Beyond Banner Ads Part 2: In-game ads in Match 3D Games

Continuing our expert series, AdInMo Advisor Tiffany Keller puts monetization theory into practice with a case study on Hexa Sort by Applovin’s Lion Studios.  

Hexa Sort by Lion Studios, a part of the Applovin family, is a break-out hybrid casual hit that’s grown the entire Match 3D subgenre by earning $500K/day – you can find a deep dive on their revenue performance by 2.5 Gamers podcast here for those more curious! Hexa Sort strikes the right balance of relaxing and challenging ASMR while players combine stacks of coloured tiles correctly to beat levels and decorate mini buildable environments across content chapters. They employ a good balance of IAP boosters, mediated banners, rewarded videos, and interstitial full screen takeovers upon level completion after level three is reached. Clever use of rewarded video placements inside the puzzle level to unlock additional tile spaces show they are already willing to push the envelope with new ad monetization design, so let’s look at how  in-game ads will polish effort on monetization. 

When we consider how much room Hexa Sort has to increase ad load, or the attention cost of their game, it’s important we examine their protections against the substitution effect. The game is not social apart from a leaderboard, so their network effect is weak and with no IP can’t rely on .. However, they have a strong progression system and boosters for sale, which means players are incurring some switching costs if they have played many levels or spent money. 

Largely, Hexa Sort’s protection against substitution (see part 1) is that although they’re in the crowded 3D puzzle genre, they innovated on the core loop with stacked tiles in comparison to most 3D match games. based on crowded sorting of messy items (like Match Factory or Match 3D). Thus Hexa Sort players’ availability of direct substitutes is lower than average within the puzzle genre. Overall, Hexa Sort has some substitution protections but it needs to keep the player experience positive to continue winning market share. 

What if Hexa Sort added in-game ads?

Let’s look at how they can uplevel their banner strategy with intrinsic in-game ads that increase revenue but still preserve the player experience.

Hexa Sort lowers their ad load of the first three levels for new players, in part to not overwhelm them with ads but also because they simplified their UI. By waiting to add more elements on the bottom of the post-level screen until those are introduced to the player through the tutorial, they stay sensitive to player learning curves. There are still many players, however, who do not play through five levels before churning, in which case recouping some revenue to pay back the CPI is essential for further scaling the app. 

If they want to continue scaling incrementally, they could select a more immersive format than mediated banners like in-game ads to these early screens without harming player engagement. From the immersive ad campaigns AdInMo has innovated over the last four years, InGamePlay contextual ads are less likely to impact player engagement than standard mediated banners.

Why is this? Immersive ad placements can be set up in four different ratios (2x landscape, portrait, square) to best fit into your game environments using real objects such as billboards or TVs, with added shaders over them to get the lighting and color value just right without impacting your CPM or impression count. You can control if the ads are clickable, and their clickable formats first show a magnified version of the ad before a second click takes them out of the app. This means higher intentionality and engagement driving better eCPMs, all while reducing the number of players who leave your app due to accidental clicks. If the first few player levels or screens that ask players to click on rewarded videos have sensitivity to adding clickable banners, then AdInMo’s non clickable InGamePlay brand awareness ads are another option. I’d recommend testing both in a waterfall to see the positive impact on LTV and get the highest fill rate.

Other screens that could benefit from banner-like monetization without becoming overly cluttered are these key screens that also showcase positive win moments in the game. Research from top publishers I worked at revealed that banners and interstitials shown during moments the player wins, receives rewards, or recognition increase brand recall and affinity 2x more than lose moments (like a post level fail screen), and therefore less likely to reduce  engagement. This can translate into a better CPM through click postbacks for mediated banners or through direct deals your studio could make with brands. 

These in-game ad placements follow considerations for the Substitution Effect, because we see other games in the Match 3D space implement banners on more screens than Hexa Sort, as well as more aggressive interstitials blocking gameplay. When we consider the attention cost of ads that may cause a player to switch games, it’s much more likely that full screen interstitials in between levels would cause frustration. Lion Studios rightly foresees this, and in some cases rewards nominal currency to the player after watching a forced interstitial to lighten the ad load burden. Relative to their direct competition such as Block Jam 3D or Triple Tiles 3D in the more hybrid casual 3D tile stacking sub-genre, Hexa Sort has room for increasing ad impressions.  

There are other positive ad load examples in the match 3D sub-genre already, with Match Factory by Peak Games deciding to not capitalize on ad monetization and market itself as a premium game to build brand loyalty as a protection against the substitution effect (case study by 2.5 Gamers here). While they are also making $500K/day and the most successful Match 3D title in the subgenre currently, its direct competitor and entrenched incumbent Triple Match 3D by Boombox Games has gone all in on in-game ads. Triple Match 3D makes about $400K/day with smart ad monetization and a lower production quality bar than Match Factory, which prompts us to imagine Peak is leaving money on the table by not integrating even a few rewarded video ads that could help players progress in this genre where 12 ad impressions a day is table stakes.

What about the other side of the hybrid monetization coin: IAP in hybrid casual? It’s clear Hexa Sort is investing in a healthy mix of IAP due to their prevalent use of paid boosters to help players complete difficult levels. Ad monetization design that also leverages their IAP or brings awareness to the many other games in the Lion Studios portfolio would best serve the game’s retention goals- especially if they want players to invest in power progression and thus unlock the switching costs protection against the substitution effect. 

In part three of this series, I’ll cover using InGamePlay ads to increase both IAP and cross promotion for more advanced best practices beyond banner ads to create games players want to invest in.

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