Games released its annual State of Performance Marketing Report, in which it provides insight into which platforms and advertising strategies are effective for game studios. According to his latest findings, optimized marketing revolves around a specific strategy, with different platforms offering different benefits for reaching specific audiences or maintain long-term attention. Report on games on the shows that finding the right platform to advertise on can provide a much better return on investment than a more general approach.
One of the things in the report was the strengths of different platforms. For example, of the two main video-based sites for gamers, Twitch offers 3x higher conversion rates, largely due to its non-stop ad format and targeted approach; while YouTube has a 54% retention rate, one of the highest among ad networks, and better long-term engagement.
Other revelations from the report include the untapped potential of Reddit, which has recently overhauled its advertising system and offers seven-day retention rates of 52%. It also offers hyper-contextual targeted advertising programs and category takeovers that allow marketers to push ads directly to key communities related to their game genre. The report also notes that X (formerly Twitter) is the most effective ad network for reaching a PlayStation-based audience.
Game marketers can meet gamers where they are
Gamesight solution engineer Sam Bonin told GamesBeat how this information can be implemented for game studios: “Ad platforms provide a large number of features for campaign optimization, including traffic targeting -listening, application strategies, and type of investment. Advertisers should experiment with different positions and strategies that suit their preferred audiences… The findings of this report provide high-level insights, which may will vary from game to game, but will help guide advertisers towards the best media mix for their audience.”
The report also analyzes various stats, such as conversion rates and seven-day retention rates, for different platforms. Gamesight calls Google Ads the top network, followed by YouTube and Meta. However, each platform has challenges as well as benefits – the report cites increased scrutiny from trust enforcers as a particular challenge for Google.
Bonin said, referring to the report's note that marketing budgets in 2024 have tightened, “When we consider that advertising budgets have tightened, and spending has moved towards known quantities, this results in a lower total number of ad networks used by advertisers. In previous years, advertisers may have been willing to run ads across a large number of social networks, affiliate marketers, advertising platforms, etc. In 2024, advertisers tended to target the largest/most popular ad networks (ie Google/Meta/TikTok/etc).”
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