Why mobile game developers need to lean into Q5 marketing … right now

This article is part of a Gaming Insights series paid for by Meta.

Revenue soars over the holiday season — but the marketing opportunities don’t end when the holidays do. After the gifts are unwrapped and the Chinese takeout is demolished, consumers are back out there looking for post-holiday sales and discounts, returning those disappointing gifts, and buying themselves something nice with all the gift cards and cash in their pockets. In fact, a full 41% of holiday shoppers say their shopping continues past the season¹.

It’s the period some marketers call the fifth quarter (Q5), and it offers critical, cost-effective opportunities for app and game developers. Meta’s performance trend data on the post-holiday period shows that in January, CPM rates were on average -15% below their October 1st levels, average CPAs were down -4%, while average CVR was down -8%². Media costs are lower while demand is high, letting app developers end the current year strong and start the new year big.

What’s in it for game developers?

Meta partnered with AppsFlyer, the global leader in marketing measurement, attribution and data analytics, to better understand the potential for gaming advertisers across the casual, casino, midcore and hypercasual genres. There were three essential takeaways:

1. Developers can capitalize on this opportunity with the window opening before Christmas and running until January. If we look at the app install ad spend trends by genre, hypercasual games stand out. 

In the U.S. and U.K. markets, hypercasual advertisers started scaling their investments around mid-November/early-December and doubled-down a week before Christmas. 

2. In the U.S. and U.K., marketing and revenue spikes around the Christmas and New Year periods, while in APAC, and Japan specifically, marketers are focusing efforts around local holidays such as Shogatsu (New Year).

3. Notably, app sessions experienced a significant uptick during the Q5 period, led by a substantial surge on Christmas Day as users find new phones under the tree. There’s often plenty of downtime for gamers during this period, which also means greater install volumes, new app usage, and plenty of dwell time.

Capitalizing on the Q5 opportunity

To maximise the Q5 opportunity, preparation is key — which means developing a strategic, data-informed approach to monetization and user acquisition. That means running tests on creative, reels and more before the holidays, as well as implementing the 5 key approaches below.

1. Minimize campaign changes and broaden your targeting

When a campaign starts running, each ad set goes through an initial “learning phase.” Avoid significant changes in this phase to accelerate learning and maximize post-holiday investments.

From there, consolidate your campaigns and target the broadest possible audiences which allows you to move from your assumed audience to your discovered audience — and tap into the segment of the population that’s deep in the holiday spirit.

2. Automate for better performance

Automation lets you optimize across multiple campaign levers including creative, targeting, placement and budget. Leverage solutions like Advantage+ App Campaigns, which uses machine learning to drive significant performance improvement — but make sure you’ve uploaded enough creatives to allow the algorithm to optimize, and avoid significant edits during the Q5 season.

A targeting solution like Advantage+ audience, which started rolling out early in Q4, can help you discover new audiences, and lower auction costs, making the post-holiday period a great time to dive in. You’ll get ads delivered to your preferred audience, while the solution uses AI to uncover likely new potential customers.

3. Diversify your creatives

Everyone has their own individual reasons for buying the same product, and Q5 is the perfect time to differentiate your creative to speak to a broad array of buying motivations. Some tactics to consider include:

• Developing creatives that touch on the post-holiday possibilities that consumers love, such as sales and discounts, self-gifting, New Year’s resolutions or social good
• Partnering with creators to bring new ideas to your media, such as promoting products similar to those purchased during the holidays
• Repurposing your best-performing holiday creative with light tweaks to reduce creative fatigue

4. Add custom product pages

A Custom Product Page lets you finish the story your ads began. Create a Q5 Custom Product Page to highlight your special offer during Q5 and deliver a compelling, engaging holiday message that really resonates.

5. Add Reels to your Q5 creative strategy

Native Reels creatives offer higher delivery and overall better performance on Reels across all placements, and Q5 is a great time to experiment with the ways they can extend your reach and grow your brand.

Despite the drop in ad costs, the number of consumers still shopping and less competition for consumer attention, Q5 remains an untapped opportunity. It is the perfect time for game marketers to leverage new tools & strategies, to experiment, to iterate, to optimize and most importantly to grow their business.

For more information on the ways in which Meta can help you to achieve your business goals, visit our gaming industry page here.

Alex Lapitski is Client Partner, Gaming EMEA at Meta. Shani Rosenfelder is Director of Global Content Strategy & Market Insights at AppsFlyer.

Source: 1. “Meta Seasonal Holidays Study” by YouGov (Meta-commissioned online study of 38,548 holiday shoppers aged 18+ across 31 markets: AE, AR, AU, BR, CA, CZ, DE, DK, ES, HK, ID, IT, FR, JP, KR, MY, MX, NL, PH, PL, PK, SA, SG, TH, TR, TW, SE, UK, US, VN, ZA). Minimum N=1000 per market, Dec 2022.
Source 2: . Meta internal data, Q4 2022. Values normalized so October 1 = 1 for each metric.

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