Why attribution and marketing mix modelling aren’t delivering results for games marketers

This article was written by Incrmntal CEO and co-founder Maor Sadra.

Mobile games have brought gaming to the masses. Titles like Candy Crush, Angry Birds and Clash of Clans have reached audiences beyond what games companies could once ever have imagined. Mobile gaming is now the most lucrative sector in the industry, and this year it’s projected to generate $98.74 billion in worldwide revenue.

What generates success for mobile games is quite simply: marketing. Pre and post-launch, marketing is what drives installs, downloads, continued gameplay and consideration.

Hence why, marketing tends to be the biggest expenditure for mobile games companies, which typically have limited infrastructure and overheads. Some games developers will even spend up to 80% of their budgets on marketing, and its high investment in this area has positioned games at the forefront of marketing innovation.

The games industry is able to learn and build predictive marketing models so fast that they are capable of scaling from zero to $1 million ad spend in next to no time.

For instance, because most mobile games focus on graphics rather than text, very little – if any – localisation is needed for ads. That means a small developer could launch a game and scale it to 190 countries around the globe.

As a result, we’re seeing cutting edge marketing in games both from a media and creative standpoint. From Gen-AI creatives and XR experiences to amazing use of influencer marketing and traditional media being utilised in ways no other industry has considered. 

But despite spearheading marketing tech, are games marketers seeing the level of returns from their efforts that will keep their games in play? 

Gaming drives marketing innovation, but that doesn’t always equal success

In short, no. Research has found that 83% of launched games die within three years, and 43% of games are killed in development before they launch.

Of course, in such a cluttered marketplace, where new games are launched daily, it’s natural to have some churn but not at this level. 

So, what’s going wrong? 

The problem for games marketers is that privacy legislation, and with it the death of the third-party cookie which previously enabled marketers to track the performance of their marketing spend, means many now have no idea which marketing tactics are performing successfully and which are not. 

This is a particular issue, given the vast audiences across multiple geographies that mobile games developers are seeking to reach, and the extent to which companies experiment on so many different channels and formats. We’ve found that on average, games companies market across 17 separate mediums, and are usually among the first to test new channels, making accurate measurement crucial.

What’s more, downloads and other conversions related to mobile games can be significantly impacted by external factors such as the day of the week, time of day, or the weather.

So while a video ad on Instagram might lead to a high percentage of conversions on a certain date or time, it may be a very different story the following day. Marketers therefore need measurement solutions that can provide this level of insight.

Is there a way then that mobile marketers can promote their titles at scale for continuing success, or from this point do they have to rely on luck rather than facts? 

The marketing measurement conundrum 

There are two types of measurement that are typically used: attribution and marketing mix modelling (MMM). But neither are delivering the results they want to see. 

In spite of the loss of the cookie, attribution isn’t dying out, instead its solutions are changing to use campaign level data. Where attribution can provide some value for marketers is in helping to determine which creative or placement is working best in real-time.

But, it attributes all credit to the last click pre-conversion without any consideration to the ads a consumer may have seen before this. It also isn’t able to measure how external factors and seasonalities might have impacted conversions, which is key for marketers.

In search of other measurement tools, many marketers turned to MMM, which has experienced major hype over the last few years. Yet marketers across all industries are beginning to see its limitations, and for games in particular, this type of measurement is typically deficient.

One of the main reasons why is that MMM relies on large sets of historical sales data to work effectively, and given the majority of games businesses are relatively new to market, this isn’t something they possess. 

Avoiding endgame through insights  
 
There are measurement solutions on the market however, that can provide mobile marketers with granularity into the true value of their ad spend across all channels.  

Without this level of insight, marketers are simply taking multiple marketing shots in the dark. It’s only by analysing the effects of each tactic in detail that they can reach the next level in the journey to true marketing success.

Measurement methodologies which focus on measuring incremental value can tell marketers precisely which campaigns, formats and channels both online and offline are driving ROI for their business and which are not.

Unlike attribution, which assigns credit only to the last touchpoint a consumer engaged with before converting, incrementality provides insights into every tactic, so marketers can see exactly which combination of tactics is delivering value.

This data then allows games companies to allocate budget only to the channels and formats that are performing and cut spend on those that aren’t. 

For games titles to be successful in a highly saturated marketplace, successful marketing is a must. No longer can they rely on methods that breach consumer privacy or fail to provide the level of insight required to know precisely which marketing tactics are performing.

For a game to succeed, it’s imperative that it stands apart from the competition through effective marketing. Without this, it could be an endgame before a title even hits the stores.