In 2022, YellowHead analysed more than 300 million ads for online gaming offers and highlighted 10 features that are useful for affiliates to know.
YellowHead is a creative digital agency with many international awards. They have collaborated with market giants such as Meta, TikTok and Google. The company actively uses modern technologies based on artificial intelligence in its work, and often produces useful research for marketers. Here are 10 interesting results from the agency’s research on the effectiveness of creatives for gaming.
Every second counts
Engage the viewer in 3 seconds or lose money.
In an age of mammoth amounts of content on social media, users have become very selective when watching videos. If your video doesn’t pique the viewer’s interest from the first few seconds, they will simply move on. Experts say that the most important thing in a commercial is the first 3 seconds!
The colour of the CTA buttons makes a difference
From an analysis of online gaming ads, researchers have concluded that the most common colours for call to action (CTA) buttons are blue, green and pink. However, experts claim that it is the purple call to action button that brings in the most conversions (30% higher with the colours mentioned).
Give up the colour red
The table of research results shows that red buttons are the most ineffective in gaming advertising. Red, although a bright colour, is often questionable and unsettling. To improve advertising effectiveness, it is best to avoid red in creatives altogether.
Keeping the logo visible
A common mistake many marketers make (not just in affiliate marketing) is to put the brand logo either at the end of the video. Research confirms that a logo shown at the beginning of a video creative yields nearly 41% higher ROI. The best way, according to agency professionals, is to broadcast the logo throughout the commercial.
One word CTA
Often in gaming creatives you will find a button label like “play now” or “download and play”. However, here too, researchers advise limiting the call to action to one word! The shorter the better. For example, “play”, “click”, “spin”. This applies, by the way, to most versions of languages, especially creatives in English.
The dubbing of clips can be superfluous
Slots and notes work best
Most of the world’s users associate gaming with slot machines. Not surprisingly, slot advertising creatives generate as much as 98% more conversions than any other commercial. Also, according to experts, the more local or popular money notes you show in your creative, the higher its chances of success.
The level of GEO is important when preparing creatives
Many affiliates tend to adapt popular creatives that have proven effective in Tier 1 countries (Canada, USA, Germany) for other GEOs. This should not be done because in many ways, advertising in Tier 1 and Tier 2 (3) countries will be different because of the mentality and other nuances of the target audience. It is always best to separate creatives for different tiered GEOs.
For GEO Tier 1 run 5 spins
An interesting and surprising observation of the researchers is that users from Tier 1 countries click best on ads with a 5-spin offer. Note that this strategy does not tend to work with other countries. In Tier 2 and Tier 3 regions, often the presence of slots in ads increases CTR, while the lack of spins increases ROI.
Online gaming sites are leaders in affiliate revenue
Gaming is the fastest growing and most lucrative vertincal for affiliates. According to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, in the USA alone, online gaming advertising generated revenues of around $1.76bn in 3 quarters of 2022.