MediaBrix Report Reveals Cross-Platform Social Gaming Ads Garner Performance Metrics as Much as 47X Higher Than Other Forms of Digital Advertising; Unveils Benchmarks to Help Brands and Developers Harness the Mobile and F2P Boom
MediaBrix, the leading advertising and services platform for social and mobile games, unveils the third MediaBrix Social and Mobile Gaming Report and reveals that emotional targeting — defined as a way for brand marketers to reach people, elicit positive responses and increase brand connections — increased social gaming performance by 30% on mobile and 15% on the web from 2012 to 2013. At a time when mobile is driving growth in the gaming industry, marketers are looking to reach the massive, engaged audience and game developers are looking for revenue options, this report reveils that emotional targeting outperforms other types of digital and mobile advertising, providing marketers with a digital brand marketing technique that performs and offers developers a monetization solution.
Over the past six months, MediaBrix has compiled benchmark data, resulting in this report and analysis of the performance of cross-platform social gaming advertising campaigns as compared to standard digital and mobile advertising benchmarks. It includes comparison of average click-through rates (CTRs), interaction rates, video ad completion rates, engagement rates and introduces reward acceptance rates. The report contains cross-platform, in-gaming brand advertising industry trends, benefits for brand marketers and developers, game player demographics and a case study from Jackbox Games.
Key report highlights include:
- Social gaming ads see average CTR of 3.8% on the web and 3.2% on mobile — 19X higher than averages for standard online banner ads and 8X higher than mobile ads
- Social gaming value exchange ads see average CTR of of 9.5% on the web and 9.7% on mobile — 47X higher than averages for standard online banner ads and 24X higher than mobile ads
Key trends include:
- Rewards-driven models are fueling the growth of cross-platform social game advertising, as marketer adoption rates of them increased by 61% from Q3 to Q4 of 2013
- The number of marketers embracing value exchange advertising in cross-platform social games tripled from year over year
- The number of marketers embracing video advertising in cross-platform social games more than doubled year over year
Additional findings include:
The key finding on interaction rates from the report is that social and mobile gaming non-video interaction rates are 11.5% on the web and 10.0% on mobile. According to DoubleClick, rich media ads have a 3.3% average interaction rate, while eMarketer supplied data states that mobile HTML5 banners have an average interaction rate of 5.0%.
The key finding on video ad completion rates from the report is that social and mobile gaming value exchange ads see average video completion rates of 89.0% on the web and 83.1% on mobile. In comparison, video ad completion rates on average are roughly 58.0% according to DoubleClick, who defines this metric as “the number of times a video played to its completion.”
The key finding on ad engagement rates from the report is that social and mobile gaming ads see engagement rates of 19.8% on the web and 15.8% on mobile, while in-game value exchange ads see engagement rates of 102.2% on the web and 91.4% on mobile devices. Facebook paid posts engagement rates vary depending on format, according to eMarketer supplied data supplied, while paid photos garner a 5.8% engagement rate and paid offers garner a 4.2% engagement rate.
The key finding on reward acceptance rates from the report is that rewards garner a 63.8% acceptance rate on the web and a 67.9% acceptance rate on mobile. Rewards are delivered to social and mobile game players during moments of “achievement,” such as a new high score or a longest jump, that allows brands to reward players with a virtual good and leverage a positive emotional moment.
“While in-game ad performance already surpasses what standard digital and mobile ads can deliver to brand marketers, we’re ecstatic to validate that emotional targeting deployed via Breakthrough Moments™ takes in-game advertising to an entirely different level,” says Ari Brandt, CEO and Co-founder, MediaBrix.
“This is largely due to the fact that game players are driven by a deep well of emotions — such as elation, nervousness and frustration — when playing games. As a result, it offers brands a chance to target and connect with players at key moments when players experience such emotions and reach them with relevant, targeted messages. Plus, in-games ads offer brands 100% share of voice through 100% viewable ads that make true person-to-brand connections.”
Methodology
The MediaBrix Social and Mobile Gaming Report data was compiled for the time period July 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 across social and mobile games. The MediaBrix benchmarks were calculated by averaging proprietary data collected from over 200 social and mobile gaming advertising campaigns and over one billion impressions. The advertising data was then compared to industry benchmarks supplied by eMarketer and DoubleClick. Please note that social gaming performance rates and metrics may be higher or lower than the data included in the report depending on varying factors including intent, creative, media and other factors.
About MediaBrix
MediaBrix (www.mediabrix.com) powers the industry’s leading advertising and services platform for social and mobile games. Through a suite of proprietary products and analytics, the company delivers immersive brand messages during Breakthrough Moments™ (BTMs™) within games when people are most receptive to marketing messages. Our ads elicit positive emotions by rewarding users and enhancing the user experience during gameplay. As a result, people appreciate the brand’s participation and they develop an emotional connection to the brand. MediaBrix’s campaigns routinely see average video completion rates 84x the industry average and engagement rates as much as 2000% higher than other forms of digital advertising. Hundreds of top brands, including Coca-Cola, MTV and T-Mobile, and many of the world’s largest game developers leverage the MediaBrix platform to provide over 500 million user-friendly BTMs™ to more than 200 million people each month.
