Gamers complete quests.
Blade Idle reaches new audiences.

Players of Blade Idle find adventure on quests, completing dungeons to gain power and rewards. With Apple Search Ads campaigns across the Today tab¹ and search results, the gaming app’s developer Mobirix boosted impressions and downloads while improving conversion rates and costs.

The Results

25% higher conversion rate than similar ad platforms.

49% higher revenue-per-install than similar ad platforms.

125% increase in brand-related search volume after Today tab campaign.

46% increase in organic downloads after Today tab campaign.

The Challenge

To maximize high-quality downloads globally, the team at Mobirix wanted to increase brand awareness with fans of idle role-playing games (RPG). The team needed to stay competitive in a crowded category across core markets, including Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S. They were focused on attracting the right audiences on the App Store to meet key performance indicators like optimizing cost-per-install and driving revenue.

Apple Search Ads plays a critical role in maximizing discovery of new games at the upper end of the marketing funnel with the Today tab ads and increasing downloads from users showing strong intent with search results campaigns at the lower part.

Hansol Lee,

Manager, Marketing Team at Mobirix

The Solution

Reach new audiences and drive discovery with ads on the Today tab.

To scale awareness and reach more potential gamers, the team at Mobirix invested in ads on the Today tab in addition to search results campaigns. Today tab ads drove visibility by positioning their brand prominently on the front page of the App Store, where hundreds of millions of people go every week to discover and download apps. The team actively monitored impressions and cost-per-acquisition, regularly adjusting bids to ensure that they stayed competitive.

After running the Today tab ads, the team at Mobirix found that iOS organic downloads for Blade Idle increased by 46 percent, while overall brand-related search volume also grew by 125 percent. “After the success we saw with Blade Idle, we are now running Today tab campaigns for all our new idle RPG titles, maximizing the success and downloads of new releases on the App Store,” says Mobirix Marketing Team Manager Hansol Lee. “When you combine search campaigns and Today tab ads, you can make the most of Apple Search Ads: driving the highest-quality iOS acquisition from the upper funnel all the way through to the lower part of the funnel.”

Improve ad relevancy to capture the attention of the right players.

To better capture the attention of the right players, the team at Mobirix developed Today tab ads and search results ad variations based on tailored custom product pages set up in App Store Connect. These customized ads highlighted in-app screenshots to appeal to gamers interested in RPG gameplay. Players who tapped these ads landed on a custom product page with relevant ad creative highlighting core gameplay and features — offering audiences a seamless experience.

“Ad variations that highlighted appealing aspects of our game and shared the in-app experience drove higher tap-through rates and conversion efficiency than creative that was highly designed and featured text,” says Hansol. The Mobirix team did not use any audience refinements for their Apple Search Ads campaign, choosing All Users in order to reach the broadest audience possible.

Optimize efficiency with performance insights.

Interested in continually maximizing downloads and revenue, the Mobirix team monitored performance closely for both search results and Today tab ad campaigns. They relied on the Apple Search Ads dashboard as well as sales data from App Store Connect to evaluate campaign performance. Whenever there was an app update for the game, the team focused on increasing impressions through the Today tab campaign while simultaneously applying more aggressive bids on search results campaigns to capture the most downloads possible.

“We were able to meet our key goals of maximizing player growth and revenue through the synergistic effect of ads on the Today tab and in search results,” says Hansol. “That’s why we increased our overall investment in Apple Search Ads, allocating 90 percent of our budget for iOS to these campaigns.”

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