CASE STUDY | INFLUENCE

GOAT Games unlocks the iOS market with Liftoff Influence

GOAT Games unlocks the iOS market with Liftoff Influence

Overview

Before working with Liftoff Influence, mobile game developer GOAT Games struggled to acquire iOS users at affordable CPIs via traditional advertising networks. Liftoff Influence enabled GOAT to unlock the iOS market for their hit game King’s Throne: Game of Lust at low CPIs with excellent ROAS almost immediately, shooting King’s Throne to Top 9 in the Games category and #1 RPG on the App Store.

Picking the Right Influencers

In GOAT’s first experiment with influencer marketing, they worked with popular YouTube channels. It was difficult to measure results from these campaigns, and they had trouble finding the right influencers. Plus, contacting and negotiating rates with each influencer individually was slow and unscalable.

With Liftoff Influence, GOAT had immediate access to 15,000 influencers across TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat. And they didn’t need to pick the influencers–the influencers picked them! Each influencer chooses campaigns to promote, based on what will work best for their audience. GOAT was surprised to see their game, King’s Throne: Game of Lust, became a massive viral hit on meme pages on Instagram! They hadn’t considered that channel before, since they had seen high CPIs in the past using Facebook Ads.

Since Liftoff Influence charges per install, GOAT was able to scale up their influencer marketing budget confidently. They were able to track all media and review custom ads in one place, so they always had visibility on the most effective strategies. Liftoff Influence also allows CPI adjustments at the publisher level. So GOAT was able reward influencers with strong ROI, and remove the lower-performers.

“Working with Liftoff Influence is a pleasure. Their dedicated and efficient team is always ready to outreach our goals. In our campaign, we saw incredibly fast growth both in volume and ROAS, which makes Liftoff Influence one of the best media sources and leaders in Influencer marketing.”

Alex Cherpak
Senior Global UA and Marketing Lead, GOAT Games

Scaling User Acquisition for iOS

Before working with Liftoff Influence, GOAT had focused its ad spend on Android. CPIs were just too high for iOS on traditional user acquisition channels. A/B testing on Facebook Ads and Google Ads showed that the ROAS for iOS users wasn’t there. Liftoff Influence unlocked the iOS market for King’s Throne with low CPIs and good LTV. This started the flywheel for user growth on a platform they never thought would work!

Liftoff Influence’s optimization approach mirrors that of more traditional programmatic networks. Advertisers have a dedicated team that helps evaluate the effectiveness of bids. This helps us hone in bids that are motivating to influencers, but also deliver ROI (or CPAs) in line with other user acquisition sources.

“Two years ago we were primarily using Facebook and Google for advertising. Android users were cheaper and their LTV’s higher than those of iOS users so we didn’t pay much attention to iOS. Liftoff Influence helped us reach users across both iOS and Android, allowing us to scale up the iOS app following a huge 6x spike in organic growth. With time we started to focus more on iOS. Even after latest iOS 14.5 update, we could still see a lot of potential and value, the results are great!”
Alex Cherpak
Senior Global UA and Marketing Lead, GOAT Games

Boosting Organic Growth

One of the most exciting things about influencer marketing is the halo effect of viral social campaigns. Liftoff Influence’s influencers get paid for results, so they’re alwasys trying to increase the reach of their promotions. This shows in the advertiser’s organic downloads. For GOAT, organic user growth for King’s Throne increased 6x after starting with Liftoff Influence!

With pay-per-install campaigns, GOAT is able to run direct response influencer marketing while keeping an eye on hard ROI. Plus, the benefit from the viral effect of social media as friends share posts and tag each other. It’s the perfect combination that has them seeking more and more volume with Liftoff Influence!