Rocket Game Studio
Scaling global growth with TikTok's Geo-Expansion Test
The objective
Scaling globally and driving performance
Founded in 2018, OneSoft's Rocket Game Studio is one of the leading game companies in Southeast Asia, with over 700 games published. The company focuses on delivering the best experience for players while enhancing the global visibility of Vietnamese games. Its games have been downloaded over 5 billion times, with more than 5 million daily active users.
In pursuit of global expansion, Rocket Game Studio aimed to take one of its hypercasual games, Scorpion Run, to international markets. The goal was to identify high-performance markets where the studio could scale its investments and successfully launch games. The team also sought to test different markets and campaign structures to determine the most cost-effective strategy for global growth.
The solution
Localizing creatives to identify new high-performance markets
Initially, Rocket Game Studio planned to run a geo-bundling campaign, grouping different markets together, and then releasing one English-language campaign to scale globally. However, TikTok suggested that they leverage TikTok's Geo-Expansion Test Program to compare different campaign structures (geo-bundling vs. non-geo-bundling) and determine which would be more effective and beneficial for them.
Following TikTok's advice, the Rocket Game Studio team ran a non-geo-bundling campaign, localizing their creatives into different languages and releasing them in 2-5 incremental new markets, including the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. They then compared the performance of the two campaigns.
The Results
Discovering a new strategy to scale globally
Within the first 10 days, Rocket Game Studio successfully expanded into six new markets through the Geo-Expansion Test Program, achieving a 24.24% increase in conversion rates. The company's In-Feed Ads delivered a 33.26% reduction in cost per install (CPI), leading to a 42.38% increase in Day0 return on ad spend (ROAS).
By localizing and releasing market-specific creatives in a non-geo-bundling campaign, the team was able to identify new high-performance markets and stretch their marketing budget for maximum impact.
Based on these insights, Rocket Game Studio saw the value of localizing creatives to fit the market. As a result, the studio will continue to focus on non-geo-bundling campaigns to expand globally and reach new audiences.
With the help of the TikTok team, who introduced us to the geo-expansion strategy, we had the opportunity to discover new high-performance markets and scale our investment in those countries for the hypercasual title Scorpion Run. Thanks to this test, we gained a deeper understanding of the importance of geo-expansion and how using localized creatives can significantly improve campaign performance.