Harry Phillips is Creative Strategist at Product Madness. He started in the mobile gaming industry at Outplay as a Campaign Manager working on the UA team across their midcore titles. Notably, he led the launch of Sniper Strike. In 2019, Harry moved to Product Madness as a UA Manager, joining their growth team. He focused on social channels across hit titles Cashman Casino and Lightning Link before being promoted to Senior UA Manager. In 2022, he pivoted to creative and began working as a Creative Strategist.
AI is the buzzword of early 2023. I know what you’re thinking—why not ask ChatGPT how to integrate automation and AI into your mobile ad creative strategy? Well, maybe I did but we’ll address that at the end of the article. For now, let's go back to the fundamentals.
Automation—particularly AI—is still in its infancy, but you can start leveraging AI now while preparing for the future of creative. As companies scramble to drive real value from these new technologies, here are a few ways to integrate AI and automation into your mobile creative strategy now.
Testing
Testing is the first checkpoint, especially for automation. Testing can be a long, time-consuming process. Your team might be launching split tests on Facebook or hoping the lessons from a social channel apply to other channels and ad placements. Add to this the different methods and campaign setups UA managers use, and it’s hard—if not impossible—to build a bank of consistent test data.
This is where automation comes in. With automation and the right partners (such as Blkbox), you can pass over your creative and receive winners in return. And with such tools, you will free up time to focus on understanding your audience or tailoring your messaging to help stand out amongst the competition.
However, only some teams have the budget to run the necessary tests for each campaign. That’s where predictive analytics can come in. It enables your team to analyze your creative and determine its likelihood for success based on historical performance, potentially saving mobile marketing teams a fortune in test spend.
Analytics
Once you’ve automated creative testing, you’ll have more time to dive into analytics and benefit from the advances in AI. Notably, AI creative tagging tools such as Replai and Alison AI.
Tagging is great, in theory. Plug your creatives into your chosen tool, and you will receive valuable data about each element of your creative. You can optimize for background colors, characters, gameplay sequences, and CTAs to improve your KPIs. Automating tagging saves you time. You no longer have to sift through trends or manually tag your creative. It also enables you to parse your creative with greater granularity.
But there are drawbacks. You must apply multiple filters to ensure you’re seeing accurate results. A single creative can be used to optimize for various events across multiple geos. Pre- and post-install KPIs and placements will impact metrics and performance. You will need to drill down to the details to guarantee a consistent data sample.
But as we experiment with these tools, we’ll likely find ways to drive value from them. One opportunity is competitor tagging. You can now instantly compare your creative tags to your competitors to see what works for them. You can also monitor their strategies—which creatives drive the most impressions, what messages they focus on, etc. This is incredibly valuable in a competitive environment where your every move matters.
Production
Finally, let’s look at how automation can impact production. We’ve seen what AI can do with images. The possibilities for testing new concepts are now endless. For genres like hypercasual, you can instantly test any concept that comes to mind and see how an audience responds to it. AI for image generation has enormous potential—but you must know what you’re looking for.
AI-generated images can also help promote existing games by freeing up how designers spend their time. Rather than spending hours creating variants of existing creatives, design teams can focus on where they can drive value. They can put their skills to good use by animating or innovating new concepts.
What’s next?
I hope my summary has sparked your imagination. We are at the start of what will be an exciting ride. As we continue to figure out different ways to drive value from AI and automation, and I for one am excited to see where it takes us.
Oh, and I did ask ChatGPT. Here’s what it had to say:
The mobile gaming industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years. With millions of users spending hours on their devices playing games, mobile gaming companies are in a unique position to reach a large and engaged audience. However, in order to effectively market their games to these users, companies need to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to technology and marketing tactics. One way to do this is by incorporating automation and artificial intelligence (AI) into their mobile marketing creative strategy.
Here are a few ways that mobile gaming companies can integrate automation and AI into their mobile marketing efforts:
- Personalization: One of the biggest advantages of using automation and AI in mobile marketing is the ability to personalize the user experience. By collecting data on users' behaviour and preferences, companies can tailor their marketing messages and promotions to specific segments of their audience. This leads to higher engagement rates, as users are more likely to respond to content that is relevant to their interests.
- Predictive Analytics: Predictive analytics can be used to analyse user behavior and predict which users are most likely to make a purchase or take a specific action. This information can then be used to target these users with tailored marketing messages and promotions. For example, a mobile gaming company might use predictive analytics to identify users who are likely to make an in-app purchase and target them with special offers.
- Dynamic Creative Optimization: Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is a process that uses AI to optimize the content of a marketing message in real-time. This allows companies to test and refine their messages based on their performance, leading to higher engagement rates and conversions. In the mobile gaming industry, DCO can be used to optimize the content of in-app advertisements, push notifications, and other marketing messages.
- Chatbots: Chatbots are a form of AI that can be used to interact with users in real-time. In the mobile gaming industry, chatbots can be used to answer user questions, provide support, and even promote games. By automating these interactions, companies can save time and resources while providing a more personalized experience for their users.
By incorporating automation and AI into their mobile marketing creative strategy, mobile gaming companies can more effectively reach and engage their audience. Whether it's through personalized content, predictive analytics, dynamic creative optimization, or chatbots, these technologies can help companies stay ahead of the curve and drive growth for their business.
In conclusion, mobile gaming companies that embrace automation and AI will likely be better positioned to reach and engage their target audience. By leveraging these technologies, companies can provide a more personalized and effective mobile marketing experience, which can ultimately lead to increased conversions and revenue.
Honestly, I’m impressed—a little scared—but mainly just impressed.