As part of Pocket Gamer Connects Digital #1, Bidalgo's director of media innovation Doron Wagner and user acquisition team leader Matthew Skurnick gave a talk about "continuity in a crisis" and provided insights on Covid-19 for gaming app marketers.

The pair started by looking back on gaming in March 2020, providing a CPM and volume breakdown for the month. "75% of countries have shown a decrease in CPM, 85% of countries have shown an increase in volume," said Wagner.

This CPM decline began around the start of March, as more people were told to stay indoors. However, there has also been a slight increase, or at least stabilisation, in CPMs since the week of March 30th, largely from fitness and gaming apps.

Quality users are out there

"Quality users are out there and paying," Wagner noted, pointing to a 16% increase in D7 ARPPU, but mentioned that actually finding those users is proving more difficulty.

As for how to adapt to this, Skurnick noted that cheaper impressions and increased scale is leading to faster creative fatigue. To combat this, he recommends iteration, adapting messaging, digging into the past, and doubling down on testing.

"Nothing we've planned is necessarily relevant to today," Skurnick suggested, adding that the coming weeks will be a "back-to-basics" moment for many advertisers. He also suggested being more flexible with country targeting and platform, noting that advertisers who could afford to experiment with platforms like TikTok should do so.

PG Connects Digital #1 is the best of our Pocket Gamer Connects conference in an online form, with an entire week of talks, meetings, and pitch events taking place from April 6th to the 10th. You can read up on all the tracks taking place through the week here.