AppQuantum

The objective

Reaching paying users to achieve higher ROAS

AppQuantum, a mobile free-to-play game publisher, aimed to promote its exciting Idle Merge game, Gold and Goblins. The game features engaging mechanics, where players send goblin workers to break nodes and find treasures. The title has already captivated over 2 million players worldwide.

The game features a hybrid monetization model of in-app ads and in-app purchases; players purchase gems and gold to progress in the game faster. The publisher sought to attract paying users and achieve a higher return on ad spend.

The Solution

Building a comprehensive approach to user acquisition

AppQuantum's campaign objective was to achieve higher ROAS by expanding its audience and increasing its paying user base. The publisher focused on deep funnel events, which led it to adopt a gradual approach to structuring and optimizing the campaign for maximum efficiency.

AppQuantum structured its TikTok approach into multiple stages:

1. In the first stage, it aimed to attract a massive audience at the lowest cost, starting with a Mobile App Install campaign. The campaign targeted a broad audience to build a significant user base, making optimization at more sophisticated stages more efficient.

2. Once the brand acquired a sufficient user base, it transitioned to App Event Optimization (AEO), focusing on optimizing for purchases. Subsequently, it integrated Value Optimization into the campaign, aiming to attract the highest-paying users.

After achieving stable results on AEO and Value Optimization, AppQuantum began exploring ways to automate its approach, aiming to increase and sustain scale while minimizing the technical workload.

3. Having gathered a sufficient amount of signals, AppQuantum transitioned to Smart Performance Campaign (SPC), an end-to-end campaign automation product on TikTok Ads Manager. SPC harnesses the power of advanced AI and machine learning to achieve the advertiser's marketing objectives. With this approach, advertisers simply provide their marketing objective, budget over a period of time, and necessary creative assets (video, picture, text, CTA, card).

SPC became the core of AppQuantum's purchasing approach, offering campaigns with a long life cycle, adjustability, and consistent results. This enabled it to attract a diverse user base from various segments at the most cost-effective rates possible.

4. To further increase campaign efficiency, the mobile game publisher started actively buying traffic for Value-Based Optimization with the MinROAS bidding strategy.

5. Furthermore, the integration of the App Profile Page function notably enhanced the efficiency of user acquisition on iOS while supplying additional signals to the campaign optimization algorithm. Boosting the volume of events posted from the publisher's side yielded positive effects during the campaigns' learning phase.

6. In the final step, AppQuantum adopted the TikTok Marketing API, enabling swift responses to changes in campaign performance and accelerating growth by streamlining routine tasks.

TikTok Marketing API is part of the TikTok API for Business suite of solutions, offering a range of interface services tailored for developers by TikTok for Business. The Marketing API seamlessly interacts with TikTok Ads Manager features, enabling developers to programmatically access data, create and manage advertisements, and perform diverse tasks.

This API facilitates various functions, including managing ad campaigns on a larger scale, and streamlining the uploading and management of creative assets through a consolidated interface, automating bid decisions based on both historical and current campaign performance, and triggering automatic campaign notifications and optimizations.

By integrating the Marketing API, AppQuantum automated its user acquisition, allowing it to efficiently expand and sustain scale while minimizing its operational workload.

Regarding the creative aspect, which holds paramount importance in any TikTok campaign, AppQuantum generated in-house creatives aligned with prevailing TikTok gaming trends and consistently refreshed them as the campaign unfolded.

The Results

Surpassing expectations and achieving cost-efficient performance

The campaign yielded impressive results, including a significant two-fold reduction in the cost per paying user and a substantial 40% decrease in cost per install. The campaign's primary focus, ROAS, achieved a remarkable 50% increase, while average revenue per user (ARPU) demonstrated a solid growth of 30%.

Overall, AppQuantum was able to tailor its TikTok media approach to its needs, achieving long-term efficiency and high ROAS.

Currently, this approach is being implemented across the numerous titles AppQuantum promotes on TikTok.