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If you’re eager to get marketing in the entertainment industry, the video game sector is the perfect place to begin. Today, you don’t need a fancy system to get gaming – all you need is a phone.

With a global value of over $300 billion and an enormous audience of 2.9 billion players worldwide, game marketing is bigger than Bowser himself.

So, what tactics can you take to make your ads an A+ player in the game world? Arke has the cheat codes to success right here! 

Tap to win? 

If you thought mobile marketing had reached its peak, think again! One of (if not the) best ways to break into game marketing is through mobile monetisation. 

Through a detailed report conducted by Meta’s gaming division – their findings showed sustained growth in audience numbers for the small screens. From 2020 to 2021, the UK saw 8.6 million new mobile gamers – a 50% increase from the previous year.  

And it keeps getting bigger! By October 2021, there was a 42% increase in new gamers in the UK alone. The boost in numbers is likely due to the lovely lockdown; however, there are no signs of engagement starting to drop just yet. 

At an all-time high, mobile gaming is the essential place to be targeting new customers. However, the mobile gaming environment continuously increases in content at sonic’s speed. Where and who specifically should you be targeting? 


Bowser taking a picture with his phone

Insert Genre 

If you were to go off stereotypes, there are 2 types of gamers: Mountain Dew drinking teens playing the latest Call of Duty and grannies stuck on level 10,000 in Candy Crush. However, this is far from the actual demographic. 

The age distribution range (18-34 years old) of new gamers is 42% in the UK. This means the overall majority of emerging audiences remain younger than established players. 

So, If you’re already using marketing best practices for younger or Gen Z audiences (such as on TikTok), the demographic isn’t so different.  

However, the types of games they’re playing are changing. The hottest genre in mobile gaming right now is hyper-casual games, which tend to be easy pick-up-and-play games with straightforward mechanics. 

Think Candy Crush and the ongoing hype around Wordle. For example, in Q4 of 2021, Race Master 3D gained an insane 47 million downloads worldwide. Cookie Carver: Life Challenge (a Squid Game inspired app) came in second with 46 million.      

These games make waves due to their simple, quick, engaging methods – similar to how your ads need to be (we’ll get to that soon). 

A great practice to take note of is researching influential and community-engaging publishers for hyper-casual gaming. If you know what a developer is working on or soon releasing, there’s a good chance your ads can appear alongside the game.

But remember, like all areas of synergy regarding marketing, make sure the brands you collaborate with are producing content that aligns with your own values. At the very least, the developers should be well-received within the gaming community.        


Casually sitting playing a game

Level-up your ads 

In a world full of microtransactions and NFTs, you’d think user interaction would also shift alongside it. Think again, again! 

Though in-app purchases continue to barrel-roll across mobile games, audiences aren’t keen to splash the cash on them. 

In fact, 49% of new gamers prefer ad-supported content above any other monetisation method – a win-win for brands looking to make it big in the world of gaming.

So, we know who the gamers are and what they’re playing. Now, it’s time to grab a power-up and supercharge your ads to the max. But how?

Here are our top choices for mobile gaming ad formats in 2022: 

Video Ads: 

Due to the active nature of gaming, video ads pairing with mobile games is a match made in heaven, much like Chief and Cortana. 

Demonstrating your product to users in a visually appealing way is much easier when content isn’t static. Get creative with your video ads and integrate them into a trending game people can’t stop playing.

Banner Ads: 

Banner ads anchor to free space above or below the game. They can take the form of text, images or videos and can show up at the beginning, end or throughout a level.   

The great thing about banner ads is that A: they’re super easy to implement, and B: they’re ads that will maximize your content’s exposure without interrupting the user’s experience. 

If you’re interested in banner-based ads, Google AdMob has a “smart banners” feature that automatically adjusts banner size to adapt to different devices, making mobile optimisation easy peasy.   

Playable Video Ads:

Playable ads were voted the most effective in-app ad format by agency professionals. It’s a given, but integrating playable ads into games creates an association between content and campaign. 

Playable ads have a “try-before-you-buy” quality, which can lead to a lower churn rate for your product as users engaging with your content have already set expectations.   

Rewarded Video Ads: 

Rewarding users who interact with your campaign is a 1st class tactic to increase user engagement whilst boosting awareness of your brand.  

According to Google, “rewarded ads generally have the highest eCPMs across ad formats as advertisers see increased user engagement and unprecedented performance.” 

However, this approach will only succeed if your rewards are worthwhile. Research into the game you advertise on; do they have a life count? If so, why not reward users with an extra life if they watch your ad.  

Link opens treasure chest

Level 2

What’s next in the mobile gaming world? Based on the insights from Meta, things have already started changing in terms of user interests. 

With the rise of augmented reality (AR) and the Metaverse, audiences are starting to branch out and interact with more immersive content. 

Additionally, ad-based subscription tiers (AVOD) within the film & entertainment sector have begun to skyrocket. Could we see these subscription tiers slot like a Tetris block into larger gaming services? 

We’ve mainly covered mobile game advertising today, but there’s still a ton to cover in the gaming world – from subscriptions to innovative technologies. 

We’ll keep you posted on all things gamer on our LinkedIn page. Until then, if you’d like further insights into game marketing or want to perfect your ads and optimise their placements for maximum impact – contact our marketing team now. 

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