The Ad Is the Casino Floor | Nick Talarico
•Download as PPTX, PDF•
0 likes•263 views
Delivered at Casual Connect Tel Aviv 2016. More than ever, social slots products are mimicking casino-quality content. However, social slots developers aren't mimicking casino environments when growing their apps. This session will explore how.
Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to The Ad Is the Casino Floor | Nick Talarico
Similar to The Ad Is the Casino Floor | Nick Talarico (20)
More from Jessica Tams
More from Jessica Tams (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
The Ad Is the Casino Floor | Nick Talarico
- 1. The *Ad* is the New Entry Point Nicholas Talarico Founder & CEO Super Lucky
- 2. 2
- 3. Some Context & Assumptions • lightly-funded • casino-style content • but, no RMG content • games that justify UA spend • you accept that many/most of your paid UA comes from other slots apps • you accept that there’s no bulk discount in UA; CPIs increase as spend scales
- 4. Steady State: Casino Floor = App Stores =
- 5. …but • enters their app / the app store • scrolls lobby / charts for the machine of their choice • same • same • same... • enters the casino • scans the floor for the machine of their choice • plays • becomes open to change if: • current machine is unlucky • just wants a change • chooses by scanning for: • recognized • Interesting Simplified Slots Player Behavior
- 7. Focus on UA isn’t Anything New • top advertisers: • large teams of designers & UA managers • thousands of designs • hundreds of millions of dollars annually
- 8. But We Noticed that, as Time Went On: • CTRs dropped • CVRs dropped • and correspondingly, CPIs increased $- $2.00 $4.00 $6.00 $8.00 $10.00 $12.00 $14.00 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00 12.00 14.00 CTR, CVR, & CPI over time CTR CVR CPI
- 9. Our First Step was to Keep Things Fresh
- 10. Lots of Machines in our Network
- 11. And Therefore, Lots of Ads as Entries
- 12. It’s the Network, not the App AD AD AD AD AD ADAD AD AD AD AD AD AD AD AD
- 13. We Were Auditioning Themes
- 14. ...And Also Quickly Testing New Slots
- 15. Lots of Information • which ads/themes attract a lot of people • what play type is attracted by ad/theme • what math types retain players who come in on which themes • what math types monetize players who come in on which themes • when players come in on X theme, what’s the best theme to move them to • combine it all to attract a lot of high-quality players
- 16. Comes With Drawbacks • tech • machine design • assets • ads • UA / campaign management • economic
- 18. Machine Design Variations
- 19. Assets Not Much You Can Do UA team ads PM design director designers
- 20. Ads Designers in the Data
- 21. UA / Campaign Management Tools • PROGRAMMATIC BIDDING • launching • bidding up / down • pausing • audience creation • WORKFLOW TOOLS • uploading ad creative • permutation assembly
- 22. Economy Tune Holistically • while the multiplication of some things is GOOD: • entry points • various machines • ad creative • our strategy does multiply some things that are BAD (or at least pose a challenge): • free login collect • big wins • ability to play for free in network We try to view our economy holistically, as well as discretely.
- 23. In Summary • Fresh creative keeps CTRs & CVRs up, CPIs steady • No better way to keep creative fresh than with more content • More content allows you to maintain CPIs as you scale spend • …but also allows you to test all sorts of new machines • Network effect is massive • Comes with drawbacks, but there are some efficient ways of managing them
Editor's Notes
- [5.5 yrs old] [based in SF] [social casino only] [mobile only] [DIS-integrated casino] [slots engine]
- In the physical world, when people want to play slots, they go to a casino. In the mobile world, they go to their phones. They either have their favorite machines, or they’re looking to try new ones. In the case of the latter, the casino floor is the app store.
- In a digital environment, you have a *chance* to get an ad in front of a player before they stand up and scan the room (Or you serve an ad to a player when they aren’t currently in “slots mode.”) This both caters to and (to a certain extent) controls lack of player fidelity. Far more control than in the physical world.
- Auctions and ad tech bidding on CPM removes the notion of bulk discount. If you want more units, you have to bid MORE on a per-unit basis. Makes it difficult – or at least expensive – to scale. Over time, especially if you’re spending aggressively, and especially in a niche market like social casino, ads fatigue. It’s one of the most key things we all fight against if we’re spending marketing money to scale.
- At first, we iterated on ads for a smaller sample of machines. But eventually, it was just more efficient to make ads for different machines. And from there, we realized we needed lots more machines.
- So we started adding machines. We didn’t want to speed up the app-level content cadence, so we needed more apps. Pretty soon we had well over 250 machines in the wild.
- We can keep CTRs and CVRs pretty steady, thus maintaining CPIs as we scale spend (normally the inverse happens). So If normally, your CPI needs to go from $8 to $14 to get spend to go from $50K/day to $100K/day, we can spend $100K/day at $9 CPIs (illustrative examples only). So we get a lot more installs than we would if we had a single entry point, both on organics, but also on paid installs.
- We don’t view it as an app with ~40 machines. We view it as a full network, with >265 machines and hundreds of entry points, via ~8+ apps. We can shift users around and track their behavior between apps AND between machines.
- We were effectively auditioning themes. And once we knew matched the themes with the people who were responding to them, we found some magic.
- Test tons of new slots, very quickly & very affordably. Some machines monetize well. Others don’t. Some apply to one subset of players and other apply to other subsets.
- We know what themes appeal to which users and which types of various machines to combine with each. This style of art is more liked by high-volatility players? Put it on a new high volatility machine and you’ll get some results really quickly. This subset of players has played for 7 days without spending? Serve them (retarg or xpromo) an ad for a new machine with a similar theme to the one they originally came in on.
- Supporting 8+ disparate apps, each with 30+ machines would be foolish. To maintain true variety, you need a lot of unique designs. To utilize all those designs, you need a LOT of art. To advertise all those machines, you need a LOT of ads. To properly manage all those campaigns, you need to spend a lot of person-hours on UA.
- But bodies, too.
- But allow team to be creative.
- Our UA team is design heavy, but the designers view the data and iterate / evolve from there.