Playable Ads: How to Attract Clients Interactively

Tips on using Playable Ads, an interactive video format, from Borscht ad agency team.

Playable Ads is a new myTarget interactive format that that allows mobile app users to watch a short preview of the mobile game or app and play its demo version before they choose to download it. These ads are available on a social network OK and are shown in the feed of OK mobile app for iOS and Android.

A Playable Ads assets should include a lead-in video, a playable file and an End card.

• Lead-in video is a 15-30 seconds video that introduces an advertised mobile app to the audience;
  

• Gameplay is a test version of a game or an app, which develops users' expertise in the complete product version.
  

• End card contains call to action and appears after the playable ad. It is aimed to engage users in order to drive installs in app stores.
  
  

You could attract user's attention in the news feed adding a call to action button that will lead users to the demo version of your game or app. Working with the new format it is possible to use three bid strategies: CPC, CPM and oCPM.

Playable Ads is a highly performing format for various mobile apps categories.

Gameplay allows to show various game mechanics and player's experience. With interactive ads you could even demonstrate game progression from the first to the final level. With this format you can show development of characters, skills improving or game world evolution. It is also helpful in showing users the specific features of the game and attracting relevant audience that is interested in particular genre or game mechanics.

When promoting e-commerce apps it is possible to run a quiz inside the ad: ask users to guess what the price of clothes/shoes/home appliances could be. Another creative option is to give the user a chance to build an outfit from the available pieces of clothing.

Playable Ads could be used in the more traditional way for an immediate product demonstration. With this type of ad you could highlight the key product's USPs and competitive advantages.

Use Playable Ads to show potential users the key features of the app: choosing between two profiles, swiping left or right, meaning you would consider meeting them in real life or not.

Most dating apps have in-game currencies, offering access to premium features like viewing all the profiles, sending gifts to users you like, highlighting your page or boosting your ranking. Show a potential user how the bonuses in the app work and what advantages do they give. Grab users' attention offering in-game currency as a reward for installing the app.

Financial apps are traditionally more conservative, although they are offering more advanced features. Give users a chance to participate in a test deal or to buy/sell a stock.

First of all, it's critical to keep in mind the technical requirements. The second step is to build a team of professionals.

• Project Manager
  
• Game Designer
  
• Designer / Illustrator
  
• Developer
  

At first, we were making lead-in videos using test version on Native JS, which is a universal tool for creating Playable Ads. But as we worked with the complicated animation, we found out that creatives prove to be too large while their resolution is low. After that we decided to use pixiJS, which allowed us to create a smoothly animated banner weighing several KBs with no loss in quality. Now we also work with Phaser / Cocos Creator and use Adobe Animate to create our own HTML5 banners. The quality of our creatives has significantly increased, so we recommend starting with simple techniques and gradually develop more complex ones. You can see examples of our creatives on our website.

When we first started out, it took more than a month to make one creative. However, when we gained some experience, we switched to the Agile model, which allowed us to compile processes within our team during different stages of development and get all the specialists who were part of production working in sync. Now it takes 20-30 working hours to develop an average creative, excluding the time that takes us to adapt it to advertising networks.

We tested Playable Ads in several campaigns and compared their efficiency to other formats, such as square video and ordinary multi-format ads. We used the same targeting settings in all the campaigns, and launched the formats one after another.

In all three campaigns the Playable Ads format demonstrated the best results with other conditions being equal. In addition, our examples prove that the new ad type perform efficiently at the different stages of the marketing funnel.

Playable Ads open up new opportunities for advertisers to attract new customers and increase product awareness. If you want to test the new interactive format, we highly recommend you to target your campaign to a wide audience and use the oCPM bid strategy. With this approach you could analyze special aspects of the interested audiences for further campaign optimization. If you have been working with myTarget for a long time and now look for new growth spurts in mobile apps promotion, Playable Ads format could be a potential driver for the key marketing metrics.