Appier: “Game Ads Must Be Judged by Their Real Contribution, Not Just Installs and Revenue” – 더글로벌기빙뉴스

ENGLISH
ASIAN
In the gaming ad market, the focus is shifting beyond the number of installs and return on ad spend (ROAS) to “incrementality”—measuring how much new revenue advertising actually generates. The idea is to distinguish results attributed to advertising from the additional results that advertising itself produced.
On the 23rd, Appier, an AI-native Agentic AI as a Service (AaaS) company, stressed the importance of measuring the real contribution of game advertising and using agentic AI to continuously optimize campaigns.
Recently, gaming companies have become cautious about increasing ad budgets even when conventional performance metrics such as installs, conversion rates and ROAS look strong. Game supply is growing faster than the user base, while ad channels are expanding beyond Google and Meta to include short-form video, messaging services and various apps, driving up user acquisition costs.
◆ Measuring ad performance: expanding from ROAS to iROAS
The benchmarks for measuring game ad performance have expanded from install counts and cost per install (CPI) to whether users make purchases and to ROAS. More recently, interest has grown in incremental return on ad spend (iROAS), which measures the additional revenue actually generated by advertising.
ROAS represents revenue generated relative to ad spend. iROAS shows how much additional revenue advertising generated, relative to ad spend, that would not have occurred without the ads.
Under conventional methods, if users install a game or make a purchase after seeing an ad, the action may be counted as an ad-driven result. But those users might have taken the same action even without seeing the ad, so it is difficult to attribute all counted results to advertising.
To distinguish the two, advertisers compare the performance of groups exposed and not exposed to ads to estimate the incremental installs and revenue generated by the campaign.
The distinction also matters when allocating ad budgets. A channel that acquires new users and generates greater long-term value may contribute more to actual growth than one with a lower cost per install, even if the former is more expensive. Appier noted, however, that established metrics such as CPI and ROAS remain useful and that no single metric can capture the full value of advertising.
Traditional experiments for measuring incrementality also have limitations. Geographic comparisons can be affected by differences in population makeup and market conditions, and require sufficient sample sizes. When ad creative, placements, target audiences and bidding conditions change frequently, analyzing results only after a campaign ends can make it difficult to respond in time.
That makes it important to establish an incrementality baseline, combine it with campaign data, analyze performance by creative, placement and target audience, and repeatedly adjust budgets and validate the results.
Performance can also vary by ad format. Users may not fully notice a small banner ad, yet a later conversion could still be counted as an ad-driven result. By contrast, playable ads that let users try a game in advance may be effective at driving incremental conversions, even if they cost more.
Ad effectiveness can also depend on game genre: gameplay and challenges in casual games, characters and combat scenes in role-playing games (RPGs), and storytelling at the start of a video can all influence results.
◆ Agentic AI connects ad production with budget adjustments
Appier proposed using agentic AI throughout this ad operations process.
Generative AI has made it possible to produce ad creative at scale, but producing more does not automatically improve marketing results. Appier said it is important to connect elements such as people, storylines, colors and pacing in a video to actual ad performance, then determine which creative to produce or test next.
In overseas markets in particular, strategies need to be adjusted based on local ad performance to account for differences in preferences and culture across countries.
While individual AI tools support specific tasks such as ad bidding, user prediction or creative production, agentic AI focuses on enabling different specialized AI agents to work together toward a shared business goal.
This can link the identification of users likely to continue making purchases over the long term with ad creative production and testing, incrementality assessment, budget reallocation and learning—all as part of a single process.
Appier is developing an agentic advertising platform that combines experience gained from running campaigns with expertise in the gaming industry, drawing on its proprietary AI models. The company said the platform can also help new games with limited user data draw on behavioral signals gathered across markets and genres, and adjust strategies based on local ad performance.
Appier stressed that game companies adopting agentic AI should clearly define key performance indicators tied to profitability, including high-value paying users, customer lifetime value (LTV), ROAS and incremental revenue.
When AI handles repetitive tasks such as analysis, testing and report writing, marketers can focus more on strategy, goal-setting, understanding markets and brands, and decision-making.
Appier expects that, as game companies compete in overseas markets, the ability to continually demonstrate how much new growth their ad investments actually generate will become as important as acquiring ad traffic.
댓글을 작성하려면 로그인이 필요합니다.
“Open Reporting Principle” The media outlet informs that it has opened a channel for readers and sources to request counterarguments, corrections, or follow-up reports to ensure the rights of news users.
The copyright of this content belongs to The Global Giving News or the provider, and unauthorized use may result in legal liability under copyright laws and other regulations.

source