"It happens that the content created by neural networks shows a CTR twice as high as that created by man," Konstantin Ivanov from AdQuantum on the results of 2023

We continue to summarize the results of 2023 with gaming (or related to the gaming sector) teams and organizations. This time we talked with Konstantin Ivanov, brand director of AdQuantum.

What was the year like for the company? What have you done that I would like to highlight in terms of achievements?

The year turned out to be significant. We have grown significantly, almost 10 times in many indicators. Growth occurred in several verticals at once, we made a qualitative breakthrough at the very beginning of 2022 and managed to scale it on several key clients. This is what concerns UA.

Another important event for us was the launch of a completely new product — the Creative Pack. We now make high-quality advertising creatives for the client (2D, 3D, UGC, Playable Ads, motion capture). The customers themselves are pouring traffic to our creatives.

We made this breakthrough thanks not only to our famous freelance exchange, but also to the active development of the inhouse production department.

AdQuantum was noted in several awards (Forbes Cyprus, MarTech Breakthrough Awards 2023, Global Agency Awards 2023), in which we won prizes.

We also focused on risky models of cooperation, for example, profit share, because after the great growth that occurred, we became ready for both risks and greater profits for partners.

We continued to develop the direction of market research, released a grandiose sketch on fitness applications in collaboration with Sensor Tower, which was read by both Apple, Google, and Meta. The spread occurred for the most part organically, investments in PR were minimal, but targeted. We are extremely pleased with the results. Read it, it's free!

How has the game marketing market changed over the year?

Mobile marketing continues to take on a new face. AI is rapidly minimizing the cost of creative processes, and since the end of 2022, artificial intelligence has been increasingly integrated into advertising processes. AI has learned not only to edit short videos based on a text query, but also to suggest changes to already created creatives. In exceptional cases, content created by neural networks shows a CTR twice as high as that created by humans. It's still too early to talk about a full replacement, but we're working on it.

Monopoly Go! She "tore up" the market methodically, million by million, showing that the high-quality game design of an old game familiar from childhood allows you to work wonders with monetization for the masses.

At the same time, survivor trends, as I call them, are preserved. 83% of mobile games are closed within three years of release, and 43% of mobile games are canceled at the development stage.

M&A did not go out of fashion, which is only worth the end of the litigation around Microsoft and Activision Blizzard or the story when SpitMetrics bought App Radar.

The conference market continues to change to meet global realities. Some of the old brands are closing, some are expanding formats, which is why it is interesting to try new things and monitor the integration of trends into performance programs. Who knows, maybe we'll get to the AI presenters one day.

Has the practice of working with gaming companies changed? How exactly?

I can't mention any major changes.

What trends in game marketing have become more relevant?

UGC advertising still occupies a huge percentage in the marketing of mobile games. The audience perfectly understands the mechanics by which they are lured to play a new product, but realistic human emotions convey the experience of using the product better and better. I'm not talking about influencers who overplay, with such "you can't cook porridge", for me it's still a weakly performing story. But in the fitness segment, everything is much better with this. The moral is to choose game influencers wisely, even if you need to make the most ordinary video with gameplay and a person in the corner of the screen.

Surviving a mobile game in such fierce competition is not an easy task, and becoming a hit is even more so, which is why experts are paying so much attention this year to product decontracts — the format of articles that help the market figure out exactly what happened to the product and why it became successful. In general, explanatory journalism got to marketing many years ago, but detailed decontracts are worth their weight in gold, so we write them ourselves and are happy to read other people's.

What are the company's plans for next year?

We are already investing the funds received from the growth and will continue to invest in the development of AdQuantum at a completely new business level. The number of employees will continue to grow. Now we are thinking about new regions and offices for development. I can't tell you everything in detail, but keep an eye on vacancies and news. It is likely that very soon you will see new directions related to our brand.