Browsing the Facebook News Feed is all well and good, but there is only a certain level of excitement that comes from doing so. Because of this, a long time ago game developers came up with the idea of making a new type of game; the social game. Social games provided more for the everyday user to do on social sites, and it created a whole new area for advertisers to focus on. Social games have since become something beyond a Facebook accessory, and social gaming is an everyday activity that internet and mobile users do not have to visit Facebook to do. With the growth of social gaming came a growth of social game advertising, and it seems that advertising within a social game has become quite a successful practice.
In a report released today from MediaBrix, we can see that advertising in social and mobile gaming has surpassed numerous other forms of online advertising in terms of performance. The report shows higher rates of engagement as well as higher clickthrough rates for these social and mobile gaming ads than many other types of ads. This information comes from a comparison of the performance numbers for social gaming advertisements found by MediaBrix to online video and standard online advertising benchmarks from eMarketer.
Social Gaming CTRs
According to the report, the average clickthrough rate generated by social and mobile gaming ads was around 3 percent. This number is 30 times the clickthrough of the everyday banner ad, which eMarketer states as being 0.10 percent. Not only that, but it is also somewhere around 30 times higher than Facebook ads and rich media banner ads, which have clickthrough rates of 0.03-0.11 percent and 0.12 percent respectively. However, what makes social gaming more significant is that it introduces the possibility of rewarding consumers upon their viewing of an ad. This method brings in an average clickthrough rate of 11 percent, which is far greater than the rates of other, more widely used ad types.
Higher Engagment and Completions Too
Social gaming ads have a hold on these performance categories as well, boasting average engagement rates of 20 percent. In comparison, pre-roll ads have engagement rates of 0.7 to 3.64 percent, and Facebook Page ads have average engagement rates of only 0.5 percent. As for completions of video advertisements, which are a popular option among social gaming advertisers, social gaming video ads have an average completion rate of 91 percent. This is only dominated by ads viewed within full episodes of TV shows online, which have completion rates of 93 percent. However, other video ads have significantly lower completion rates;
- Ads on video portals: 84 percent
- Ads on news sites: 83 percent
- Ads on news outlets: 73 percent
Social games are an advertising platform that is rarely talked about, although it seems that ads within these social games are performing considerably better than other, more traditional ad types.
Social and mobile gaming campaigns are able to provide engagement levels and benefits that far exceed what standard online advertising can offer brands. Thus, social and mobile gaming ads continue to gain traction amongst marketers.
