How to Optimize Your Playable Game Ad Creatives

Playable ads have charmed developers and advertisers alike, monetizing apps and strengthening impressions by offering an immersive taste of gameplay pre-download. With conversion costs held equal, game advertisers using Pangle s playable ads have seen their conversion rates soar – a clear testament to this format’s potential for impact.

A crucial element of playable ads is their creatives, which directly determine the quality of an ad’s user experience and its ability to perform. Well-placed, player-friendly creatives can make all the difference in the results of a playable game ad campaign.

Tips for designing better creatives

Great creatives prioritize relevancy, adaptability, and templatization.

  1. Relevancy is an obvious starting point. Creatives must be clearly relevant to the games they promote in order to ensure retention and good conversions. Ideally, you want to reveal the core highlights of your game within the first 10–15 seconds to avoid losing or confusing your audience.
  1. As for adaptability, you need to consider how your ad will perform on different device types. Creatives should be responsive to a full range of resolutions, and adaptive to both portrait and landscape modes for effective delivery.
  1. Finally, templatization is a great way to improve your results. Consider designing creatives with interchangeable templates that vary by theme or by level. Then, based on the data you collect, you can optimize your ads for each template, ensuring their flexibility and effectiveness.

Optimizing pre-gameplay time

  1. Playable ads need to minimize disruptiveness and engage viewers quickly. Creatives should take only 1–2 seconds to load, and a progress icon or animation should appear during this time to build up anticipation.
  1. Displaying clear instructions right away is a must, especially for games that are new, highly creative, or complex. A concise overview of the game’s rules or a set of simple gesture icons are good examples of effective guidance creatives.
  1. Your ad may become an unwelcome interruption if it automatically plays background music or other sound effects. To minimize disruptiveness, keep sound muted by default, giving your viewers the option to turn it on.

Optimizing gameplay time and beyond

  1. For games with complex interaction modes, consider implementing a series of simple guidance creatives so your viewers don’t get lost as the game progresses. End the ad with an appealing call-to-action button to drive conversions.
  1. Last but not least, make sure the viewer ends up with a clear understanding of your message. Clearly show the name, logo, and signature icons of the game you re promoting, as well as attractive copy and visual elements that establish a strong impression of your game.
    1. We hope this guide has inspired you to take your playable game ads to the next level. For more helpful tips on pushing ad performance farther, follow us on our LinkedIn and Facebook.