How to Marketing Playable Ads in The Digital Marketing Era？

In this digital marketing era, any social media platform is a hot spot for advertising. After the first playable advertisement achieved great success, more and more game advertisements now choose to produce trial advertisements for promotion, and use this model to obtain a large number of users. Therefore, in order to follow the upsurge of the advertising industry in time, it is very important to understand and market the playable ads.

1.What are the advantages of playable ads over ordinary video ads?

Playable advertising must be familiar to all advertising marketers, so I don’t elaborate on the concept. But maybe some advertising marketers are still hesitating. They don’t know if playable ads are necessary to develop, or whether playable ads can bring a large number of users. So why don’t you think about it first, what are the advantages of playable ads compared to the video ads we know?

a. Playable ads have an immersive experience

Playable ads and video ads are very different. Video advertising can be said to be a kind of explanation, using video operation decomposition and exquisite creativity to attract users to download games. Users can understand the game process and steps from the video advertisement, understand the game type, and determine whether the game direction is like. Playable ads are different. Playable ads not only include information that users can obtain from video ads, but also have actual operating experience, allowing users to determine whether the game is easy to use and whether it meets their own requirements, so as to attract users to download.

b. Playable ads will stimulate the curiosity of users

From the user’s point of view, if I see an ad on a social media platform, of course, I’m talking about a cooperative ad, which will be marked with the word “ad” underneath it. This kind of video unless the theme and creativity are sufficiently attractive I, otherwise I would not pay too much attention to it, 90% of the time I would choose to directly swipe away.

But out of curiosity, when I encounter a playable advertisement, I will choose to stop and try it, mainly to try whether the operation is smooth, whether the game experience and game theme like it, although sometimes I don’t download it. Moreover, this is not my curiosity alone, advertisers have also come to this conclusion after a lot of data research: most people will choose to try it when they encounter playable ads, the traffic of playable ads And the effect can also confirm this conclusion.

2.Which theme game is more suitable for marketing as playable advertising?

a. A milestone in the trial advertising-Gardenscapes

With a large number of advertisements, it became a hit, and it soared to the top five in the game ranking overnight. Although the reputation is not very optimistic, it has received a continuous influx of users. As a game advertising marketing, it is undoubtedly successful, and its success can be said to rely heavily on the delivery of playable advertising.

So what does its playable advertisement look like?

These are some of the creatives of Gardenscapes’ playable ads. It can be easily seen that it is promoted in a casual puzzle game mode. This is also the reason why its reputation has been soaring, because as far as the game type is concerned, it is actually a game based on simulation management. It can be said that I am also one of the users attracted by this trial advertisement. The puzzle-solving and escape type of playable ads can indeed capture a large number of young user groups like me. Borrowing this idea to promote the playable ads, only focusing on a specific detail for promotion, is a playable advertising promotion idea worth learning and learning from. 

Of course, there are many people who downloaded it because of its simulated business game. Although the playable advertisement in the picture above is not dynamic, it can still be seen that it did not use the theme of escape for promotion, but it still gained great popularity. . Although it can be seen from the amount of impressions that it is the result of a large amount of advertising, as an advertisement with a running time of only 43 days, it can be regarded as a success that ordinary advertisements cannot match.

By searching Gardenscapes’ creative materials and sorting by popularity, it can be concluded that most of the top positions are playable ads, which also shows that this game does rely on playable ads to bring a lot of traffic. This success is two-way. Playable advertising has made Gardenscapes traffic, and the success of Gardenscapes has also opened a new chapter for the rise of playable advertising.

b. Casual decompression games

Another theme of playable advertising which is easy to succeed is casual decompression games.The essence of casual games is to decompress and kill time. Playable ads can increase the traffic of casual games to a level. Many casual games, if you don’t actually experience it, it’s actually hard to think of downloading one to play. In this respect, playable ads are also of great significance to casual decompression games.

The game Hellx Jump is a typical casual decompression game. This kind of game is extremely easy to succeed as a playable advertisement. Because it is easy and easy to use, almost everyone can be familiar with the operation immediately, and this kind of game itself has great appeal. There are many people who love this kind of game. When it promotes playable advertisements, it is of course Increase the number of users. Many users may not know this game themselves, or what type of game it is, and will choose to download this game after trial play.

Similar games:

This game called Press is also a decompression type game, which is displayed through the section of items. Decompression games have always been very popular, as we can see from a large number of online celebrity videos, many people watch with relish while wondering why such videos can be popular. From a psychological point of view, the principle that this kind of game can decompress is to shift the focus and release the unreleasable pressure in life through the game in a simple way, which can indeed reduce the anxiety in life. Therefore, the popularity of this kind of games has been high. Although many of them have a short lifespan, they will also get short-term high popularity. Playable ads will play a big role, and launching from time to time can also extend the life of such games.

Similar to the coloring game:

Coloring games are also a good promotion theme for playable games. They can achieve promotional significance by relaxing people’s emotions and further entice users to download.

c. Games that can’t get stable users

Many games that can’t get stable users are actually very suitable for playable advertising. This conclusion is mainly based on a large number of previous studies. Many small games can only be kept in the user’s mobile phone for a short period of time. When the popularity drops, the user’s preference will also decrease, and the game will be uninstalled. One of the most worth mentioning is parkour and escape games.

Let me talk about parkour games first. Parkour games are relatively not difficult to obtain stable users, but in recent years, the popularity has declined, and the market has gradually been occupied by small parkour games, and it is indeed difficult for small games to obtain stable traffic.

Take this Aquapark as an example, this kind of small game that also belongs to the theme of parkour, the effect of playable advertising will bring more traffic than ordinary advertising. The earliest large-scale parkour games include Temple Run and Subwaysurfers, etc. This is an early mature large-scale parkour mobile game that swept the world, with sophisticated game ideas and stable users. It is very different from the current small parkour game. Small parkour games are mostly used for busy people to use the fragmented time to entertain, and the life span is hard to be as long as large mobile games. Therefore, it needs a short burst of traffic to obtain revenue, so it is suitable for trial advertising. This suitability is mutual, and playable advertisements are therefore suitable for this type of game.

In contrast, escape games are also very suitable for playable advertising. It is different from decompression and parkour games. Escape games, especially room escape games, can be approximately equal to one-time games. After this type of game is cleared, it may not be played again, so it needs mobile users. Playable advertising is a good way to promote it. However, currently there are few escape games for the marketing of playable advertisements. The playable advertisements of existing escape games are basically similar to the playable advertisements of Gardenscapes mentioned at the beginning. I personally think this is a very successful case and a good marketing direction for playable advertising.

3.How to choose the channel of playable ads

Most advertisers hesitate not because they don’t understand the benefits of playable ads, but because they are running problems. Most of the playable ads are an independent demo, which is simpler than the real game itself, and it also has a step-by-step demonstration and teaching, which means that the technicians have to make a new one. But this is not too difficult for technical personnel, the real difficulty lies in the delivery.

1.Promote with a combination of video and demo

Some of the game types not mentioned above can actually be promoted with a combination of video and trial play. Nowadays, there are also advertisements of this mode in the market. First, put a short video of a few seconds and then insert a playable advertisement. Two-pronged promotion and marketing is also a good choice. In many cases, the marketing model of the advertising industry should not be constrained to form. For all industries, we need innovation.

2.Distribution channels of playable ads

The available resources of playable ads are actually very limited, only the placement of major social media platforms and the placement of in-app ads. Although social media platforms can get good traffic and results, the cost will be high. In-app delivery can almost be called “risk investment.” It is necessary to screen, filter, and review applications, carefully select suitable applications, and the final benefits are unknown. The most difficult part is the selection of applications.

The easiest way is to filter through the list of popular advertising media, by the way, observe which types of advertising media are used by competitors for advertising, and strive to crush them.