What if there was a way to boost your app revenue, increase engagement and improve user experience in one single step? What sounds like a dream to many app developers is actually a growing marketing trend.
Advertising has become the largest source of revenue for mobile apps and has changed the way apps are monetized over the last few years. Paid apps only make up a small portion of the total revenue, with in-app purchases landing in a strong second place. Advertising still takes the crown.
But what does advertising have to do with an increase in engagement, and how does it improve the user experience? Simple! By making ads a rewarding experience.
With a modern approach to app marketing and the use of rewarded advertising, you can create an app monetization strategy that is up-to-date and beneficial to you and your users.
What Is Rewarded Advertising?
Competition within the app and mobile gaming market are ever-increasing, so app developers have to come up with new strategies that boost user engagement and retention.
One way of doing this is to make sure that users are having a great time while using the app and will want to return to the app over and over again.
This is precisely where rewarded advertising comes in. Apart from being a fantastic way to increase revenue, rewarded ads can be used to create an overall better user experience by offering an enticing reward.
The idea behind rewarded advertising is to compensate users for the time spent viewing a video ad or playing an incorporated game. Rewarded ads also provide the user with a choice. The users decide whether they want to interact with an ad and can still enjoy an ad-free app experience.
With optional video ads or games, you don’t run the risk of putting off the part of your user base that doesn’t wish to interact with ads. Users that decide to engage with the ad are also more likely to watch an advertising video until the end to gain the promised reward, resulting in a higher ROAS (return on advertising spend).
With the right reward, however, many users will choose to interact with your ads voluntarily and – if done right – on a regular basis. Instead of making in-app purchases, users earn in-app currency or another reward by interacting with the ad.
For non-spending users, this is a fantastic way to gain more points, coins, or access to premium features – while app developers still earn money through the ad.
Rewarded ads can also be utilized to let users progress faster on certain levels or keep playing when their time is up. If implemented in that way, ads don’t interfere with the usability of the app but provide added value for the user instead.
Since users progress faster or gain more valuable objects that make gameplay more fun, they are more likely to keep playing and return to the game at a later time – thus increasing app engagement and satisfaction.
Another way to implement rewarded advertising is to offer real-life benefits instead of in-app ones. Starbucks is an example of how in-app hyper-casual games can boost sales. The game implemented in the Starbucks app allowed customers to earn rewards.
Those rewards could later be redeemed at Starbucks in exchange for coffee or baked goods, increasing sales at the same time.
Types Of Rewarded Ad Formats
Rewarded ads come in different shapes and sizes, so it’s important to figure out what works best for your app and your users. When implementing a new element in your app, less is usually more, so as not to overwhelm and deter users with significant changes.
The type and placing of your rewarded ad decide its ultimate success. The following three types of rewarded ad formats are the most popular and can often be seen in various apps:
Rewarded Video
With a rewarded video, users have the option of earning in-app rewards by watching a video ad. How this is implemented can look different depending on your app and the reward that users are trying to earn.
If your app contains coins or another in-app currency, users can easily earn more coins if they run out by simply opting into watching a rewarded video ad. If you’re a gaming app publisher, a rewarded video might be the perfect way for your users to earn extra lives – particularly during challenging levels.
Offerwall
The offerwall is another type of rewarded ad unit. The users are presented with various choices and can decide which action to take to gain a reward. Choices can vary between offerwalls and sometimes include the option to complete a survey or watch a video ad. Upon completion, the user receives a reward in the shape of coins, points, or another in-app currency.
Playtime
Spice up your user experience with adjoe’s unique Playtime format. Playtime blends the best parts of rewarded ad formats to create an instantly gratifying experience for users. How it works is users in need of in-app currency opt into the Playtime ad unit.
Users are then presented with personalized gaming offers and then rewarded based on their time spent playing. This takes the rapid earning ability of rewarded video and the monetization power of an offerwall to build a new monetization solution designed to improve the user experience and add a powerful new revenue stream for app publishers.
Conclusion
If you have a large non-paying user base, rewarded ads could be the perfect solution for your modern marketing strategy. You will keep receiving payments from in-app purchases but also earn from rewarded videos, offerwalls, and Playtime from those users who don’t intend to spend money on your app.
Additionally, the rewards gained through rewarded apps contribute to extended session times and increased user engagement, as rewarded ads become a tool for user progression. Compared to forced ads which may offer too much interruption or change within the app, causing them to churn.
Therefore, if you haven’t leveled up your monetization strategy to include rewarded ads, then you may be seriously missing the mark on driving a better user experience
