What are the latest Facebook and Google creative trends for Match 3 games?
Learn How to Optimize Your Ad Campaigns
What are the latest Facebook and Google creative trends for Match 3 games? Both Facebook ads and Google ads provide powerful ways to reach and target your current and potential customers. And, as the algorithms for these ad targeting platforms have become more sophisticated, marketers should lean more on the platforms to do the heavy lifting for targeting, bidding and optimizing their ad campaigns. So what’s left? Creative.
Creative is king in a world rapidly moving towards automated media buying. And, optimizing creative is the most effective way to drive ROAS for Facebook and Google. To be effective, generating fresh creative ideas has to be strategic, efficient, and ongoing. So knowing the latest creative trends is a great first step in this process.
Creative trends change fast and they also change vary dramatically across genres. While it is good to know broad creative trends, you’ll also want to hone in on your particular niche, such as with Match 3 games, if this is relevant for you. Here’s an overview of the latest Match 3 Puzzle Games Trends:
Competitive Analysis – Know and Study Your Competitors
Competitors: Fishdom, Gardenscapes, Homescapes, Mansion Blast, Home Design Challenge, Wildscapes, Slices, Township Farm & City, Wordscapes, Clockmaker, Meow Match, Home Design Makeover, Jelly Juice, Lily’s Garden, My Home, Paint by Number, Sweet Road, Vineyard Valley, Brain Out, Candy Crush, Cookie Jam, Disney Magic Kingdoms, Fashion Blogger, Fashion Boutique, Museum Story, Sweet Escapes, Tropicats, Tropic Trouble, Choices, Dragon City, Episode, Hustle Castle, Lost Island, Merge Dragons!, Party in My Dorm, The Simpsons, Covet Fashion, Klondike, Minecraft, Clash of Clans, June’s Journey, Panda Pop, Manor Cafe, Home Blast, Hidden Resort
Top Competitors: Match 3: Toon Blast, Farm Heroes Saga, Bubble Witch 3 Saga, Toy Blast, Candy Smash Mania, Jewel Crush, Jewel Fever, Candy Blast Mania, Candy Pop, Sugar Blast, Cookie Jam Top Match 3 game.
Top Competitors: Building: Matchington Mansion, Homescapes, Gardenscapes, Township, Fishdom, Coin Master
Puzzles: Locks & Gates and other puzzles that challenge users to free a game character (Fishdom, Gardenscapes, Homescapes, many others)
Picker Videos: 3D or 2D situations with picker, often resulting in disastrous fails. (Township, Sweet Escapes, Manor Cafe, many others)
Hidden Items: Videos or still images that contain hidden items the user must find. (Meow Match, June’s Journey)
Design Challenges: Tasks that must be completed within allotted time or budget. (Design Home, Sweet Escapes)
Real Player Gameplay: Split screen featuring a player and gameplay. (Jelly Juice)
Female-Centered Vignettes: Women overcoming adversity and men behaving badly in soap opera situations. (Lily’s Garden, Choices, Vineyard Valley, My Home: Design Dreams)
Choose Your Adventure: Series of situations where you choose between two actions. (Choices, Episode)
Game Controller: Picker that mimics a game console, guiding character through levels. (Candy Crush, Hustle Castle)
Lifestyle and Gameplay: Showing lifestyle footage and gameplay that matches image (Toon Blast, Farm Hero Saga)
Gameplay + Side Character: Gameplay elements leaving screen to interact with character (Candy Blast Mania, Candy Smash Mania, )
Mixing gameplay with narrative: Storybook narration, Coloring book style (Bubble Witch Saga))
3D effect: Characters “floating” above gameplay (Farm Heroes Saga)
Funny but still cute: Evil character getting hit by gameplay, mentioning how you can’t get weight by playing candy games (Candy Blast Mania, Bubble Witch Saga))
Incorporating game to solve a problem: Using gameplay to find key to escape a room (Candy Smash mania)
Player Motivations – Understand Your Audience
Sample motivations for playing:
Stress relief
Complete levels or beat score
Killing time
Escape from “real life”
Socialize with friends, family or other people
The Most Common Primary Motivations for Women are Completion and Fantasy
Completion is the Most Low-Risk, High-Reward Motivation
Source: Quantic Foundry, 7 Things We Learned About Primary Gaming Motivations From Over 250,000 Gamers
Game Player Motivations
Concept: Faux Hidden Items Gameplay
Faux “relaxing” games are interrupted by exciting interactions/fights between characters:
Begin video with slower games like hidden items or word games, with a header like “Find 5 Bats”
Characters breakthrough painting as others chase with a (baseball) bat.
Competitor/Share of Voice:
N/A
Player Motivations:
Decorative/creative opening could attract puzzle players
Concept: Locks and Gates
New 2D animation style
Try characters in “How to Loot?” where a lock releases sweets or allows her to escape
Test “What’s Next?” vs FAIL – to appeal to new users
Leverage “dumb ways to die” assets
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Gardenscapes: 96%
Homescapes: 36%
Player Motivations:
Engage puzzle players who want to complete challenges
Concept: Connect the Dots
Create videos where finger connects dots to create characters:
Simple background
Engages the viewer’s curiosity
Can speak to game truths like Clockmaker’s “We know you’re tired of Match-3 ads..”
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Sweet Escapes, EA
Player Motivations:
Targets player need for creativity and narrative in games
Concept: Serial Storytelling
Serial storytelling style:
Soap opera clichés and adult situations to capture the attention of the 25-54 female demographic
Minimal scenes (“UP” style opening)
Rival characters fighting over a love interest
Female characters overcoming odds and bad male behavior
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Lily’s Garden: 91% SOV
Player Motivations:
Targets player need for narrative in games
Concept: Perilous Situations
Rescue situations: Feature characters. Leverage pop culture, movies, or just mini-games.
Character holding rope bridge (Indiana Jones)
Character holding a clock (Harold Lloyd).
Dumb ways to die concepts
HS/GS “in a theme tied to the game”
Concept: Character Countdown
Feature various characters in a countdown:
Showcases animation style, range of characters and attributions
Generates engagement (curiosity over list of characters)
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Rise of Kingdoms: 28% SOV
Player Motivations:
Targets completionists seeking to master levels/characters
Concept: Pop Culture
“Nailed It” TV show, predicted winner, iterate with new items (gingerbread) 2 item pickers, new fail, new kitchen items.
Best Fiends throwback ad featured familiar “I Love Lucy” black and white opening. Leverage familiar TV show opens with characters that speak to our target demo.
Concept: Hidden Objects
Count off hidden items or count the difference between side by side images of environments.
Concept: Comedic Voice Over
Create videos that juxtapose gameplay with funny voice over:
Showcases gameplay and graphics
Mimics player dialogue
Uses subtitles
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Icing on the Cake: 54% SOV
Rise of Kingdoms: 72% SOV
Questland: 8% SOV
Player Motivations:
Mirrors social aspect of puzzle games
Concept: Character Competitions
Feature game characters in different competitions:
Slap Off
Strip Poker (word search removes items of clothing, will keep it PG)
Funny way to show character in new environment
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Slap King: 100% SOV
Slap Master: 100% SOV
Sinful Puzzle: 13% SOV
Player Motivations:
Targets competitive players
Concept: Off to the Races
Create videos featuring game characters in different races
Water slide race, Car race, running race
Dress up characters as mascots at baseball game, make it interactive with “see who wins”
Showcases characters in new game environment
Engages viewers who’ll want to see who wins
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Aquapark: 83% SOV
Player Motivations:
Targets competitive players
Concept: One Word at a Time Stories
Simple text-based videos with attitude that entice or antagonize viewers:
Simple background
Easy to make and test
Can speak to game truths like Clockmaker’s “We know you’re tired of Match-3 ads…”
Competitor/Share of Voice:
Clockmaker 83% SOV
Player Motivations:
Targets player need for creativity and narrative in games
Concept: Incorporate gameplay cleverly
Audience Profile: Completion & Design
Make the gameplay a crucial component of the ad story.
Examples
Gameplay allows you to open a door to escape room
Gameplay gives the key to save a character
Use various shapes to present gameplay (heart-shaped, flower, circle)
Concept: Mix Lifestyle and Gameplay
Audience Profile: Fantasy
Opening ad with lifestyle that matches gameplay/characters
Adding elements of game characters to lifestyle footage
Make Lifestyle part of the story
Concept: Maximize Gameplay Blocks
Audience Profile: Fantasy, excitement
Make gameplay parts interact with other elements of ad
Examples:
Gameplay blocks hit evil character
Then, Gameplay blocks come to life and take over screen
Or, Gameplay blocks talk to each other discussing ways to make a big move
Concept: Risqué Ideas
Audience Profile: Destruction and
Excitement
Less brand focused
Irreverent elements
Examples:
Inclusion of gross items
Physical discomfort
Can’t look away style
Humor
Concept: Target Different Player Motivations
Target Different User Clusters
CTA always on in non-picker: Play Now, Try Yourself, etc.
End Card “FAIL” appeals to certain users, test “What’s Next?”, “Try Yourself”, etc.
Concept: Test Gameplay Elements
Continue using hand style creative, but make it have a purpose
Selection crucial to narration
Selection moves ad forward
Concept: Add Narrative
Add narrative to best performers transitions to explain the story better
Help understand what the goal is
Concept: Test Level Completed – Player Motivation
Ad levels completed to gameplay best performers (Audience main motivation is completion)
Emphasize the amount of levels
Challenge user to get to higher levels
Concept: Test Mini Fails vs One Big Fail
Show a succession of mini fails followed by the big fail ending
Add fail sounds to emphasize mistake
Creative Testing to Optimize Advertising
It’s not enough to just stay on top of Facebook’s creative and Google creative trends, it’s also important to remember to continue testing, testing, testing.
Quantitative Creative Testing is an A/B split-testing methodology we’ve developed for ad creative. It’s designed to be super-efficient with both time and ad spend, to find the sort of breakout ads that can replace a campaign’s previous control. To do Quantitative Creative Testing effectively, we take batches of new Concepts and run them against each other in an ad set. Each new Concept gets about 50,000 impressions before we decide if it’s a winner or a loser. If it’s a winner, it gets moved up into another ad set where it will run against another winning mobile ad creative, including the current control. If the new ad can outperform all the other ads in that ad set, then it gets moved into another, primary ad set and gets the bulk of the campaign’s spend.
You can also check out our video and whitepaper on creative testing best practices:
As mentioned, while knowing general creative trends is helpful, dig deeper into the trends most relevant for your product. Further, you’ll also want to overlay all this creative development and testing with actual performance data. As a result, you’ll want to chase trends that boost ROAS, not just chase every trend that comes along. So, keep testing, and testing, and if you have any questions on how to streamline your creative testing process, reach out to us to discuss.
