Our newest User Acquisition on Unity Infographic summarizes Unity’s growth along with creative specs, campaign tactics, and platform comparisons.
The recent announcement of the Unity and ironSource merger brings exciting opportunities for advertisers looking to diversify their acquisition portfolios beyond Facebook and Google. Unity CEO John Riccitiello highlighted how the merger means more tools “to create and grow successful apps in gaming and other consumer-facing verticals like e-commerce.” With identity systems tied into behavioral dynamics and layered with contextual advertising, Unity and ironSource provide valuable first-party data amidst declining ad visibility.
Our industry expertise comes from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers, including Glu, Roblox, Wooga, Zynga, and Skillz. Our proprietary full-stack marketing platform AdRules provides real-time business intelligence and creative research across social channels.
As the mobile advertising ecosystem has evolved, we have focused on being a reliable source of mobile app industry insights and trends. Our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation, along with tactical guidance for user acquisition and creative teams, has helped advertisers remain profitable during an unprecedented era of change. Our industry expertise has earned coverage from CNBC, Forbes, SeekingAlpha, Business Insider, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Mobile Marketing Magazine, and many more.
Working with a knowledgeable marketing partner that can provide extensive quantitative creative testing ensures you get the best performance from your Unity ads. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.
Adventure. Belonging. Companionship. Understanding emotional triggers make your ad creative more effective. Our latest post, Creative Trends for Friendship Apps, shows how ads for matchmaking apps leverage different user motivations for audience targeting.
Compare dating app vs. friendship app user motivations
See how Facebook creative is modified for TikTok
Compare how ad creative appeals to specific needs and desires
“Like Tinder, But For Besties” Creative Trends for Friendship Apps
As part of a $39.7 billion social network industry, friendship apps strive to connect users with an explicit interest in socializing. Instead of focusing on intimate relationships as dating apps do, friendship apps create fruitful communities based on common interests and non-romantic passions. Adoption of platonic relationship finders is on the rise, driven by reduced interpersonal connection and socialization during the pandemic. Friendship improves the quality of life and after pandemic isolation, people need more of it.
The Friend Trend
While apps sustained many remote relationships over the past two years, location-based friendship finders that help people meet are once again bringing people together in the real world. Meetup (which advertises “lasting friendships” and “growing your friend circle”) receives nearly 20 million monthly visits and has long set the standard for in-person community building. Bumble promises to help users find a new bestie through their BFF feature. Hey! VINA claims to be a “Tinder for (Girl) Friends.” And Peanut connects “like-minded mamas” based on children’s ages and pregnancy due dates.
Understanding user motivation is critical for a successful user acquisition campaign. Friendship app ad creative illustrates how persona-based creative concepts appeal to the unique motivations of different users. Some folks want more of what they already enjoy, while others want new experiences outside of their comfort zone. And some people just want like-minded folks to hang out with.
To see what’s bringing new friends together this summer, we’ve analyzed creative trends and user motivations for friendship apps based on data from Facebook Ad Library and TikTok For Business.
User Motivations for Friendship Apps
While there are some similarities to dating apps, friendship apps trigger different motivations and appeal to users in different ways. Friendship apps may focus on belonging over validation or shared affinities over unlimited connections.
Creative Trends for Friendship Apps
Though user motivations have nuanced differences, creative trends are similar between friendship and dating apps. Based on high-performing ad creative from Facebook Ad Library and TikTok For Business, these are some of the top trends we’re seeing.
Testimonial UGC: focused on a regular/typical person’s direct experience of the app
Influencer-style UGC: content created for followers
Media coverage: independent reviews detailing features and benefits
Editorial photography: stylized and visually compelling
Key Feature: Highlighting specific benefits like a unique matchmaking mechanic
Discovery & Trust
Meetup and Eventbrite focus on community-based events to build a link between individual and group bonding. While some events focus on a “something for everyone” breadth of experience, others are hyper-focused on niche interests and IYKYK experiences. In contrast to time-based events, Nextdoor focuses on location–a neighborhood–to connect individuals to a larger community. While less intimate than testimonial TikToks we see for other friendship apps, Nextdoor ad creative features the app interface to encourage brand trust through meaningful information sharing.
Source: Facebook Ad Library
Companionship, Shared Experiences & Belonging
Peanut is a friendship app that matches women based on their pregnancy due date and the ages of their children. Their Facebook ad creative combines influencer-style “reposts,” typical testimonials, and editorial photography. The app helps “make pregnancy less scary” and promises weekend walk dates with “like-minded mamas.”
Source: Facebook Ad LibrarySource: Facebook Ad Library
Peanut App
In contrast to Facebook creative, Peanut’s TikTok ads combine high-contrast typography or screenshots with relatively neutral video backgrounds. They use media coverage, “reposts” from other channels, and UGC-style posts that look entirely native. Advertisers looking to reach TikTok audiences often recycle ad creative straight from other channels, but TikTok requires a unique creative approach.
Source: TikTok for Business
How We Can Help
Testing different creative trends paired with different user motivations is the cornerstone of our creative process, the Ad Concept Model. From cinematic trailers to influencer-style UGC, our Creative Studio provides clients with creative-driven Hollywood storytelling and quantitative analysis. Our creative expertise comes from managing $150m in monthly ad spend across Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search Ads with clients like Disney, Zynga, Rovio, Nickelodeon, Yelp, Sun Basket, NBA, MLB, Roblox, Glu Mobile, Jam City, and many others. Our creative team is masters of influencer-style UGC creative, live-action, post-production, 3D animation, motion graphics, and illustration.
Creating and testing 100K videos and images each year for clients provides us unparalleled insights into the evolving mobile advertising ecosystem. From our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation to tactical guidance for A/B testing, we ensure our clients can adapt and thrive. Contact us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to work with our elite creative team.
Read our June 2022 roundup of platform updates and creative trends for mobile app marketers. An algorithm update from Instagram gives more exposure to original posts, rather than recycled content from TikTok. Facebook offers creative fatigue guidance to recover ad performance sooner. And millennial consumers are willingly watching explainer ads with absurd humor.
To beat the 95% failure rate of ad creative, INK Games partnered with us to develop and test creative over a year before the global launch of their mobile game Prize Kingdoms. Our newest case study shares how we created 130 new video ad concepts, the official 1-minute game trailer, a 1-minute narrative CG commercial, and a 30-sec live action commercial.
June 2022 Mobile App UA and Creative Roundup
Here’s a sneak peek into the world of Prize Kingdoms!
Our global network of experienced storytellers, designers, and video editors helps advertisers scale the volume and quality of their TikTok advertising.
Check out how complex, nuanced, or even boring products and services drive performance through this comedic approach.
Grab viewers with topics, not products
Provide an absurd yet earnest call to action
Combine unexpected narrators, locations, and props
Humor can work for any industry if you’re willing to experiment.
INK Games Case Study: Launching With 130+ Tested Ads
In our newest case study, we share how INK Games will launch worldwide with a treasure trove of 130+ tested ad creatives to help them scale as fast as possible.
An early partnership with a creative studio can improve creative strategy
Early ad creative testing can reduce development cycles by validating game mechanics and user motivations
A repository of tested ad creative enables faster scaling upon launch
A creative studio with media buying expertise reduces the UA burden on the internal development team
Upcoming Webinar
Register for this Thursday’s webinar: Why Performance Advertising Needs Great Storytelling. Discover how any app can drive performance through Direct Response Storytelling for TikTok, Reels, Snapchat, and YouTube. Our creative team will answers all your questions live.
Our newest TikTok & Mobile Games infographic summarizes ad placement and targeting for each stage of the user journey, along with creative guidance and inspiration. For in-depth creative strategies, check out our white paper TikTok UGC Ads: 2022 Creative Guide.
For apps and mobile games looking to scale their paying user base, look no further than TikTok. Skeptical about the platform? TikTok owner ByteDance generated $1 billion of player spending across its mobile games in the last year.
Our industry expertise comes from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. Some of them include Glu, Roblox, Wooga, Zynga, and Skillz. Our proprietary full-stack marketing platform AdRules provides real-time business intelligence and creative research from 3.5 million video ads across social channels.
The mobile advertising ecosystem has evolved. So we have focused on being a reliable source of mobile app industry insights and trends. Our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation, along with tactical guidance for user acquisition and creative teams, has helped advertisers remain profitable during an unprecedented era of change. Our industry expertise has earned coverage from CNBC, Forbes, SeekingAlpha, Business Insider, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Mobile Marketing Magazine, and many more.
Working with a knowledgeable marketing partner that can provide extensive quantitative creative testing ensures you get the best performance from your UGC ads. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.
Continuing to thrive, Instagram reported $12 billion in revenue in Q1 2022 and over 1.4 billion active users per month. As Instagram rolls out more creator-driven features, we expect the partnership between creators and advertisers to only grow. To unlock new audiences and adapt to Instagram’s changing environment, advertisers need to know about fresh features and updates. Our market insights and creative expertise come from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and web-based performance advertisers. Contact us here to work with our team of Instagram marketing experts providing ad creative and managed user acquisition services.
“From supporting brands you love to helping your friends and family discover new products they may like, sharing products on Instagram just got easier.” With this announcement, Product Tags became available to all users, offering advertisers a new avenue for reaching potential customers. Using the new tagging feature, users can tag the brand and then specify the product being shown on the post. If another user then clicks on the tag, they will have access to detailed information about the product through a product detail page. From there, users can confirm the purchase directly in-app. Brands will have a much easier time driving clicks into their online shop, thanks to the 1.6 million users who tag at least one brand per week. An upcoming feature, currently being tested in the US, will also allow brands to schedule product launches directly on their Instagram Shop.
Instagram Subscriptions Means New Advertising Opportunities
Instagram’s long-awaited subscription feature provides creators with a new way to monetize their content. After setting a monthly cost, creators can offer additional content to their most loyal followers, which is in the form of Subscriber Lives and Subscriber Stories. Additionally, subscribers will get a purple Subscriber Badge that shows up next to their username. Advertisers working with creators can find new opportunities with this loyal audience of paying subscribers.
Currently, creators can offer subscriptions ranging from $0.99 to $99.99. The higher amounts are ideal for private meetings such as online courses through the platform. The subscription model seems quite flexible. This means creators will come up with new and exciting ways of utilizing this feature.
Original Reels Ranked Above Recycled TikTok Content
It’s been almost two years since Reels were introduced on Instagram. Initially, they had a maximum duration of 15 seconds, which has since been substantially increased. As of last month, users now have access to 90-second Reels to give creators more time to tell their stories. One of the platform’s latest updates gives more exposure to original posts, rather than those taken from other platforms such as TikTok. Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said the algorithm change was an effort to support creators, with a promise to “…do more to try and value original content more particularly compared to reposted content.” Instagram continues to modify its ranking system. As a result, original Reels content will be critical for brands and creators to drive performance.
Want better results from Instagram UA?
Working with a knowledgeable marketing partner that can provide extensive quantitative creative testing ensures you get the best performance from your Instagram ads. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.
INK Games Prize Kingdoms Case Study – How to prepare for a global launch by optimizing ad creative early.
An early partnership with a creative studio can improve creative strategy
Early ad creative testing can reduce development cycles by validating game mechanics and user motivations
A pre-launch repository of tested ad creative enables faster scaling upon launch
A creative studio with media buying expertise reduces UA burden on an internal development team
Ink Games Prize Kingdoms Case Study
For our client INK Games, we developed 130 new ad concepts, the official 1-minute game trailer, a 1-minute narrative CG commercial, and a 30-sec live-action commercial for their forthcoming mobile game Prize Kingdoms. From storyboards through production, we created entirely original 3D computer animation along with motion graphics, 2D animation and FX, text animations, lighting effects, character rigging, illustrations, and character design. We also developed original scripts and animatics, ran two casting sessions, and completed two live-action shoots.
As a result of working with Consumer Acquisition, INK Games will go into worldwide launch with a treasure trove of tested ad creative to help them scale as fast as possible. Read on for how we did it.
Watch a sneak peek into the world of INK Games Prize Kingdoms!
Challenge
Mobile game studio INK Games was seeking proven ad creative for the 2022 worldwide launch of their flagship social board game, Prize Kingdoms. To reduce the burden on their internal team, INK Games wanted an agency with rigorous A/B testing expertise that could simultaneously act as a creative partner. Their priority was a one-stop shop that specialized in fast creative prototyping and even faster UA scaling. INK also wanted a team with illustration, 3D animation, and storytelling skills that could amplify the look, feel, and narrative spirit of the game.
For a new game without known IP, initial viability is directly tied to top-of-funnel ad creative. A game may appear to be underperforming, when in fact, the ad creative is not resonating with audiences. INK wanted to eliminate false negatives about their game viability by launching with a massive repository of tested ad creative. Similarly, INK understood the need to test dozens of ad creatives to find the few that were worth spending heavily against. Without proper planning, untested ad creative becomes a bottleneck to spend and INK’s goal was to scale as quickly as possible upon launch.
Solution
Understanding the high failure rate of mobile ad creative, INK partnered with Consumer Acquisition over a year before the worldwide launch to begin developing, testing, and optimizing an enormous backlog of UA creative. In a highly collaborative and flexible process, our creative team helped inform strategy, providing recommendations based on creative testing. Prize Kingdoms gameplay appeals to different types of player motivations including personalized board building, high-stakes dice rolling, and competitive clubs and leagues. As the game evolved and new features were added, we adapted ad creative to test what was resonating most with players.
Early in game development, INK Games identified the following motivations for players:
Progression through leveling up, exploring new game boards, and unlocking new features
Collection of totems, skins, monuments, and zeppelins
Social/Competition through competitive clubs and leagues
Many game developers come to Consumer Acquisition with existing in-game assets. But our creative team was deeply embedded in the development process from the very beginning of the partnership. With a shared workflow, both teams were able to efficiently collaborate as the game was developed and assets evolved. Similarly, our internal creative and user acquisition teams worked together closely to efficiently align creative development with UA goals using our proprietary Ad Concept Model, a proven process to generate fresh, relevant creative assets for efficient testing.
3D, CG & Live Action
In the spirit of “try everything,” INK wanted 3D animation and live-action in their creative repository. They wanted to amplify the high quality of the game experience. Competitive trends showed the success of narrative-drivenlive-action and cinematic CG ads in the market. Additionally, longer form and higher fidelity creative allowed for more versioning to cut up and test. This made asset production, even more, cost-effective.
Results
Working with Consumer Acquisition, INK Games will go into worldwide launch with a treasure trove of tested ad creative. This repository of tested assets will allow Prize Kingdoms to scale quickly upon launch without losing momentum. In a partnership with INK Games spanning over a year, Consumer Acquisition has developed:
130 new, tested ad concepts
A 30-sec live-action commercial
A 1-minute CG narrative commercial
A 1-minute CG/live-action hybrid game trailer
Original illustrations and character design
2D animation and character rigging
Illustration, Design, 3D, and Live-Action Work Developed by our Creative Studio Team
Our creative expertise comes from managing $150m in monthly ad spend across Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search Ads. Creating and testing 100K videos and images each year for clients provides us unparalleled insights into the evolving mobile advertising ecosystem. From our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation, to tactical guidance for A/B testing, we ensure our clients can adapt and thrive. Contact us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to work with our team.
Check out our creative trends for Entersplainers – the funny explainer videos you need for your complex product ads.
Grab viewers with topics, not products
Provide an absurd yet earnest call to action
Combine unexpected narrators, locations, and props
Drive genuine interest in complex, nuanced, and boring products
Humor can work for any industry if you’re willing to experiment
Entersplainers: Advertisement’s new normal?
“We need to talk about your balls” and “let’s talk about your poop” are the declarations of a unique breed of product advertisements: comedic explainer videos we’re calling entersplainers. This ad style is growing in popularity among eCommerce and DTC marketers as it gains traction among Gen Z and Millennial consumers.
An entersplainer is just that– an ad that both entertains and explains a topic with the ultimate goal to sell a product. With their educational language and dry, versed talking points, these companies weave their story while successfully driving sales. By harnessing direct address with explanatory language, marketers create an informal and visually interesting presentation that melds both the personal and informative.
Open with Humor
Humor has long been a part of advertisement culture, and entersplainers are first and foremost funny. Depending on brand goals and willingness to experiment, humor can be industry agnostic and effective for everything from health and hygiene to mobile phone networks. As creative teams develop ad concepts, testing a trend like comical explainer videos can unlock new audiences.
If a product is particularly complex or nuanced, producing an informative ad while keeping the audience’s attention is a challenge. Entersplainers are so effective precisely because they keep an audience engaged for the duration. They provide context and introduce topics in a way that doesn’t feel like an ad, but rather a comedic skit. This presentational style can extend an ad’s reach– especially if it is a skippable ad– and may be shared among peer groups while also helping with ad recollection. A 2022 study in Psychology & Marketing showed humor in advertising positively affects an audience’s attitude toward a product and toward the brand, as well as “increased attention and processing.”
Hook Them with Absurdity
Entersplainers often start with an unconventional appeal to the viewer: an absurd yet earnest call to action. Thryve, now known as Ombre, provides at-home health tests and nutritional supplements. However, their ad creative doesn’t start with their product. Instead, they open with the phrase, “Let’s talk about your poop.” The phrase invites a reaction from the user, already starting a discourse. The surprise of the introduction begs the question: where could this possibly go from here?
Thryve’s tone is bright, energetic, and curious throughout the presentation, marrying the topic of gut health with product explanations. The audience is captured by the absurd beginning and then held by the emotional energy. Who does want to talk about poop? Viewers will definitely pay attention now.
As younger consumers increasingly respond to absurdity in advertising, brands are adapting their messaging accordingly. Manscaped offers hygiene products and uses an introduction similar to Ombre: “We need to talk about your balls.” Both Ombre and Manscaped grab their viewers with topics, not products. This approach is similar to how influencer-style UGC focuses on people over products.
Narrators explain the importance of stomach and hygiene care, using both details and innuendos. This approach opens up highly personal and potentially embarrassing topics for discussion. By illuminating these topics, marketers build a sense of community with the target audience. The combination of absurd humor with earnest discussion is a novel break from the ordinary which helps keep viewers’ attention. Manscaped destigmatizes male hygiene. Ombre normalizes gut health. Dr. Squatch adds a humorous history of soap to help consumers understand why their product is different. Audiences willingly watch for an absurd take on these topics.
Here are some tactics to embrace the entersplainers ad style:
Find a broad topic that your product, service, or app can be a part of and position yourself within it.
Ensure your narrator is directly addressing the camera with confidence and a well-delivered script.
Mix statistics, science, and history with self-aware humor; bonus points for an unlikely narrator speaking on the topic.
To signify a change in topic, walk to a different location. Movement helps with the flow and pacing of the narrative and a pause places emphasis on specific details.
Embed an explanation within a contrasting scenario, such as Dr. Squatch’s school report in the middle of the woods.
Create unexpected combinations of locations and props to amplify the absurdity, like the in-house flamingos below.
Still from a live-action commercial by Consumer Acquisition for Design Home from Glu/EA.
How We Can Help
From cinematic trailers to influencer-style UGC, our Creative Studio provides clients with creative, driven by Hollywood storytelling and quantitative analysis. Our creative expertise comes from managing $150m in monthly ad spend across Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search Ads with clients like Disney, Zynga, Rovio, Nickelodeon, Yelp, Sun Basket, NBA, MLB, Roblox, Glu Mobile, Jam City, and many others. Our creative team is masters of influencer-style UGC creative, live-action, post-production, 3D animation, motion graphics, and illustration.
Creating and testing 100K videos and images each year for clients provides us unparalleled insights into the evolving mobile advertising ecosystem. From our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation to tactical guidance for A/B testing, we ensure our clients can adapt and thrive. Contact us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to work with our elite creative team.
“Advertisers looking to reach TikTok audiences often recycle ad creative from other channels, but TikTok requires a unique people-first approach to advertising. Our Creative Studio offers a global network of experienced storytellers, designers, and video editors to help companies scale the volume and quality of their TikTok advertising. Our team is a master of influencer-style UGC creative, live-action, post-production, 3D animation, motion graphics, and illustration tailored for TikTok.”
Jyri Kidwell, Director of Creative Partnerships at TikTok, said:
“We’re thrilled to welcome Consumer Acquisition by Brainlabs to the TikTok Marketing Partner Program. Their strategic approach to developing creative research and testing is a value to marketers and we look forward to adding their Creative Studio team as a Creative Partner for our advertisers.”
Industry Expertise
Consumer Acquisition’s industry expertise comes from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. These include Electronic Arts, Disney, Bumble, Roblox, Wooga, Zynga, NBA, and MLB. Their creative development process ensures that creative concepts align with target audience motivations and proven creative trends. Eliminating unfocused ideation and reducing creative waste improves efficiencies and ensures clients can maintain profitable ad spend. In addition to its Creative Studio, the company provides media buying services powered by its proprietary full-stack marketing platform AdRules. Through Brainlabs, clients have access to a full suite of digital marketing services. These services include programmatic, paid search, SEO, CRO, GMP, and data strategy.
Founded in 2013, Consumer Acquisition is a technology-enabled marketing services company and creative studio. They provide end-to-end, results-driven creative storytelling, integrated user acquisition, and creative optimization. Consumer Acquisition has managed over $3.5 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. These include Disney, Zynga, Rovio, Bumble, Nickelodeon, Yelp, Sun Basket, NBA, MLB, Roblox, Glu Mobile, Jam City, and many others. Consumer Acquisition was acquired by digital marketing agency Brainlabs in December 2021. To learn more, visit consumeracquisition.com.
TikTok has added first- and third-party cookies to their Pixel. Facebook introduced new creative fatigue guidance to recover ad performance sooner. And in-game advertising is gaining traction among non-gaming companies. Read this May 2022 roundup of platform updates and creative trends for mobile app marketers.
Questions? Let’s meet up at MAU Vegas! Our team will be at MGM Conference Center Booth #410 or come see our talk with Zynga and Jam City at 2 pm Weds: The UA Formula to Beat the 95% Creative Failure Rate. We are looking forward to connecting with the mobile app community in person! Not attending? Feel free to schedule a call with me to discuss your creative strategy.
TikTok recently released several new UA tools to help marketers improve performance including first- and third-party cookies, a new contextual advertising solution, and a platform for trending topics.
Advertisers, publishers, and mobile gamers all love rewarded video ads. Discover why in-game advertising is gaining traction among non-gaming companies.
Facebook Ads Manager introduces new creative fatigue guidance that alerts when ads are predicted to fatigue so advertisers can recover performance sooner.
Every game genre can drive viral installs with episodic ads and deliver the promise of “to be continued…” Discover the pitfalls and pointers from our team of Hollywood storytellers and animators.
Infographic: In-Game Advertising Trends
From viewer receptivity to different ad formats, check out our newest infographic to see how in-game advertising continues to grow across industries.
Join Our Team!
We are hiring across all departments! We have been fully remote since our founding and we’ve thrived in this model for nine years. Come work with us as we enter our 10th year with the support of Brainlabs!
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TikTok advertisers now have access to proven performance-driven creative through this leading Creative Studio
