Tips for Running Games and Branded Apps on Facebook? (6)
What I'm Looking to Do
I'm looking to get more familiar with running on Facebook, currently I have not launched any campaigns in a few years. I figured a good way is to get up to speed by testing some apps, specifically games and branded apps, keeping it whitehat. Ultimately, I'm looking to run some some lead gen (for myself or possible networks) and I'm also interested in creating some info product models that I have ideas for.
What I've Done So Far
I've read through Zeno's guides, most of the follow alongs and any relevant case studies so I have a solid understanding of how to attack this.
Setup a Business Manager and have 2 ad accounts, both are personal accounts, 1 account I setup ages ago and have no problem testing with it.
Questions I Have
1. Are there any specific tips or insights to share regarding gaming/branded apps? Testing my own product idea's to validate them?
From what I understand on the gaming aspect, my targeting should be closely related to the type/style of game I'm promoting, having an advanced or interactive lander may be the best approach and running in non English geo's would be a good starting point.
2. Are there any rules of thumb to determine which offers have a chance of working on FB? Some apps are very low payout while others are in the $2-8 range.
3. Doing a sample targeting check of US > 21+ > Males on 2 specific interests with a target demo of 100k, my estimated CPC's were in the $2-3 range.. so that obviously can't work. What's the best ad type to approach? Is direct linking worth testing at all?
I'll post some stats and perhaps a follow along at some point.
Andrew
Andrew,
I run a lot of volume on FB to branded mobile apps. I don't want to steer you away but the only way I was able to be profitable is working directly with the source. FB prices are extremely expensive and most aff networks don't pay enough to be profitable on FB. Again, I am talking about app installs only and my experience.
Thanks for the feedback, I will keep it in mind.
Although I don't run them anymore mostly due to the fact that I struggle to scale them (offer caps / pausing offers / niche size of audiences / strict KPI's) but you can run these at a profit for sure...
I've run profitable gaming offers for both CPI and desktop in DE/ FR / US / CA / TW / TH / SG / MY / BR / UK / TR on Facebook through a variety of networks... Don't worry about the estimate CPC for USA... I've got that down to 0.1 - 0.2c CPC's on Skyforge for the USA running to a lander (30-40% CTR on the lander, 8%++ CTR on the image). Fighting for each percentage increase of that CTR is totally worth it!
Spend heaps of time on the images, like anything else on FB it will make or break the campaign. Usually running to a lander results in better conversions, I used multi step landers with a cool video on it.
Think outside the box with your images... It doesn't always have to be about the game... Edit pictures with social proof and add the gaming images into them using photoshop (people gathered around a computer looking at a screen for example). If you can set up a pixel within your affilaite network, run them with the objective "Website Conversions"... Create lookalikes from lander visitors and set up custom conversions for the leads hitting your affialite network... That way you can create very tight lookalikes for your target demographic and scale out to mid $xxx profit per day pretty comfortably. These lookalikes are pretty key to scaling, so another strategy I had was to "seed" them with tight demographics of proven free to play gamers and then let FB's machine learning do the hard part!
Hope this helps 
- Feel free to PM me
For games: target really smart.
The reason a lot of people fail at pushing game offers is that they assume a World of Warcraft player will automatically be interested in a Farmville clone. Or even a DOTA clone.
If you're not a gamer, spend some time learning about the market. If you are, make sure to think about similarities.
As a game developer, one of the biggest things I look at when thinking about this sort of thing is the fantasy the game creates. What would the game have its players imagine they're doing? How similar is that to other games? Where's the endorphin rush coming from?
Also, use gamer language. A lot. Jargon's huge in gaming, and you'll immediately attract the attention of gamers if you use the language appropriate to their game segment. Once again, this is far from universal over all games. Asking a Stardew Valley player if they want to "stomp down mid and not stop until fountain" is unlikely to work. Asking a DOTA player, on the other hand...
Hope that helps!
@relicman
@caurmen
Thanks guys for the feedback, very helpful.
Personally, I'm not much of a gamer but I want to get a better grip on using Facebook's platform and I figured games / branded apps would be a good starting point.
I'm going to educate myself more but I'll shoot you a PM relicman, thanks for the offer.
Andrew
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