Key UA Differences for Gaming and Non-Gaming Apps
This story originally appeared on the MAF blog.
How often do you hear terms like “app and game industry” and “app and game trends”?
In industry jargon, gaming and non-gaming apps always seem to go hand in hand. While apps and games definitely have a lot in common, they also have many differences that marketers and developers need to understand.
One of them is how they approach user acquisition.
In this article, we’re taking a look at the key differences in user acquisition strategies for gaming and non-gaming apps, and guiding you through the unique approaches they use to attract and retain users.
Targeting Approach
Gaming Apps
Almost everyone with a smartphone has played a mobile game at some point.
Gaming apps have a broad appeal and can attract different users, regardless of their age, gender, location, etc.
Sure, certain games might be more attractive for specific demographics. But, the mobile games market is incredibly diverse, and gaming is generally for everyone.
While mid-core games typically have more defined target groups, games from the casual category have the widest appeal out of all game genres. For example, a puzzle game can be equally attractive to a 20-year-old and a 50-year-old.
For user acquisition, this means that game marketers are free to cast a wide net and create ad campaigns that target a broad range of users.
Non-Gaming Apps
Non-gaming apps typically have more defined target audiences than gaming apps.
For example, it makes perfect sense for finance apps to target 30-year-old adults looking to manage their finances. On the other hand, it hardly makes sense to target teenagers who are yet to earn their first wage and have no finances to manage.
Besides matching the users’ demographics, non-gaming apps should also be relevant to their interests. For example, a health and fitness app should target users who are living a healthy lifestyle or are planning to start one.
Tracking down these specific users is not an easy feat.
To make this happen, non-gaming app marketers craft targeted advertising strategies based on users’ demographics, interests, and behaviors.
User Motivations
Gaming Apps
What motivates users to download a mobile game?
The need for entertainment, relaxation, excitement, and competition — among other things.
When game marketers create UA strategies for gaming apps, they often pay attention to this. Based on these motivations, game marketers can develop ad creatives that resonate with different player personas.
For example, competitive players might get attracted by ads that showcase leaderboards and multiplayer modes. On the other hand, ads with calming visuals might draw in those seeking a way to unwind.
Non-Gaming Apps
In most cases, users download non-gaming apps for practical reasons. For example, because they need a “tool” to help them with productivity, education, fitness, shopping, or something else.
When creating UA strategies for non-gaming apps, marketers often focus on these specific needs and develop ad creatives that highlight the app’s ability to solve a problem or bring value to the user’s everyday life.
Brand Impact
Gaming Apps
Think about it — how much do you care about the brand of the game you’re about to download?
Most users don’t pay attention to this.
The decision to install a game typically happens because the user saw some part of it and found it enticing. There’s also the virality factor, where users download games on a whim because they saw them trending on, for example, TikTok.
In both of these situations, users usually don’t care if they heard about the developer or the title before. Sure, having a famous brand can help attract more users and gain extra attention. However, this is not necessary to create a successful user acquisition strategy.
Non-Gaming Apps
When it comes to non-gaming apps, branding plays a more important role.
Before downloading a non-gaming app, users tend to do some research on benefits and reputation.
If they heard about the brand before, it’s often a done deal.
For example, users are more likely to download a productivity app from a renowned tech company like Microsoft or Google than one from an unknown developer. They associate these brands with quality and reliability, which influences their download decisions.
Due to all this, non-gaming apps can have a higher entry barrier in user acquisition.
This makes it important for app marketers to work on brand presence and reputation, in addition to other UA efforts. While gaming apps don’t significantly profit from brand awareness campaigns, non-gaming apps usually do.
Marketing Channels
Gaming Apps
When someone talks about user acquisition for mobile gaming apps, they usually refer to performance marketing channels like Facebook and TikTok.
This is the golden UA standard for gaming apps.
Promoting mobile games on established ad networks helps game marketers quickly reach a large potential audience.
To achieve this, they produce visually compelling ad creatives featuring gameplay footage, exciting in-game features, and user-generated content.
However, it’s important to note that lately, advertising on these channels has become more costly and competitive. For this reason, more and more game advertisers switched their focus from user quantity to user quality and started to explore alternative marketing channels such as offerwalls.
Non-Gaming Apps
While gaming apps are usually performance-first, non-gaming apps tend to have a more diverse UA approach.
Besides online advertising, non-gaming apps often go offline as well.
Therefore, it’s not unusual to see billboards, TV commercials, and flyers with QR codes to promote non-gaming apps.
While such channels may not bring in direct installs, they help non-gaming apps get some extra awareness and credibility. This is the first step in the classic marketing AIDA model that describes the users’ journey from awareness to interest, and desire to the final step — action (download).
By combining offline and online channels, non-gaming apps can build an omnipresent marketing presence that drives awareness and downloads but also builds long-term brand loyalty and user engagement.
Retention Strategies
Gaming Apps
Retention strategies are essentially an extension of a game’s UA strategy.
Some popular retention strategies for gaming apps include content updates, reward systems, social features, push notifications, etc.
How does all this tie to UA?
UA campaigns for mobile games commonly highlight retention features to attract particular user groups. For example, ad creatives often highlight content updates, social features, storytelling features, etc.
Once these users are acquired, these features help keep them engaged and make them more likely to spend.
Non-Gaming Apps
Non-gaming apps use some of the same retention and monetization strategies as mobile games. For example, push notifications, reward systems, and social features are used for both.
However, non-gaming apps tend to focus more on things like personalized experiences and loyalty programs. This is because app users usually value its practical aspects, personalization, and functionality.
To provide users with a personalized experience from the start, app marketers often leverage deep links in their UA campaigns to drive users directly to the content they are interested in. For example, a travel app might use deep links to take users to deals on destinations they previously searched for.
Monetization Strategies
Gaming Apps
You’re probably aware that gaming apps earn money through in-app ads, in-app purchases and subscriptions. Also, today, a lot of them leverage hybrid monetization, a combination of two or more of these monetization models.
All this revenue is generated within the game and can be measured.
When acquiring a user, developers want to monetize them as quickly as possible before they churn.
Because in-game revenue is completely measurable, game marketers can attribute it to their UA campaigns. They can do this by optimizing their campaigns for revenue KPIs like ROAS, ROI, ARPU, and LTV. Today, there is a big trend of optimizing mobile game campaigns for ROAS, which helps in driving high-value players.
Non-Gaming Apps
When it comes to monetization, non-gaming apps often use a freemium model where users can enjoy basic features for free but need to purchase a subscription to access premium features.
Non-gaming apps can also drive external revenue.
While gaming apps monetize from within, non-gaming apps aren’t always focused on in-app revenue alone. These apps can act as extensions of physical locations and drive offline traffic and sales.
You saw a nice pair of jeans in an ad for Zara and installed the app? Not sure how they’ll fit? You can simply check in-store availability and head to the store to try them on and make the purchase. In this scenario, the Zara app acts as a catalog where users explore options before heading to its physical store.
For these kinds of apps, UA campaigns may achieve the desired goals, but this can’t be directly measured. For this reason, for such apps, it doesn’t make sense to evaluate a campaign’s performance just by looking at revenue metrics.
Closing Thoughts
That’s it, these are the main differences in user acquisition for gaming and non-gaming apps. At MAF, we helped numerous clients from various app categories acquire more users and boost their revenue.
Need help with your UA? Contact us to discuss how we can grow your app or game.
