Meet them where they are: Using market research to inform your game ads targeting

[LaraCroft]

Once your game is published, you’re always looking to grow your player base. But it’s not just about quantity; it’s about quality. Acquiring users who genuinely resonate with your game is vital to building a sustainable, loyal player base. Therefore, finding the right audience quickly is crucial when acquiring new users. The faster you identify your core players, the more efficiently you can allocate your marketing budget, maximizing ROI and attracting high-quality players likelier to stick around. So, how do you go about identifying these users, and how has targeting evolved to meet new challenges?

The shift in targeting: How privacy changes reshaped the landscape​

In recent years, user acquisition targeting has undergone quite a shift. Changes to Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) policy have led to a new realm for mobile marketers, affecting the ways you can reach and track players across devices. Since IDFA allows users to opt out of tracking, this change lowered the accessibility tof granular data about individual users, leaving UA managers and marketers to adapt and find other ways to reach their audiences.

While in the past, you coud rely on third-party data to understand who and where your potential players were, now you’re more focused on first-party and aggregated data insights. This emphasizes the value of knowing exactly where and how to target users effectively and efficiently.

What data matters now?​

Due to the given changes, it is time for you to turn to alternative sources and strategies to inform your targeting. Here’s what you need to focus on:

• Demographic insights: Knowing who your players are (age, gender, interests) helps you understand who’s likely to download and play your game.
• Geographic data: Regionally-based data provides context on where your players are and the cultural relevance of your game’s themes and mechanics.
• Ad placement: Learning where your competitors are placing their ads and on which networks can guide your ad placements to reach a similar audience.
• Creative performance: Observing what creative strategies perform best across regions, demographics, and platforms gives insight into how to craft ads that resonate. We described this in greater detail here.

Find your game’s audience in the right place

Identifying and targeting your audience in the right places can significantly improve your UA campaigns. When you know exactly where to find your audience, you save time, budget, and effort, making UA not only faster but more effective. Data-backed targeting helps you connect with users predisposed to enjoy your game’s genre and style, which translates to higher engagement, lower churn, and increased user stickiness. Lastly, targeting the right users also enables you to optimize your ad spend.

Pinpointing your audience with MarketIQ​

MarketIQ offers you a powerful tool for understanding exactly where your audience is and where they’re most likely to engage with your game. Here’s how you can leverage MarketIQ’s data to refine your targeting:

• Explore competitor ads: Look at your competitors’ ads for similar games. This can give you an idea of what’s working for them regarding creative messaging, format, and frequency. Read the full guide.
• Check targeted regions: MarketIQ allows you to see what regions games are advertised in. By analyzing these trends, you can identify the best regions to target with your campaigns and avoid those with limited performance potential.
• Analyze ad network distribution: MarketIQ provides insights into which ad networks specific games use. If you notice that successful games in your genre are all on a particular network, that’s a strong indication it’s worth including in your strategy.
• Top media channels: Knowing where ads appear—whether in social media, search, or other platforms—helps you understand where your audience spends their time.
• Decide on the language: Checking languages in regions (especially with multilingual populations) can also provide clues on the correct language and tone for your ads.

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What happens when targeting is just right​

When your targeting hits the mark, everything clicks. Players see relevant ads and become much more likely to install, engage with, and stick with your game over time. This level of stickiness is critical for a few reasons:

• Increased retention and LTV
• Efficient monetization
• Stronger community building

By using data-driven insights to find and connect with your ideal players, you’re not just acquiring users but building a sustainable community that will drive your game’s success in the long term and, ideally, bring profit to your studio.

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All of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the coming weeks, we’ll be diving deeper into specific use cases and how to get the most out of key features in handy guides, available right here on our blog.

Save 70% with our early bird offer​

To celebrate the launch, we’re offering an exclusive 70% discount on all MarketIQ plans. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a competitive edge at an unbeatable price. Available now, until it’s not.