The client
OpenMyGame, a game development studio from Belarus, has been creating apps from idea to publication since 2015. They specialize in casual games for mobile phones and social media, enjoyed by over 80 million people worldwide. Most of their players are over 35 years old, with women making up two-thirds of the audience.
Objective
Advertising serves as the cornerstone of OpenMyGame’s user acquisition strategy. With the Russian region being a priority for traffic acquisition, the studio decided to reach a new target audience by advertising the app in Yandex Direct. Yandex, with 60 million DAU for mobile devices in Russia, is region’s largest traffic source.
KPI
OpenMyGame’s main focus is on four key metrics: CPI, ARPU*, retention rate, and ROAS*.
Advertising monetization is the main source of revenue, which is why the studio tracks the metrics that go into ROAS: how long the user plays (total time in the game and session duration), how often they return to the game (retention rate), and how they behave in the game (which level they reach).
Campaign period
Tools employed
- App ads in search results
- The "Conversion Optimization" strategy with payment for installations
- Autotargeting
Solution
The studio decided to promote “Sea of Words" a popular word puzzle game where players make words from given letters.
They set up a campaign to advertise the game in search results for Android users using keywords and autotargeting.
Autotargeting, while not relying on specific search queries, ensures the display of ads to users most likely to engage with them. This approach enabled coverage of a wide range of low-frequency and even unique queries that might be challenging to identify from a keyword list.
The semantics were built to get maximum coverage.
- Brand-specific queries — "Find Sea of Words".
- Competitor-related queries.
- General queries — "Download games for free in Russia, play games online for free".
- Mobile-centric queries — "Free games for your phone".
- Word game-related queries — "Word logic game, free word games".
- Puzzle-related queries — "Free puzzles".
For each group, two distinct ad variants featuring different texts were prepared.
Campaign parameters were set to the "Conversion Optimization" strategy, with the primary goal being "App Installations". This strategy aimed to attain the maximum number of installations within a fixed budget.
This approach removed CPC restrictions, allowing the campaign to participate in a broader spectrum of auctions and expand its coverage.
Results
In August, they increased their ad budget and adjusted the settings to focus on ROAS since the test period showed excellent results: app installations in November were 1.8X higher than in April, and costs stayed within the values set.
Their retention rate from search results was 20-30% higher than from other traffic sources.
Advertising apps in Yandex Direct with the "Conversion optimization" strategy and paying for installations met their main need, which was finding a new audience in the Russian region for the best possible price.
The fixed rate per installation meant their ad budget wasn’t going to exceed ARPU, and autotargeting helped increase ad coverage and find a target audience for unique queries.
The client’s feedback
We decided to try Yandex Ads for App campaigns and were satisfied with the traffic quality. We aim to continue getting more installations with the same cost. App Campaigns in Yandex Direct are a powerful tool for attracting high-quality traffic within the Russian segment.
*ARPU — Average Revenue Per User
*ROAS — Return on Ad Spend