手游公司增长营销负责人谈手游用户获取的发展

原作者：Dean Takahashi 译者：Willow Wu

虽说手游用户获取已经是游戏行业老生常谈的话题了，但它仍是非常关键的一环。因此，我很高兴能够有机会了解新时代的用户获取方式：通过移动广告获取新用户，这是一个高度自动化和战略性的过程。

十月在旧金山举办的Adjust’s Mobile Spree展会中，我负责主持其中一个访谈环节。由于手游市场规模已经达到了700亿美元，成为所有游戏大类中最重要的一块，访谈也吸引了很多人前来观看。游戏只占移动设备使用时间的10%，但是手游产业收入的却占到了移动产业总收入的74%。

获取新用户长时间以来都是一个难题。当下，用户获取经理正在应对行业的自动化问题，还有，让老玩家重回游戏vs获取新用户，这两个事项该如何分配精力。随着超级休闲游戏的兴起，市场也在发生变化。

访谈嘉宾有Big Huge Games用户获取高级经理Robert Garfinkle，以及Zynga负责增长营销（Growth Marketing，是指通过市场、数据还有产品三方面的配合使得公司核心指标实现增长，游戏邦注）的行业资深人士Kim Bhatha。

以下是整理编辑过后的访谈记录。

Robert Garfinkle: 我在游戏行业已经有7年左右了，我的职业生涯是从Elex开始的，一家总部位于北京的海外市场开拓公司。过去三年半的时间，我先后在Gameloft、Netmarble和Nexon工作。现在我转移到在Nexon旗下的游戏工作室Big Huge Games。

Kim Bhatha: 我在游戏行业已经9年了，在Zynga呆了4年半左右。在这期间我接触了各种类型的游戏，从FarmVille到Zynga Poker再到Words With Friends。

GamesBeat: 手游现在是一个价值700亿美元的市场，是所有游戏类型中规模最庞大的。我之前在看一些有趣的数据，人们使用手机的时间里，有10%是属于游戏的，但是手游这块的收益占到了移动行业的总收益74%。游戏是潮流引领者。首先我们要讨论的问题是，手游领域的用户获取方式一直都在演变，能不能说说你们几年前的工作是什么样的，跟现在的用户获取工作做个对比。

Garfinkle: 深入分析这些年的变化，我们可以明显感觉到营销自动化变多了，人工验证大大减少。与移动监测伙伴（MMP）的纠纷变少了，对作弊的检查变多了，更多针对安装质量的验证。规模上也有很大变化，台下观众中有更多游戏用户，合格用户的特征也更多样化。

Bhatha: 在过去几年中，我见证了不少革新。之前我的工作就是不断地划分市场，把玩家按国家、按年龄分成好几个小组。你可以根据多种不同的划分依据来策划营销，就是为了获得更高质量的安装。最近，就像Rob所说的那样，更多人选择了自动化和机器学习的方式。很多东西都是在虚拟空间进行的，市场细分工作越来越少，目标用户更广泛了，用户变多了，还有就是我们更关注安装后的运营活动。

GamesBeat: 你们认为怎样做才能避免被自动化取代？

Bhatha: 你还是需要制定战略。我想这就是为什么UA经理仍然是一个关键角色。

Garfinkle: 你不能满足于已有的成绩，但我认为，通过加强UA经理与产品的一体化联系，我们总会得到很多助推力量，帮助我们进一步发展。

GamesBeat: 早前我们进行了一场头脑风暴，主题是近几年改变游戏市场的东西，最终我们把矛头转向了超休闲游戏。这类游戏就是当别人在电话那头请你稍等一下时，你就可能会拿起手机点开它。或者说，你用一张面巾纸擤鼻子，然后扔掉，那张面巾纸就是超休闲游戏。从用户获取的角度来说，你们认为这类游戏产生了怎样的影响？

Garfinkle: 事实上，超休闲游戏的出现让玩家规模得到了可观增长。美国市场原来大概有几百万核心用户。这些人了解核心游戏概念，能够玩你想让他们玩的游戏，带来了高质量安装。但现在不再是这样了，你要面对超休闲游戏带来的这一大批崭新用户，至于他们以后是否会成为游戏经验更加更富的人，那我们只能拭目以待了。

Bhatha: 超休闲游戏的目标用户不是真正的玩家。它就类似于45+、55+年龄段的女性会玩的游戏。就好比超休闲游戏为其它游戏创造了更多背包空格，让它们可以装下更多道具——也就是争取更多玩家。但与此同时，它也使市场竞争变得更加激烈。我们的UA成本也增加了。

Garfinkle: 这就得说到安装=收入这个想法，游戏安装量大幅增加并不意味着你最后的收益也能明显增长。

GamesBeat: 我看了YouAppi本周发布的一份报告，里面谈到游戏公司为了留住用户而增加了开销，但结果留存率却在下降，这在一定程度上要归咎于那些超级休闲游戏。你的游戏《文明战争》（DomiNations）是一款相当硬核的游戏，就感觉像是要把这些非硬核玩家挡在门外。

Garfinkle: 我们有一套相当先进的识别系统来排除那些无法提供理想安装质量的发行商，从而降低这一方面的市场风险。

GamesBeat: Zynga的游戏更休闲化。

Bhatha: 超休闲游戏无疑使市场竞争更加激烈，但这些用户并不一定是休闲游戏所寻找的目标用户。我们想要的是之后能够贡献收益的用户，而我认为这些超休闲游戏玩家带来的盈利机会并不多。

GamesBeat: 在我看来，游戏行业之所以有趣是因为有各种疯狂的事情在发生。《炉石传说》电竞选手因不当言论而被禁赛，暴雪也介入了这件事。品牌商一直都想参与电竞赛事，然后他们会遇到各种意料之外的事，不管是跟种族歧视、性别歧视还是政治立场有关。还有AR和VR，AR与手游的关系更大一些。谷歌的Stadia也会跟移动产品有所关联。另外，美国联邦贸易委员会正在审查宝箱和gacha机制。

我想知道你们更关注哪些事，还是你们不太在意这些，更倾向于专注自己的工作？

Bhatha: 我来说一说AR方面的事。我们的游戏《CSR赛车 2》更新了一个功能：玩家可以在车道上与他们梦想的赛车合影，这些车是大多数人在现实生活中买不起的。这一设计大获成功。当涉及到Oculus和其它同类设备时，游戏制作成本会更高，但如果你能对游戏中的这类功能进行创新，迎合现有玩家并保持用户粘性，这就是很好的一步。

Garfinkle: 我来谈下Google Stadia，它所代表的是整个游戏领域的融合。接下来的几年我们就能看到不同主机、不同平台之间的壁垒逐渐瓦解。游戏将会是一种共享性更强的体验，你的手机、平板电脑、个人电脑、游戏主机和其它环境设备都可以操作。这将真正改变我们的工作模式，尤其是思维方式以及归因方面。

GamesBeat: 那么，以后会出现一个通用的用户池。

Garfinkle: 理论上来说，是的。

GamesBeat: 这样产生的下游效应会更多吗？你们有什么想法？

Garfinkle: 你之前提到监管部门的行动。战利品宝箱是其中一个关注点，但还有很多人担心的是数据隐私方面的问题，还有游戏公司是怎么跟踪玩家、通过什么样的手段分析他们的。这需要各方理性地讨论，但我不知道以后具体会往哪个方向发展。

GamesBeat: 我们要迎来一个类似于无边界的世界。不同平台之间的界线要消失了。国家与国家之间的关系也更为密切。这就是为什么暴雪禁赛一事耐人寻味。

对其它领域的市场营销人员来说，他们能从游戏行业学到什么吗？

Garfinkle: 我认为就安装后运营、深层次的漏斗分析以及用户沉浸度而言，游戏行业一直都是处于领先地位。至于其它行业能从中学到什么——你可以通过观察不同销售阶段的用户轨迹，加以分析，并着眼于更长远的用户体验，我相信这会让你学到不少东西。

Bhatha: 我们看到的也是如此。谈到游戏与其它垂直领域的不同之处，我们关注的是寻找获取成本尽可能低的玩家，确保多花出去的钱能得到最好的回报。同样，我们得深入理解产品以及我们的推广对象。就像Rob之前所说的，更重要的是观察不同销售阶段的用户流。游戏中的每个活动都会对用户体验造成影响。他们随时都有可能退出，所以我们得认真思考，做一个能够长期留住这些用户的产品。

GamesBeat: 你们有关注网红营销吗？

Bhatha: 如今的这些孩子们都不看电视了。他们上YouTube，看网红相关的视频。从UA角度来看，网红营销是一个越发重要的渠道，我们开始把它纳入到整体战略中了。Google和Facebook都在开发新产品。网红营销的棘手之处在于效果衡量，人们想了解归因，要怎么追踪这种类型的营销活动。

Garfinkle: 关于网红营销效果衡量的讨论有很多。要以平均安装成本（CPI）为评估依据吗？这是最能规避风险的一种，适用于大部分广告商。但多数网红都对这种模式没有兴趣。当涉及到网红营销的商业方面，总是存在着利益不匹配的问题。要跟踪起来很难。

Bhatha: 如果你想提供一些优惠码，让玩家兑换东西，这可以追踪。但是效果评估仍然很难。

GamesBeat: 你认为像Mobcrush（类似于移动版的Twitch）这种应用会对移动市场造成很大影响吗？不同市场之间是否存在着屏障？

Garfinkle: 至少在西方，移动端直播还没有大规模发展起来。我不太确定是否有人知道确切原因，但是在西方市场比较普遍的做法还是通过Twitch等在线渠道看别人打游戏。

Bhatha: 关于直播，很关键的一点是你得确保自己所创造的内容是有看点的。《我的世界》就是一个非常适合直播的游戏。移动端直播，就像Rob所说的那样，还没发展到那个程度，适合直播的游戏并不多。但如果能在这方面多做些功夫，那将是非常有益的。

GamesBeat: 如果网红营销对你们来说并不是最值得关注的，那么你们想要在哪个大趋势上获得成功呢？

Bhatha: 其中之一是预注册，它曾经在日本很盛行，现在也在西方市场发展起来了。谷歌已经开放了预注册功能，Facebook也会在之后推出预注册功能的相关产品。这是提前获得玩家的方法之一。但还是得再说一下，我认为谷歌还是要先解决效果衡量的问题。

Garfinkle: Reddit公司最近设计了一个略显粗糙，但是功能齐全的UA产品，类似这种社区用户聚集平台，它们在技术方面无法跟Facebook或谷歌比拟。我们前面说到的Twitch，看起来好像跟移动UA领域没多大关系，但是他们有想法的话我还是相当看好的。

GamesBeat: 我们避开了移动行业竞争的话题，但是我想知道你们对那些UA策略非常激进的对手有什么看法，就比如我现在所研究的Machine Zone，他们旗下游戏Game of War的广告到处都是，电视上也有。他们在全面撒网，努力搜寻可能对策略游戏感兴趣的人，希望找到一个愿意为部落一掷千金的玩家。这就改变了市场竞争的性质。

Bhatha: 大公司自然就有更充足的预算，他们可以主宰市场。但是对于一些小型公司来说……就比如说我们过去遇到的那些挑战。我们更关注的是自然增长，应用商店优化（ASO）方面要怎么利用关键词提高排名？或者要怎么利用现有的玩家基础做交叉推广？除此之外，你还要跟谷歌和苹果公司的人保持密切关系。如果你能说服他们帮游戏写个编推，这就能在发行前后产生带来可观的自然增长。结合UA，这些都是能够给你的游戏带来巨大收益的关键。

Garfinkle: 说到UA竞争，这种无节制的媒体购买最终只能享受到有限的成果。你不可能永远都用这个策略。奉行利益为主的人理应承受这种高风险，找到更成熟的方法来为高质量的用户付费。你得往对的地方找对的玩家，你不能两手一摊说“近期竞争太激烈了，这些CPI我负担不起”，这种托辞无法令人信服。

GamesBeat: 就UA方面而言，你们觉得一年后会是怎样的？

Bhatha: 我预计Snapchat Games会成为一种新兴潮流，它有不小的潜力值得挖掘。另外，关于新的UA渠道，Facebook和Google两个平台是我们的非常看重的，但是像抖音、Pinterest和Snapchat这样的社交平台也有他们的广告库存，他们也在利用广告。除此之外，人们要如何利用5G来解决流媒体涉及的某些问题，我也很期待。

Garfinkle: 串流游戏将会变得更加普遍。Stadia的试验和5G或许能收获不错的成果。现在还很难说。

但我确信的是，现在有很多来自更加成熟的市场的投资者把目光转移到了游戏市场，因为原先市场的盈利空间已经大不如前了。日本最明显，然后还有中国、韩国，他们想把游戏市场扩大到世界范围。我认为未来会有大型新兴市场再次崛起，就像几年前印度或土耳其那样。随着越来越多移动优先市场的出现，这种交接现象会不断出现。

GamesBeat: 作弊行为对你们有多大影响？

Bhatha: 非常大。关于Zynga的应对策略，我们会观察广告库存的来源平台，密切关注着流量情况。还有，Zynga作为第三方公司，除了使用Adjust SDK，我们还提供作弊侦测工具。我们在此基础上添加另一个合作伙伴，以确保检测到虚假安装。

但是游戏中的作弊行为，比如机器人作弊（bot frauds），我们有专门的团队监视游戏中的玩家行为，确保一旦检测到作弊行为就立即删除这些异常账户。我们也对游戏中的机制做了调整，防止机器人和作弊者加以利用。

Garfinkle: 我们也用了Adjust的防作弊套件，效果相当不错。并不是说它能完全阻挡作弊，我不知道是否有真正能100%封锁作弊的自动化系统，但是通过限制合作伙伴数量、寻找更可靠的合作伙伴，我们看到了真实的成果，减少了因虚假广告而造成的资源浪费。整个行业已经意识到广告欺诈的存在，找到了对付它的各种方法，手段也更加成熟了。我已经很久没遇到SDK欺诈问题了。
观众提问：无论是哪个垂直市场，寻找鲸鱼用户、努力让他们沉浸于产品之中都是大家非常感兴趣的一件事。从这个角度来看，游戏就是一种十分理想的艺术商品，我想知道你们是否可以探讨一些寻找鲸鱼用户的方法。游戏市场逐渐成熟，人们对付费更加敏感了。他们并不想花钱取胜，他们对付费墙有了更充分的认识。你们有没有什么策略或方法可以让这种意图变得不那么明显，或者让人们在免费下载游戏后对付费不那么排斥。

Garfinkle: 这可是个大问题。我先来讲一点，我认为大多数行业针对高价值用户都有一套区别于普通用户的方法。用一个比较极端的类比，游戏行业的VIP项目其实跟拉斯维加斯为豪赌客提供的项目性质是一样的。为那些大数额消费者的服务需求定制专门的应对方案是一种明智的做法。

从广义上来说，识别鲸鱼用户并不是什么难题，你很快就能发现这些高价值用户。但是要搞清楚他们平常的活动地点——以便于投放广告——这就很困难了，而某些大型技术公司对这一点深有感触。你可以在相似的用户群体中做推广，以此来争取更多高价值用户。但你不能只放一个鱼钩，只在一个地方钓鱼。

Bhatha: 我们的策略也差不多，从相似的VIP群体中挖掘潜在用户。但如果有些人因为某种原因放弃了游戏，我们还有一笔预算用于吸引玩家回归。Zynga认为这是UA战略中很重要的一部分。我们想要确保能够留住这些玩家。

GamesBeat: 我很喜欢Dmitri Williams关于社交鲸鱼的研究，这类玩家未必为游戏付费，但他们有可能会影响朋友来玩游戏，让他们为游戏消费。我想知道你们会关注这类玩家吗？

Garfinkle: 我们的几个主要策略游戏，如果你是游戏中的联盟盟主，你的奖励是根据整个联盟的活跃情况决定的。这就是我们的方案，能够激励用户社区的领导者发挥带头作用。

Bhatha: 在Zynga，我想到的更多的是名人代言。很多名人都玩过Words With Friends。这对于我们来说是一个很好的资源，可以吸引那些明星的粉丝参与到游戏中，特别是像乳腺癌宣传这样的特别活动，有许多名人都参与了。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Acquiring users for mobile games isn’t the sexiest part of the game industry. But it’s a critical one. And so I was happy to get caught up on the subject of the highly automated and strategic process of acquiring new users through mobile advertising campaigns.

I moderated a panel on the subject at Adjust’s Mobile Spree event in San Francisco. It got a lot of attention, as mobile gaming is a $70 billion market, and it is the biggest part of gaming. And games account for 10% of time spent on mobile devices, but 74% of revenue in the mobile game industry.

And acquiring new gamers isn’t easy for mobile games that have been around for a while. User acquisition managers are dealing with the automation of the industry, and they’re busy weighing how much effort to put into re-engagement versus getting new users. And the market is changing, with the rise of hyper-casual games, where players spend a short amount of time on some very casual apps.

My panelists included Robert Garfinkle, senior user acquisition manager at Big Huge Games, and Kim Bhatha, senior lead for growth marketing at Zynga.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

Robert Garfinkle: I’ve been in the gaming space about seven years. I got my start at Elex, which was a Beijing-based strategy developer. Since then I’ve been around to Gameloft and Netmarble and Nexon for the last three and a half years. Now I’ve made the transition to a Nexon-owned development studio, Big Huge Games.

Kim Bhatha: I’ve been in gaming for about nine years. I’ve been at Zynga about four and a half years. Through my time at Zynga I’ve touched different genres of games, from FarmVille to poker to Words With Friends.

GamesBeat: Mobile gaming is a $70 billion market now, the biggest part of games. I was looking at some interesting stats. Apparently 10 percent of time is spent on mobile games, but games account for 74 percent of the revenue in the mobile industry. Games lead the way in trends. An initial question would be, user acquisition in this space has always been changing. I wonder if you could describe what your job was like a few years back, what you remember about it, versus what user acquisition is like now.

Garfinkle: Diving right into how it’s changed over the years, there’s a lot more marketing automation. There’s a lot less manual verification that this install came from this publisher at the right rate. There are a lot fewer disputes and a lot more checking on the mobile measurement partner (MMP) side for fraud, more verification in most regards of the quality of the installs you’re getting. It’s also changed a lot in terms of scale. There are a lot more users in the audience now, and a lot more diversity in what qualified users look like.

Bhatha: I’ve definitely seen a lot of changes over the last couple of years. I remember grinding and segmenting my audiences and countries and ages. So many different ways you could segment your campaigns. Just optimizing toward an app install. Recently, like Rob mentioned, it’s moving more toward automation and machine learning. There’s less visibility, less segmentation, and targeting broader, larger groups of audience, as well as focusing more on post-install events.

GamesBeat: What do you think you’re going to do so you don’t get automated out of a job?

Bhatha: You need to strategize. That’s why UA managers will still play a huge role, I think.

Garfinkle: You can’t really rest on your laurels, but I think by increasing the integration that UA managers have with product, there will always be a lot of leverage we have to start growing further.

GamesBeat: We were brainstorming earlier about what’s changed in the game market over the last year, the last couple years, and we zeroed in on hypercasual games. The best way to describe these games could be the games you play while you’re on hold on the phone. Or when you blow your nose on a Kleenex and throw it away, that Kleenex is the hypercasual game. What would you say about how this has affected user acquisition?

Garfinkle: What it is, it’s really grown the overall audience size in gaming, well beyond what it used to be. You used to have a few million core users in the U.S. market. If you were acquiring an install, it was qualified. It was a user that understood core gaming concepts and was able to play the game that you wanted them to. That’s not so true anymore. There’s a very large new-to-gaming audience that’s being brought in by hypercasual. It remains to be seen if they’re going to start becoming more literate as time goes on.

Bhatha: With hypercasual, it’s not made for a “gamer.” It’s more for 45+, 55+ women playing those types of games. It opened up more inventory for other games to increase their userbase, but at the same time, it also made the market more competitive. It increased the cost.

Garfinkle: It’s cast a very sharp light on the idea that installs equal revenue. It’s very much invalidated the idea that you can just dump installs in a game and have that result in higher aggregate revenue.

GamesBeat: I saw a report from YouAppi out this week that said you pay so much more to just try to retain your users, but retention has been going down, and some of the blame goes toward these hypercasual games. Your game, DomiNations, is in a fairly hardcore genre. It’s almost like you want to sort these people out.

Garfinkle: We have fairly advanced systems for identifying publishers that are delivering less than ideal installs and reducing our market exposure to those.

GamesBeat: Zynga’s games are more casual, though.

Bhatha: Hypercasual is definitely making the market more competitive, but it’s not necessarily the type of users that casual games are looking for. We’re looking for users who will later monetize, and I don’t see the users who are coming in from these types of games as high monetizing users.

GamesBeat: For me, games are always fun because there are so many different crazy things happening. Blizzard stepped in it with the esports player who spoke out about Hong Kong and got banned from Hearthstone esports. It’s been interesting how brands have been chasing after esports, and then they run into the kinds of surprises that can happen, whether it’s racism or sexism or politics. Then there’s AR and VR. AR has a little more relevance to mobile games. Google’s Stadia is also going to have some relevance to mobile. The FTC is looking at loot boxes and gacha mechanics.

I wonder what of these things show up on your radar more. Or do you have a more heads-down approach to doing your job?

Bhatha: I can speak to AR features. In our racing game CSR 2, we released a feature where players were able to take pictures with their dream cars in their driveway, cars they can’t afford in real life. It was a huge success for CSR 2. When it comes to things like Oculus and other devices, it’s more expensive to make games there, but if you can innovate with these types of features in your games that can cater to existing players and keep them engaged, that’s a good step.

Garfinkle: Talking about Google Stadia for a minute, what it represents is a convergence event happening in gaming overall. I believe we’re going to see this over the course of several years. The boundaries between the different consoles and platforms are going to break down. Gaming will be more of a universal experience, shared by your phone and your tablet and your PC and your home console and other sort of ambient devices. That’s going to really change the way we do things, not least of which – prescient, considering we’re at a conference sponsored by Adjust – will be really changing attribution and the way we think about these things.

GamesBeat: There will be a universal pool of users, then.

Garfinkle: Theoretically, yeah.

GamesBeat: Does that have more downstream effects? How would you think about that?

Garfinkle: You mentioned legislative action. There’s talk about loot boxes, for one, but beyond that there are lots of concerns about data privacy and the way in which users are being tracked or analyzed. That’s a question that needs to have some mature discussion, but I don’t know specifically where it will go.

GamesBeat: We’re coming into a kind of borderless world. The borders between platforms are coming down. The borders between countries are coming down. That’s why things like Blizzard and Hong Kong become interesting.

For marketers from other disciplines, are there things they can learn from gaming?

Garfinkle: I would suggest that games have always lead on post-install and deep funnel analysis and engagement. If there’s anything that can be gained for other disciplines—if you just study the way that users move through your funnel and understand more about the longer-term journey, I think you’ll gain a lot of knowledge.

Bhatha: That’s what we see. When it comes to differentiating gaming from other verticals, we focus on the lowest cost possible. We have to find the lowest cost users where we can spend more and get the highest returns. We also have to focus on understanding the product and the player base that we’re advertising to. As Rob mentioned, it’s more about understanding the user flow throughout the game. Every event in the game impacts the user journey. They can drop out any time, so we have to be careful to make a product that can retain those users.

GamesBeat: Is influencer marketing coming into your focus?

Bhatha: If you look at kids these days, they’re not watching TV. They’re watching YouTube, and they’re watching influencers. It’s becoming a big part of UA. We’re starting to look into influencer marketing as part of our overall strategy. Google and Facebook are both coming up with products. The only caveat there is measurement. They’re trying to figure out attribution, how we can track these types of campaigns.

Garfinkle: On that measurement topic, there’s a lot of debate back and forth about how you figure out influencer deals. Do you do CPI? That’s the most risk-averse of the models. It’s comfortable for most advertisers. But it’s not something most influencers are interested in. There are mismatched interests when it comes to the business side of influencer marketing. It gets very hard to track.

Bhatha: If you think about giving out promo codes for the game that redeem for something, that’s one thing you can track. But measurement is still very up in the air.

GamesBeat: Do you see things like Mobcrush affecting the mobile side of the market very much? Is there a barrier between the different markets?

Garfinkle: At least in the west, mobile streaming hasn’t taken off in a major way. I’m not sure if anyone knows precisely why, but it’s much more common in the U.S. and western markets to look at premium games that people are playing and streaming through online outlets like Twitch.

Bhatha: One thing about streaming, you want to make sure that when you’re creating content that make something that allows that to be successful. Minecraft is a good example. It became popular because people were able to share their content. Mobile streaming, as Rob mentioned, it’s not completely there yet, but that would be beneficial when it comes to working more in that area.

GamesBeat: If influencer marketing isn’t the biggest deal to you, what might be a bigger trend that you’re trying to stay on top of?

Bhatha: One thing is pre-registration. That’s coming into play. It was big in Japan, and it’s starting to pick up in western markets as well. Google is offering it and Facebook is coming up with a pre-reg product. That’s one way to reach to your golden cohorts ahead of time and get ahead of the game. But again, I think measurement is a piece to solve for there on Google’s end.

Garfinkle: There are still a few untapped proprietary sources of inventory that aren’t quite at the same technological level as a Facebook or a Google. Reddit has recently come up with a relatively unpolished but functional UA product. There are still a few big reservoirs of users. Twitch, which we were just discussing, seems not to be a major player in mobile UA, but it could potentially be if they put their minds to it.

GamesBeat: We glossed over the competition part of mobile, but I wonder what you think about the different rivals out there that have really aggressive UA strategies, compared to what might be more normal. An example I look at is how Machine Zone, with Game of War, their ads were everywhere. They were on TV. They were mining through everybody they could possibly find who might be interested in strategy games to find that one person who’d spend a zillion dollars with their clan. That changed the nature of market competition.

Bhatha: Bigger companies definitely have a lot of budget to spend. They can outbid the market. But for some of the smaller companies, I can speak to challenges we had in the past. It’s more about focusing on organic growth. What can you do on the ASO side to boost up your ranking with keywords or leverage your current userbase with cross-promotion? Also, keep close relationships with the Google and Apple guys. If you can convince them to do a feature, that produces huge organic growth around launch. Combined with UA, those are key features that can bring tremendous results in terms of growing your game.

Garfinkle: To talk about the specific UA competition side, the competition in the waterfall, buying media unsustainably or at a rate that’s not specifically profitable will eventually stop paying dividends. You can’t continue that strategy forever. It’s incumbent on people who are profit-oriented in the business to weather the storm and find ways of getting more sophisticated about your own methodology toward paying for users that are high-quality. You need to find the right user pools. You can’t just throw your hands up and say, “This is a very competitive season, so I can’t afford these CPIs.” That’s not a valid excuse.

GamesBeat: What are some predictions you’d have for a year from now in user acquisition?

Bhatha: One prediction would be that Snapchat Games is becoming a thing. There’s a huge potential there to discover. Additionally, just in terms of new UA channels, we’re so focused on Facebook and Google, but these other social channels like TikTok, Pinterest, and Snapchat, they have their own ad inventory. They’re tapping into advertising. I also want to see how 5G resolves some of the issues around streaming.

Garfinkle: Streaming games might become much more prevalent in the next year. The Stadia experiment and 5G might yield results. It’s hard to say right now.

What I do think is happening is that right now there’s a lot of relatively unprofitable investment coming into the gaming market from markets that are much more mature. Japan most prominently, as well as China and Korea, have been trying to find ways to expand the gaming market globally. I think we’ll see another rise of major emerging markets, kind of like what happened in India or Turkey a few years ago. We’ll continue to see this transitional state happen with more and more mobile-first markets.

GamesBeat: How much does fraud affect your calculations?

Bhatha: A lot. Some of the strategies we use at Zynga, we look at the networks we buy our inventory from. We look at the traffic really closely and make sure we stop spending on those channels. Also, we work with a third-party vendor, in addition to Adjust SDK, to provide a fraud detection tool. We layer another partner on top of that to make sure we detect fraudulent installs.

But when it comes to fraud in games, like bot frauds, we have a whole team in place that looks at user behavior in the game to make sure those accounts are deleted once we detect fraudulent activity. We also tune our features in games that can prevent bots and cheaters from exploiting them.

Garfinkle: We also use the Adjust fraud prevention suite. It’s rather good. It’s not entirely 100 percent of everything, because I don’t know if you can have an automated system that catches 100 percent, but by limiting our number of partners and finding partners that are more reliable, it really cuts down on how much waste goes into ad fraud. The industry as a whole has had a moment of realizing that ad fraud exists, identifying ways of combating it, and becoming more sophisticated as a result. I haven’t seen SDK spoofing come back in a way that would be an alarm for me.

Question: Across all verticals, people are very interested in identifying whales and trying to get them to join the cycle of your app. Gaming is where this artform was perfected, and I was wondering if you could go into some of the approaches that are part of finding whales. As gaming has matured, people have become more sensitive to this. They don’t want to pay to win. They’ve become more cognizant of paywalls. Are there strategies or approaches you have to either make those sorts of things less obvious, or make people more comfortable with paying for a game after they downloaded it for free.

Garfinkle: It’s a big question. To unpack things a bit, I think most industries have a different approach for high-value customers versus everyone else. VIP programs exist in gaming just as much as they exist for Las Vegas high rollers, to use one extreme example. Having a custom approach to the way you deal with a customer service request from someone who’s spent thousands of dollars is a prudent thing to do.

More broadly, identifying them is not much of an issue. You can spot a high-value user relatively quickly. Finding out where they live in terms of advertising toward them is extremely difficult, though, and something that the major technology partners understand very well at this point. You can go and generate campaigns through things like lookalike audiences as a way of trying to get more high-value users. But it’s not possible to just put a hook out and catch one.

Bhatha: We have similar tactics. We use lookalike VIPs and try to acquire similar audiences. But in terms of people—if they left the game for some reason, we put a budget toward re-engagement. Re-engagement is a big part of the UA strategy at Zynga at the moment. We want to make sure we keep these players in the game.

GamesBeat: I liked the research that USC’s Dmitri Williams did on social whales, how there’s a class of person who’s sort of the life of the party at the bar. They cause a lot of other people to come in and spend money. I don’t know how much you also pay attention to these types of people, who may not spend a lot of money themselves, but they cause a lot of money to be spent.

Garfinkle: In our main strategy game, if you’re an alliance leader, you get rewarded based on how active your whole alliance is. That’s our solution to it. It incentivizes leadership within the user community.

Bhatha: When it comes to Zynga, I think more about celebrity endorsements. Words With Friends has been associated with different celebrities. We’re not necessarily spending within the game, but it’s a good source for us to bring users to the game itself who follow those people, especially with things like our campaign for breast cancer awareness, which has involved a lot of celebrities.

（source：venrurebeat ）