rewarded video ads - best practices for placements & rewards

PowerPoint Presentation

Rewarded Video Best Practices

Placements & Rewards

2InMobiInMobi is the worlds most powerful mobile advertising platform enabling brands, developers, and publishers to engage mobile consumers globally.

Recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the 50 Disruptive Companies, InMobi reaches over 1 billion mobile uniques across 200 countries.

3AgendaWhat is a Rewarded Video

Recommended - Placements

Best Practices - Rewards

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5What is a Rewarded Video?Is a short video ad format

Around 15 seconds long

Non-skippable video

User opts-in to watch the video in exchange for rewardVirtual goods or in-app gifts

6Anatomy of a Rewarded Video Ad?

Explain the flow of the rewarded video




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8Why Does The Placement Matter?

An ad as an app feature?

Win For All!

Rewarded Video

Gamer

Developer

AdvertiserUser Opt-in Value ExchangeEngagementRetentionRevenue GenerationGuaranteed Quality EngagementPositive Brand Association

Before we deep dive into the recommended placements for Rewarded video ads, lets understand why does the placement matterIn order to make the ads engaging and channelize the game loop, we would need the Ad to become an App Feature. The prevalent ad formats like banner, and interstitial creates a forced experience with limited interactivity. The power of sight, sound and motion of a video is far more interactive experience and coupled with user opt-in creates an ideal environment for user to engage better with the ads.Rewarded Video is that medium which allows an ad to work for you by making users look for them in exchange of the value preferred by them.This creates a win-win situation for all the key stakeholders, the developer, the gamer, and the advertiserThe gamer decides when to engage with the ad in exchange for the rewardFor advertiser it is a quality engagement because the video is HD, instant-play, and the opt-in makes the engagement guaranteed. As the gamer is gaining value out of watching the video, it ends up creating a positive brand association for the advertiser in the gamers mind.The rewarded mechanism boosts the engagement in the game, and these rewards also helps in retention and finally revenue generation.

9Recommended Placement1Start of Gameplay: Boosts

Skyline Skaters - Endless Runner Game

Discoverability - Games with multiple sessions enjoy high CTR

Opportunity - Moderate eCPM and revenue

Frequency - Subsequent session with tight frequency capping

Boost -Gives gamer a strong motive to engage with the ad

Skyline Skaters is an endless runner game, and they give their gamers an option of boost right before the start of gameplay. This helps a gamer in starting the game from an advanced level, and thus creating a strong motive for the user to engage with an ad specially for those gamers who otherwise do not engage with the ad.The first important point is to focus upon the visual design The Call to action has to be visually integrated with the rest of the game as can be seen the example, the same style guide, font, color scheme etc.The Call to action has to communicate clearly why the gamer should engage with it, and what he/ she would gain after watching itDiscoverability - If your app enjoys multiple gameplays within a single app session, this placement gives high CTRs as the likelihood of a user opting-in to watch the video over repeat sessions is very high.Opportunity - Overall, the placement is moderate eCPM and gross revenue opportunity.Frequency - The watch video option should be exposed in subsequent game sessions, and should be limited to five per user, per day. Showcasing ads in the repeat sessions will also allow more time to pre-buffer the video ads, and will avoid the case of a no-show if the user requests for a video. Try to create an environment of scarcity which will prompt users to engage with the ad more.

Doodle Jump DC Super Heroes - Arcade10Recommended Placement2End of Gameplay: Revive

Discoverability - Enjoys high CTR

Opportunity - High eCPM and revenue

Frequency - Ideal - One Watch Video per app session

Revive - Enables gamer to continue within the game without losing the life and starting over

Doodle Jump DC Super Heroes is an arcade game, and the superhero version of the famous Doodle Jump. The doodler here has learnt a trick or two from batman and is now in Gotham city trying to save the stolen crystals against The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, The Joker, The Riddler and more. Here the a gamer barring the pros, keeps on dying on frequent basis. In order to enable a gamer to keep going ahead in the game for every time he dies, Watch a video comes across as a strong retention mechanism.Discoverability - This placement enjoys high CTRs, contributing to overall revenue as the likelihood of a user opting-in to watch the video in order to continue gameplay is very high.Opportunity - Overall the placement is high eCPM, and total revenue opportunity.Frequency - The watch video option should ideally be shown only once during an app session. Otherwise the value of each video view will decrease as the user will opt-in only to increase the length of the gameplay.Reinforcing that why this placement works: native integration and instead of ads floating all around, it is part of the game experience.

11Recommended Placement3Storefront: Virtual CurrencyPayback 2 - The Battle Sandbox - Arcade

Discoverability - Each impression is highly valuable, high CTRs

Opportunity - High eCPM, low revenue

Frequency - Tight frequency cappingThe reward value shouldnt exceed IAP

Virtual Currency -Gives non-payers an opportunity to gain power-ups and progress.

Payback 2 is an arcade game which includes everything from tank battles to high speed helicopter races to huge gang battles. The gamer visits the storefront during the gameplay to buy those quintessential power-ups, crystals, at this point in time the non-payers too can gain access to these in-game virtual currency to progress in the game.Discoverability - This placement has limited exposure as only 1%-5% of users visit storefronts, but each impression is highly valuable in contributing towards high eCPMs.Opportunity - Overall, the placement is high eCPM, low total revenue opportunity.Frequency - It is best to limit the number of rewarded videos to five per day, per user. Also the option of watching the video should be capped in a fashion that the reward value earned doesnt exceed that of in-app purchases.

12Recommended Placement4Upfront Menu: Easy AccessSkyline Skaters - Endless Runner Game

Discoverability - High exposure, high CTR

Opportunity - High eCPM, moderate revenue

Frequency - Tight frequency capping

Easy Access - Reward option exposed right at the start of the game.

Instead of making your user go through multiple hops to finally land on the storefront, expose it at the start of every session. Place ads at the upfront menu, giving non-paying store visitors easy access to watch a video in exchange for rewards like, coins, level up, and so on.Discoverability - The low exposure rate of storefronts can be overcome by presenting users with an upfront storefront or menu. Opportunity - The overall placement is high eCPM. And a significant jump in discoverability makes it a moderate revenue opportunity.Frequency - Similar to the storefront, it is best to limit the number of rewarded videos to five per day, per user.




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14Best Practices: Rewards1Introduce an element of surpriseBeat the Bad Guy - Action

Player taps on Spin

Spins the wheel for surprise reward

Make the experience of receiving rewards even more gratifying by giving gamers multiple reward options to choose from. One can also choose to introduce an element of surprise.For instance in Beat the Bad Guy, where you can whack, shoot, zap and kick the Bad Guy there is an option during the game play where you can spin the wheel and earn reward in terms of coins or feature unlock. The player taps on spin, watches a rewarded video adPost the video ad, the player has to spin the wheel to earn a surprise rewardThis surprise element spikes the engagement amongst the players, as they look out for spin options in the lure of earning rewardsThe multiple rewards also gives the chance to A/B test providing insights for future rewards and for optimizing in-app sales.

15Best Practices: Rewards2Get creative with rewardsTap Titans - Adventure

OR

Reward: Instant Gratification

Rewarded Video Nudge

Instead of relying on the mundane virtual currency, you can incorporate creative rewardsFor instance in Tap Titans, a Game Hive production where you as a hero try to bring peace to the land by vanquishing monsters. All you have to do is tap and tap faster to kill these monster. During the game play occasionally a fairy flies in carrying a reward with her.When the player taps on the fairy, he can either get an option to watch a rewarded video in order to earn the pre-defined reward, or the reward is a free boost in the sword speed (can be very helpful to fight against the master) without any further action from the playerThis essence of creating reward hierarchies always make player to look forward to the arrival of fairy, and is absolutely native to the gameplay.

16Best Practices: Rewards3Personalize the rewards

Two Dots - Puzzle**

**Example for illustration purpose

Relevant Reward

Reward your users based on their progress in the game. For instance you can give loyal users bigger rewards.Taking the example of two dots, a highly addictive game where you join two brave dots as they traverse the arctic tundra, navigate fiery jungles, and plunge the ocean depths. Taking cue from the strategic placements of IAP, imagine you are stuck at a level where you ran out of moves with one ice dot still remaining.At this point in time, if you prompt user (specially for a non-paying user) to watch a video in order to earn an ice pick instead of mundane points, extra lives for future sessions, the gamers intent will be really high to opt-in for this video watch, and the experience will be really gratifying.

Keep the value of rewards lower than that of IAP to avoid cannibalizing the IAPs.17Best Practices: Rewards4Help gamers think IAPGiving out rewards that are similar to those given out for IAPs can nudge users to make purchases to get ahead in the game.

Apply frequency capping on the number of videos shown to the user. This ensures that the user cant circumvent IAP to attain virtual currency valued more than IAP.

Impact on revenue (IAP):

For non-paying users who engage with Rewarded video: avg. 4.5% engage in IAPFor paying users users who engage with Rewarded video: avg. 9% engage in IAP




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rewarded video ads - best practices for placements & rewards

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