Industry Launch Guide–Games

1. Background

When clients with game applications launch on the Mi Ads platform, they often encounter high trial and error costs due to a lack of understanding of product tools on the platform, making stable scaling and optimization difficult.

2. Objective:

Help clients with game applications understand the product tools that enhance performance and choose the appropriate products and strategies based on their own situations.

A. Complete optimization link

Quick overview of optimization strategies

B. Determine route of optimization

Increase in magnitude	The bidding formula: eCPM=pCTR*pCVR*CPA*1000. Increases in magnitude can start from CTR, CVR, and prices.
	1. Increase CTR: usually achievable through optimizing media.
	2. Increase CVR: usually achievable through optimizing the conversion link, for example (reducing cheating rates, enabling one-click downloading and such), and targeting highly-relevant groups, etc.
	3. Increasing Bid: improve bidding power directly by raising prices.
	4. CPC bidding: convert from CPA to CPC bidding.
	5. Traffic combination: further expand in magnitude by selecting system preferred placement filling and developer traffic.

Increase in quality(retention, post-link in-app events, return, etc.)	1. Preferred placements: screen for high-quality placements, use automatic billing, etc. when making placements
	2. Audience targeting: achieved by adding targeting criteria.
	3. Developer traffic: deliver through a combination of various traffics.
	4. Price adjustments: control returns by adjusting prices.

C. Specific scenarios for optimization

Scenario 1: quality meets expectations but magnitude does not

Quick overview

The bidding formula: eCPM=pCTR*pCVR*CPA*1000. Increases in magnitude can start from CTR, CVR, and prices.
Increase CTR	Optimize media
Increase CVR	Optimize conversion link, such as reducing interception rates, enabling one-click downloading, etc.
Increase Bids	Directly increase bidding power
Bidding mode	Convert from CPA to CPC
Full coverage	System preferred placement filling and **developer traffic

Optimize media

Media tools: Media Center

1. Advantage: pulls and aggregates media published by the advertisers on all platforms.
2. Instructions:
   • Open "Placement Tools"->"Media Center", and enter the pack name
   • You can compare and select media with higher CTR or derivative works for placements

Update frequency: we recommend updating your media 2-4 weeks after launches

Media placement combination: you can select media and ad creatives based on the location of ad placement.

For example: "App vault + GIF"

Conversion link optimization

No error interception: we recommend reducing or relaxing interception rules from the advertiser's side to increase conversion rates.

Turn on one-click download:

Applicable placement regions: regions covered by GetApps.

1. Advantages: after enabling the minicard function, users that click the ad will go through one-click downloading on the minicard page without needing to redirect to the app store, greatly shortening the conversion link.
2. Instructions: when creating an ad group, select "GetApps" as the promotional target. Click the URL and add redirection parameters.

Positive case

Raise the bid

Bidding recommendations (using LTV as an example):

On day T, user payment values are lower than conversion costs; at this time, there is a profit margin. If there are demands for increase, consider increasing the budget or raising prices to acquire more high-quality users.We recommend that price increases do not exceed 30% each time, and to observe for a day before considering further adjustments.Ranges of each price increase do not exceed 20%, and observe backend costs after price increases.

CPC bidding

Change mode of bidding: change from CPI offers to CPC bidding.

Modification suggestions: after making adjustments, actually bid and make payments by clicking. Pay close attention to actual conversion costs and budgets, making adjustments to CPC prices and budgets in a timely manner.

Traffic combination

Full resource coverage:

Tool: System Preferred Placement

1. Advantage: provides smart services according to various placement scenarios and client needs, including long-tail traffic application, cross-site media reuse, etc., to improve the magnitude of the campaign
2. Instructions: when selecting placements, chose "preferred placement"

Affiliate traffic: Xiaomi singular project or SDK, inserting high-quality users who are a strong match with gaming products.

Learn more: Co-Developer traffic Introduction for client

Positive case

Scenario 2: quality not meeting expectations

Cost recovery: for many IAA game advertisers that monetize through advertising, having numerous active users is necessary to generate revenue. Therefore, metrics of retention and recovery (ROI, ROAS, LTV, etc.) are of great importance.

Post-link events: most IAP advertisers and some IAA product advertisers pay more attention to the conversion (costs) of certain post-link events, such as registration, payment, creating a character, level completion, etc.

Define KPI, postback event values	Recovery metrics (ROI, ROAS, LTV, etc.)	Price adjustment	Preferred placement Audience targeting Traffic combination
	Retention
	Post-link events (registration, payment, character creation, level cleared, etc.)

Price adjustment

Adjustment recommendation (using LTV as an example):

On day T, user payment values are higher than conversion costs; at this point, revenue does not cover costs. You can try to reduce prices or try other methods of optimization.

Preferred placements

Manual selection: query data of corresponding targets using tagid dimensions on third-party platforms. Close ad placements with low metrics, keeping only high-quality ad placements.

Automatic bidding (for day 1 retention):

Tool: Automatic Bidding

1. Advantages: given a CPA unit price, automatically bids for each ad placement based on target retention. Reduces time spent on manual adjustments and improves retention efficiently.
2. Instructions:
   • Enable postback of retention data.
   • Fill in the target day 1 retention rate when creating an ad group.

Positive case

Audience targeting

Audience targeted placements:

Tools: Manage Target Audiences— placement towards targeted audiences can be done by "local account upload" or by "label selection".

1. Instructions:
   • Choose a targeting method (upload or select)
   • Select corresponding clusters to country of placement
   • Upload files/select tags
   • Click to generate

Positive case

Traffic combination

Developer traffic: Xiaomi‘s decoupled projects or SDK, providing high-quality users who are a strong match with gaming products.

Learn more: Co-Developer traffic Introduction for client

Positive case