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Mobile game advertising trends start in the app.
With 2018 getting underway, it’s an ideal time to reflect on a handful of emerging trends in mobile app monetization that have real potential to take off next year. These have each proven effective in small ways to date, but are replicable, scalable, and ripe for further innovation.

When Featherweight Games released Rodeo Stampede, it introduced an interesting twist on the traditional rewarded video model that typically rewards players upon completing a video advertisement. In Rodeo Stampede, Featherweight flips the model, giving players who meet an untimely death an opportunity to continue the game immediately in exchange for watching a video ad after the level has been completed.

Delaying the ad keeps the player engaged at critical moments, and in many instances leads to longer game plays and happier players. Dylan Bevis, director of Featherweight Games weighs in: “We felt like the benefit of not breaking the players flow by making them watch an ad mid-level was self-evident.” Ads appear at natural breaks, such as between levels. This approach improves performance for advertisers, as players are more receptive to viewing and engaging with ads on their own terms.

In 2018, we expect to see developers borrow this successful strategy and develop entirely new creative applications for rewarded video. Bevis describes some benefits of creative implements for rewarded placements. “Allowing the player to use the revive prior to watching the ad made a huge improvement to the experience of that ad placement.”