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[nicolasfromprovence]

Hi,

I have an independent game project, and I was looking at doing a little bit of paid marketing for my game, which will have a retail price in the $20 price range.

However, having experimented a little bit with a major provider, I came at rate per click of around $1 (sometimes half, sometimes double).

I wonder how one can make money with such rates, as the conversion rate for games is probably in the single digits (I would expect one out of 20 people who click on the link actually buy the game).

Does anyone has experience with online adds ? Is it completely off-limit to indie game developers ?

[wolfsden]

I'm wondering the same thing. I've been pondering if ads are worth it for indie devs.

We need a master thread for ads lol

[wolf]

My experience is mostly in mobile, but hopefully some of it is transferable.

Testing lots and lots of creative got us the best results (anywhere from 5 to dozens to 100). Highlight a different character / feature / angle on your game. Especially key in the first couple seconds as the viewer decides whether to stop and watch or keep scrolling. Chances are there is a different video that you haven't discovered yet that people will respond to better and bring your cost down, sometimes dramatically so.

Trying different providers was less successful. Good at extending the reach of already successful products but less impactful in the early stages. Similar with targeting settings. Assuming major provider is FB, hard to beat their algorithmic targeting.

Unfortunately also had to learn a hard lesson that not every product can be advertised profitably at scale. We would test early and quickly kill products that can't hit certain cost per install metrics. But that was a very profit oriented view. For an indie passion product that can be less important and a different approach like grassroots / community driven promotion may work better!

[Patiron]

We advertised on Facebook, and it worked. First we advertised the main page of the game on Facebook, then we made it so you could go in and download it, up to that point the audience was interested. Unfortunately, Facebook Business didn't keep the settings and analytics, but we were happy with the result then.