Chartboost: Three new ways to acquire users

Chartboost blogged about three new (and controversial) ways of promotion that will help you attract users. Or just spend a lot of money. We share a retelling.

1. Letsplayers and Youtube celebrities

Popular video bloggers are a great new way. With a single video, these people can provide you with an influx of users.

There are a lot of positive examples. The first to come to mind are Seriously with the Best Fiends project. A series of special campaigns provided the game with organic traffic, 60 thousand new users and increased the DAU by 40%. If this example is not enough, then there are more slither.io . A video review from a couple of well-known letsplayers allowed the game to rise to the top in downloads. Now the project brings the author – an indie developer from America – $ 100 thousand daily.

The main disadvantage of this method of promotion is that famous video bloggers are capricious. You should like the game – then everything will be OK. Otherwise, no one guarantees that your title will not be vilified on the whole Internet. So if they made absolutely trash, then it’s better not to meddle with letsplayers. At least without a suitcase of money.

2. Take advantage of popular sports events

Events like the Super Bowl or the same European Champion gather crowds of fans at the screens. All this is your potential audience, which you can try to lure into your game.

However, there are three points that you need to pay attention to.

First, it is desirable that the game be sports-themed. In this case, everything is quite simple: you need to take into account sports competitions in the line of regular updates (here we have analyzed in detail the case of how the Ice Hockey World Championship increased game downloads).

If you don’t have a toy about football, but match-3, and you still want to promote it with the help of sports (well, you never know, you don’t know how to work with CA), then a suitcase of money will help again. In this case, you need to take Supercell or MZ (formerly Machine Zone) as a role model. These two companies have very successfully promoted projects with the help of advertising at the Super Bowl. However, the same MZ advertising cost a lump sum of $ 5 million.

The third point is the most obvious. If a team appears in the game, make sure that it knows how to play. Otherwise, the maximum why users download the game is to tell once again in the reviews how much their favorite players disappointed them.

3. Branding

Product branding is a way that marketers have been using since time immemorial. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and apply this proven technique in mobile.

So did, for example, Rovio. Simultaneously with the release of The Angry Birds Movie, the company began to promote the movie-related game Angry Birds Action! with the help of McDonald’s. The birds appeared on napkins and glasses in the fast food chain. Plus, the Happy Meal boxes had a code printed on the side, clicking on which players could access new content – an augmented reality application that showed a short animation from the movie.

It should be noted that promotion through catering is a controversial method. Angry Birds Action! the contract with McDonald’s did not help. At the moment, the game is on the 1130th place in the American App Store in the category of “Games”.

But, perhaps, in the case of other products, the technique may work. That’s how we see the advertising of the next match-3 for housewives on the dish detergent. Or the logo of a harsh strategy on a pack of student food like noodles or crackers.

Source: Chartboost