Consumers spend upward of three hours a day on mobile devices, but at the same time are increasingly protective of their privacy, and are growing warier and warier of intrusive advertising that disrupts their experience. 

Brand marketers want to reach consumers where they are, but the rise of data protection legislation means that marketers have to get creative to earn the user's attention. And what's more attention-grabbing than a game?

Playable ads are considered to be the most popular mobile ad format, and also the most engaging. They combine interactivity with gamification in an opt-in format and are a must-have in the marketer's toolkit. 

This post will provide you with the top-line insights you need to add playable to your digital marketing plans for 2021 and beyond.

What are playable ads?

Playable ads allow users to try a sample of your app before installing and ultimately gaining access to the entire experience. This requires you to create a significantly scaled-down version of your app's essential features so that users can “try before they buy.”

Playable ads are commonly associated with marketing for mobile games, whereby users can try out the gameplay, get hooked and decide to install. However, other verticals are also finding innovative ways to benefit from highly engaging playable ads.

A snippet of the app's user experience can be enough to encourage users to install, especially when rewarded with in-app purchases and similar rewards to be redeemed in your app. These snippets of gameplay usually take no longer than one minute to complete. Once the preview is over, your ad should display a call to action (CTA)  so that the user can click to install.


Click "Learn More" to drive your apps & games business with ASO World app promotion service now.

How much revenue do playable ads generate?

In the U.S., playable ads generate between $11.00 and $25.00 for every 1,000 impressions served, but these numbers vary by app category and target audience. Casual and hyper-casual publishers tend to drive the highest performance for playable ads, as their players are frequently on the lookout for new gaming experiences.

It's worth noting these audiences also embrace low-cost, high-return ad formats like rewarded video, which makes placement styles that support playables a vital part of any game publisher's monetization strategy.

What are the advantages of playable ads?

Reduce uninstall rates and increase retention
The opportunity to try your app before installing makes playable ads an effective way to engage users. Moreover, the users who decide to install your app will have a clear view of what to expect, consequently decreasing churn and uninstall rates. 

With the chance to experience gameplay highlights before committing to downloading, user retention is also more likely to increase due to playable ads. By attracting users who are likely to be retained for longer, you will increase your audience's lifetime value (LTV) — resulting in better value for every ad dollar spent. 

A Facebook case study shows that playable ads helped mobile games company Me2Zen increase return on ad spend (ROAS)  by 50%, generate x3 as many in-app purchases and decrease their cost per install (CPI) by 9%.

Increased retention and decreased uninstalls 

Allowing users to ‘try before you buy' is undoubtedly a great way to engage them. Further to this, playable ads give users a clear understanding of what the app will deliver before they download it, which helps reduce uninstall rates. Users who download the app based on playable ads are more likely to continue engaging than users who randomly find the app in an app store. 

This is because the former know what to expect from the app, generating more high lifetime (LTV) users who are also more likely to make subsequent in-app purchases. This helps advertisers increase their ROI by filtering users who wouldn't enjoy the app and decreasing ad spend that would otherwise be wasted on acquiring low LTV users. While the cost per install may be slightly higher than a standard banner ad, playable ads are great for acquiring high-quality users, ultimately paying off in the long run.

Access to advanced analytics

Unlike standard banner ads,  playable ads offer publishers and advertisers comprehensive analytics data in real-time- from why a user likes an ad to why they installed it.  This is because there are more moving parts to optimize and track. 

For example, advertisers can track how many people are downloading a mobile game or app based on how difficult the playable ad preview is to win. This information, and related content, means playable ads can be tested, tweaked, and optimized for maximum user retention rates. 

Gain access to valuable data insights

Playable ad developers can also offer advertisers data that you can use to identify behavioral trends and other insights that can help optimize your campaigns. For example, you can learn the type of user that will engage with your ads and which CTA works best for driving conversions.

Optimizing your playable ads

Once you have created your playable ads, it is vital to test them and optimize them over time. A/B testing is critical to improving your click through rate (CTR) and ROAS.

A/B testing is an ongoing process that requires you to create variants of your ads and expose each variant to lookalike audience groups. The aim is to discover which variant delivers the best results so that you can use it for a larger audience – optimizing for success and saving you money further down the line. There are five steps to A/B testing.

Develop a hypothesis: You need to research and analyze the data you have to develop your theory. For example, knowing what the most popular in-app purchases are and which gaming level is most popular with your audience will help you define which variable you should test.
Segment your audience: Create two audience groups that show the same behavior. This is critical to having confidence in the results of your A/B test. The more similar these groups are, the easier it will be to identify your variants' impact.
Analysis: After running campaigns for both groups, you can analyze the results and see which variant delivered the desired results.

Implement changes: Optimize your playable ads by making changes based on your analysis.
Adapt your hypothesis and repeat: You can now continue to optimize your ads by testing a new variant. Over time, you can increase your playable ads' efficacy, ensuring that you consistently drive conversions from high-value users.

Playable ads: best practice

For publishers and advertisers looking to serve playable ads, rather than banner ads or typical video ads, it is important to understand best practice, ensuring the ad meets KPIs, and drives performance for brands.

Stay on brand 

As with any marketing campaign, it is essential that playable ads stay on brand, maintain consistency and have a clear call to action (CTA). Providing users with a simple and straightforward experience that avoids too many flashy distractions will help drive users to take action- which is the ultimate goal of playable ads.

Make it Intuitive

Ideally, playables should be inherently intuitive to use. Players should instinctively understand how the game operates so they can begin interacting with the ad immediately. Developers should look to the iOS App Store and Google Play for the most popular games to draw inspiration from.

Know your demographics 

Advertisers must understand their target audience when creating playable ads. Understanding their audience's demographics allows advertisers to target them with playable ads that will captivate and engage high lifetime users.

Keep it short and sweet

At the end of the day, the playable ad experience should be fun. Whether you are advertising mobile games on Facebook or creating playable ads to build brand awareness, the principle here is the same, keep it short and sweet. It is critical to remember that although playable ads can be a fun experience, they are ultimately ads, and if gameplay lasts too long, they may become intrusive. Keeping gameplay to under one minute is a good rule of thumb. Similarly, keeping the tutorial prompt concise and to the point will work well with this ad format.

Test track and optimize

With advanced analytics on hand, advertisers would be neglectful if they didn't use these valuable resources to gain insight into their user base. 

Firstly, A/B test which variable within the playable drives the most action.

Secondly, track the first-party data to determine which creative format will drive the company's KPIs.

Next, optimize the ad's playable creative in real-time so target audiences receive the iteration of the ad best suited to them.
Finally, repeat!

Playable ads have many advantages over other ad formats. Borne from technological advances and an ever-increasing move to the mobile marketplace, ads that users can play create an interactive experience that is scalable, authentic, and effective.