How Liftoff Uses Creative Intelligence to Drive ROAS for Casual Game Marketers
Improve your ad campaign performance with our proprietary mix of computer vision technology and creative expertise.
Casual games like Candy Crush Saga and Homescapes have long dominated app store charts. With casual game IAP monetization trends like metagame layers injecting new cash flows into what was once an ad-dominated revenue space, it’s never been a more potentially lucrative time to try and carve out your share of the casual sector.
That also means the competition has never been more fierce. Not only do you need to find interested new players, but you also need to advertise your casual game’s appeal in such a way that they’re likely to stay engaged long-term — ideally boosting ROAS and improving your bottom line for quarters to come.
That’s where Liftoff Creative Intelligence comes in. With our unique combination of proprietary computer vision technology and over 10 years of mobile ad creative design experience, we’re here to help you meet and exceed your advertising goals. Here’s how it works.
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How does Creative Intelligence work?
How Creative Intelligence helps you reach casual game players
Put Creative Intelligence to work for your portfolio
How does Creative Intelligence work?
Liftoff’s Creative Intelligence takes a hybrid approach to ad campaign development that’s built on equal parts proprietary tech and hard-won creative expertise. The first part of the process uses our VisualMind computer vision system, which has been trained to systematically assess games based on their underlying Motivational Drivers (more on those below). We’ve run all the top-performing games in the apps stores through VisualMind, and we bring all that data to bear in assessing your ad.
You’re probably wondering what Motivational Drivers are, and the answer is simple: They’re a concise, comprehensive measurement system we created to explain why people play games. Here’s the full list of 12, broken down by the six broader categories and two individual drivers within each.
- Escapism
- Excitement & Thrill
- Thinking & Solving
- Exploration
- Collecting Treasure
- Discovering New Worlds
- Expression
- Customization & Decoration
- Role-playing & Emotions
- Management
- Resource Optimization
- Strategic Planning
- Mastery
- Completing Milestones
- Improving Skills
- Social
- Competing Against Others
- Working With Others
The next step in the process is to compare how the Motivational Drivers expressed by your game to the Motivational Drivers expressed by your ads. Any significant discrepancies between the two sets of driver scores mean your ads aren’t optimally conveying your game’s appeal. For instance, the ad for your word puzzle game may focus on Competing Against Others, while VisualMind finds your game rates much higher on the Completing Milestones driver. This mismatch can lead to frustration from new players who feel they aren’t getting the game they were advertised, or even prevent players who would have installed your game from ever trying it in the first place.
If you’re trying to establish your casual game as a contender in one of the most crowded and competitive markets in mobile gaming, you have to show people exactly why your game is the one to play next. That’s where the talented professionals of Liftoff Creative Studio step in. Motivational Driver scores in hand, they carefully optimize your mobile ad to convey the true appeal of your game as effectively as possible. Multivariate tests prove the majority of ads that go through this process yield a superior ROAS over those that don’t — and your new players will be pleased to find they’re getting exactly what your ad promised.
How Creative Intelligence helps you reach casual game players
According to a 2019 survey, 46% of casual players are aged 23 to 36, with 16-to-22-year-olds and 37-to-55-year-olds accounting for another 25% each. This lines up with research that indicates puzzle and word games — two of the most prominent genres within the casual category — are largely played by millennials, while word games tend to also be popular with younger audiences. So how can Creative Intelligence help you capture more of these fiercely-contested demographics?
Let’s bring it all together with an illustrative example. Say you’re the publisher of a hot new puzzler called Bust-A-Merge, and you know it has everything it needs to be a winner: a strong core gameplay loop, fun visuals, and compelling meta layers to keep casual players coming back and spending more. However, your latest ad campaign just isn’t hitting expected goals.
You decide to contact Liftoff to see if we can help, and we put your existing ad creative through Creative Intelligence. First off, VisualMind finds that Bust-A-Merge itself does deliver a fun puzzle experience, scoring a 9 on the Thinking & Solving Motivational Driver. The problem becomes clear as we see your current ads only rate at a four on the same driver. Then the Liftoff Creative Studio team comes in with the solution, using their ad expertise to optimize your ad against our now-measurable goals.
Players see exactly why they should install Bust-A-Merge and stick around once they do, your ROAS goes up as your IAP conversions and ad revenue start to climb.
Put Creative Intelligence to work for your portfolio
Even if you have the best new casual game of 2022, standing out from your well-established competition will be an uphill battle. The same goes for stalwarts of the category trying to expand their audience. You need a unique yet proven solution to make your game stand out, and that’s exactly what Creative Intelligence delivers.
If you want to start improving ad campaigns and driving ROAS for your casual game, we’re ready to help. Reach out today to learn how Liftoff can help your mobile game ads deliver the perfect message every time.
