In October of this year, a TechCrunch article exposed questionable advertising practices in the social gaming industry. Since that time, several major changes have taken place:
1. Facebook has begun enforcing its strict ad guidelines for developers and monetization providers, even banning a few players permanently from the Facebook platform.
2. Social gaming publishers—large and small—have pulled offers from their platform altogether while they review the business practices of their monetization partners.
3. Offer companies have issued press releases ranging from additional ad guidelines to mea culpa pieces asserting that they are now fully Facebook-compliant.
The Must-Haves for Consumer Satisfaction
At TrialPay, we believe that compliance is not enough. As a social game publisher, you should select a monetization partner who has a company ethos of doing right by the consumer. This week, we are publishing a whitepaper, available for free download. This whitepaper provides the following:
· Top 4 offer categories that appeal to consumers
· 5 best practices for ensuring your offers are consumer-friendly
· 7ways to tell if your offer company is built to deliver consumer satisfaction
Building Sustainable Revenues in Social Games
Games are the killer app on Facebook, where publishers have access to over 350 million users. The Inside Virtual Goods report pegged virtual currency sales at over $1B in 2009 and growing at a clip of 60%. Recent events such as EA’s $400M acquisition of Playfish, Playdom’s $43M Series A and DST’s $180M investment in Zynga demonstrate that investment and exit opportunities are alive and well in this industry. How should publishers think about offers post-ScamVille?
The answer is simple, but execution is complicated. Offers are a critical ingredient for monetization and presently account for roughly 35% of total virtual goods sales in the US, or $350M. Delivered poorly, offers can detract from the consumer experience and potentially harm the reputation of the entire industry. Done right, offer-based monetization can be significantly additive to a publisher’s business and enhance game play. As you think about your selection of monetization partners, we encourage you to keep these themes in mind and put the consumer first.
If you would like to learn more about going beyond compliance and doing right by the consumer, please read our whitepaper, available for free download by clicking here.
