Seeking Game Promotion Wisdom: What's Your Go-To Strategy?
geoascencio
Member, PRO Posts: 67
Hello everyone, I recently released my first game and just wanted to tap into the collective wisdom of this community and hear about your experiences.
What strategies have you found most effective in promoting your games? Have any of you experimented with Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or TikTok ads? Or did anyone find any success with marketing/PR services?
Any recommendations or tips would be incredibly valuable to me as I navigate this exciting journey. And my apologies if this question has been asked before.
Thanks in advance for your input!
Comments
My best advice, don't pay for advertising (rip-off), but find a way for your users to do the marketing for you.
This could be by suggesting they share screengrabs/high scores/achievements via social media etc. If you can get an engaged community it will market itself.
My advice is to pay for ads. On Android, use Facebook to get cheap installs (< .15 cents).
Dropping ads on a game that doesn't have a defined market means some level of 'shooting in the dark'... you'll need a big budget. Build a product for a specific audience, and let that audience play, love and talk about your game.
Take this game I'm working on with a client. Her market is clearly defined, and she's solving a problem with her product.
https://www.reddit.com/r/fuseboxgames/comments/1ae8yad/ive_completed_the_demo_for_my_game_if_you_want_to/?share_id=q1F7B27S9nOegZIPoYcMg&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1
The benefit of having an engaged audience like this is that you can fine-tune and polish your product so that an ad campaign thereafter will attract MORE of the same type of gamers.
The risk of doing it the other way around (just dropping money on Ads) is that yes, it may get downloads, but may also get deleted WITHOUT any feedback to you as to what's going wrong or what they didn't like.
A great free approach would be to study keywords. Take for example this game I'm managing for another client. Two years without 1 download. Now, with a re-launched game and 2 months of keyword optimization, she's getting constant downloads and sales.
GameSalad Templates and Custom Development at the Official Marketplace: http://gshelper.com
I think what @uptimistik said is mostly true, but you must work with your personality. I can't imagine starting a Reddit group and building a community. I am just not built that way, nor do I want to do that. I sometimes build apps just for fun, but I usually build one in a category where people are already looking for games. Examples of this are word puzzles and city building.
I then pay a very small amount for advertising, sometimes as little as $10 a month, and at most $300 a month to buy cheap installs. I also do ASO with free services and a spreadsheet. I have done this multiple times for years, and some apps don't catch on (by-catch on, I mean $500 a month), and I remove them). It might not be the glimmer and glitter of a top hit game, but it is honest money.
Thank you all for your responses and valuable insights!! I'll keep you guys updated on what I've tried and what worked best for me!! Thanks again!
Hi @adriangomez , how do you manage to track app install? Is it possible with Gamesalad? 😮
Check out my games: https://tumblecoinstudios.com/
It looks as though he’s using https://tenjin.com/ personally I’ve never implemented it.
GameSalad Templates and Custom Development at the Official Marketplace: http://gshelper.com
Yeah I was wondering if there was a way to report install to "X, Facebook, Google" without the need for an SDK, since as far as I know (although I barely know about this) is that in order to do a Cost Per Install campaign you need to have the sdk of a partner of this services installed on your game. Maybe Tenjin is different, but, I looked at it, and there was the need for an sdk. But, to be honest I barely understand it and it was a superficial search. 😅
Check out my games: https://tumblecoinstudios.com/
From what we know paying works, but there's a threshold, you have to have deep pockets to push your game over the noise now-a-days (for instance when talking to people about web site social media marketing, we've heard we need to spend at least $5k and preferably $15k to get results.
@RedRobo's advice is spot on if you're smaller. Build a community, get them to evangelize. Maybe try to get the attention of some influencers and hope to get lucky there (or find one that hits your target market very well and try to get them into it).
Cold email review sites and let's play twitchers maybe (though I'm assuming that doesn't work as well, now that there's an ecosystem of representatives for that kind of thing).
@Tumblecoin Game Studios , we don't have individual integrations, but if you enable IronSource, I believe install tracking comes with it for Facebook and Admob ads.
thanks! 👍️
Check out my games: https://tumblecoinstudios.com/