8 mobile game marketing trends for 2015

As the mobile gaming market continues to grow across the globe, in-app advertising is also gaining momentum. This new area of mobile game marketing has acquired new focus, with marketers concentrating on the trends that are going to unfold in 2015. Mobile game marketing — and particularly in-app advertisements — is a new vertical that has already shown huge growth opportunities, and the reasons are obvious for why this will continue to be the hot marketing avenue for the coming year.

Here are some important predictions concerning the mobile game marketing trends for 2015

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1. Greater focus on video

With video previews on YouTube and other video-sharing apps continuing to boom, mobile games advertising on such apps is gaining in popularity. YouTube and other video advertising is the fastest growing segment, and their effectiveness has already proven higher than banner ads and other advertising options. Videos enjoy far better views because are more engaging and direct compared to other forms of ads.

2. Stronger focus on social integration

Leveraging the popularity of a game through social media is already a common tactic, and naturally, it makes social media easier to go viral. Rigorous social media integration driven toward viral sharing will ultimately add enough value to user preferences, and at the same time, this offers far better return on investment (ROI) for the marketers. Once a game goes viral, accompanying ads quickly reaches million views and offer far better business promotion, and without rigorous social media integration, it’s almost impossible to accomplish this.

3. Major global names partnering with locals for better reach

It is increasingly becoming a common trend for the major publishers to partner with regional apps that have potential to take attention of global audience. Various global players are taking interest in apps that have been limited to their regions. This dominant trend has two faces. In the one hand, world-renown games are partnering with regional brands to make inroads into various regions. And now lesser-known games can be ambitious to partner with global brands making their gaming excellence meet the top end marketing partnership. 

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4. A shift in traditional advertisement attributes

Ads are shifting their approach and targeting maneuvers, just as devices and apps are also going through rapid evolution. Today, even paying or offering incentives to the audience for watching ads or rating them is increasingly being popular. Similarly, offering users choice for filtering ads will make them feel more comfortable with them. Another major stress is on the native advertising and localization aspects of ads and taking search engine lead just by helping audiences find what they need. Ads will continue to be more natural and organic, with a focus on helping the users finding their needful with local attributes. 

5. Hitting app store ranks is harder than ever

Major players like King, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook continue to enjoy top positions in the app store ranks. Naturally, with a number of apps from big players gaining top ranks, it’s harder than ever for new or lesser known apps to gain higher ranks. On the merits of quality and user experience alone, it’s difficult to reach top search ranks — the major players just have too many apps. Leveraging the brand reputation with array of apps has been a strategy for many big companies for some time, and it has only made things more competitive for the new apps.

6. More focused and rigorous drive of monetization

A few prominent trends tell us that in the time to come, rigorous monetization will drive the in-app marketing in more than one way. We have already seen that tablets are losing sales compared to phablets, which are now taking the lead — and this gives marketers a bigger opportunity for offering their ads on big screens with rich visual attributes. Cost per impression (CPM) continues to grow, making monetization of ads a powerful force for the marketers. 

7. Enhanced user control on advertisements

The old strategy of forcing users to watch ads is no longer effective, and increasingly, ads are going to offer more control to users. It has been a consistent experience by most marketers that users become more receptive to ads that offer them more freedom of choice or offer them incentives or just give them chance to rank ads or just openly declare their opinions about ads. Naturally, this typical focus on engaging users and offering them better control on ads is a trend that is continuing to be stronger in the time to come. Giving users the options of ad types, ad timing, and control over the overall exposure to ads will ultimately make them more receptive and responsive to ads. 

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8. Targeting specific users

You no longer can expect a better result with your ads with all-in-one strategy. Going specific and targeting user preferences at micro-level is often the key to gain inroads and make an impression that converts to better business. A wide range of tools are available for marketers to understand the wants of users. Once you know what users want at various levels, you can classify, make priorities and make ads better by addressing user preferences at granular level. This user specific approach to advertisement is the latest dominant trend that no time soon will fade away. You can drive ad campaigns in social media or ad networks with this granular targeting. This actually enhances user engagement and only shows ads in a responsive and effective manner.

The above mentioned mobile marketing trends in the coming year will help you ensure that ads are going to be more responsive, engaging, and fun rather than forceful marketing maneuvers that users always prefer to pass on.

Chirag Leuva is a CEO at Yudiz Solutions. His experience includes programming and development of Android games. He loves writing about his insights into the Android ecosystem and sharing his views with like-minded people.