Comment & Opinion

The future of app monetisation is looking up

A look at new engagement and monetisation SDK Aurora

The future of app monetisation is looking up

David Pokress is SVP Monetisation & Publisher Relations at AdColony.

You have users, but what are you doing with them? Are they engaged? When will they churn? Is their lifetime value as high as it could be?

These are the questions that keep publishers awake at night, and for good reason: it affects their app economies.

Maximising app economies goes beyond a simple ad integration or in-app purchase promotion. It relies on finding the core loop of an app and supporting it with meaningful user engagement and effective monetisation.

When this happens, monetisation and engagement are no longer at odds: they are symbiotic.

And no, this isn’t the opening sequence to a utopian RPG. It’s a philosophy we believe in, one that improves the user experience while better monetising mobile games and apps. It’s the driving force behind our Aurora SDK and the Compass tools contained within.

When monetisation and engagement are designed in tandem, it’s not just the user experience that benefits; the publisher is also poised to enjoy notable revenue gains.

In fact, a publisher testing the Compass suite of messaging tools found that their users were eight times more likely to make an in-app purchase after being exposed to a dynamically triggered in-app message.

That’s the power of delivering the right message at the right time.

So why aren’t more publishers leveraging dynamic messaging campaigns to support their core loops?

While the variety of apps is infinite, the hours any single publisher can devote to monetisation and engagement is not. That’s why Compass engagement tools have been rolled into the Aurora SDK so that publishers can easily manage automated messaging, events, and loyalty rewards from a single dashboard.

It shouldn’t take an army to create an in-app campaign.

Of course, driving in-app purchases is just one piece of the app economy. Ad monetisation remains an important revenue channel for many publishers, and for some it is the key monetisation strategy in place.

To maximise ad revenue, ads need to offer meaningful outcomes for advertisers. To this end, the ad experience needs to be positive and captivating.

Part of delivering a captivating message is ensuring it is formatted for the environment in which it runs. Maximising the moment - and available screen real estate - is key.

It’s not surprising Nielsen found that ads matching the device orientation perform 30% better; nor is it surprising that 35% of top mobile advertiser budgets are devoted to full-screen placements.

So what does this mean for publishers? One third of top apps are in portrait orientation. When they break for commercial, they need ads that are optimised for the environment in order to drive the most ad revenue possible.

That’s why we’re rolling out Instant-Play HD vertical video with Aurora. It’s the highest quality vertical video ad experience available, period. After all, vertical apps deserve vertical ads, and users deserve a positive ad experience that’s crystal clear and buffer-free. It’s that simple.

So where does that leave us, and why is the future of app monetisation looking up?

As engagement and monetisation strategies increasingly intertwine, so must technology. That’s why Aurora includes both innovative ad formats and intuitive engagement tools.

Thinking about your game in a holistic manner allows you to harness the power of a core loop more effectively.

Engagement and monetisation should never be in silos; the more integrated they are, the more natural your game will feel.

A more natural feel leads to a better user experience, which in the end leads to better overall performance for your game.

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