking for a video partner who understands the importance of ad campaigns for your game? Take a look at our reels and get in contact today, our industry-leading video content will help your games speak for themselves!
