TOPSHOW | Revenue increased by 30%! Idioms Fight Landscape from 0 to 1 to achieve optimization of ad monetization

Developed by Aiweiyou and released by Loongcheer, Idioms Fight Landscape is an anagram-type casual puzzle game. It uses idiom solitaire as the core gameplay and integrates the theme of Imperial Examination Promotion to match the antique game situation. That is the reason why it is loved by players of all ages. Meanwhile, in terms of ad monetization, Idioms Fight Landscape set an exclusive refined operation system from 0 to 1 with the help of TopOn mediation platform, achieving a 30% increase in advertising revenue!

Gameplay

As a casual puzzle game of anagrams, Idioms Fight Landscape allows players to learn knowledge of idioms while playing the game. The core gameplay of the game is Idioms Solitaire, it also integrates the gameplay of Imperial Examination Promotion. Two game modes, Idioms Solitaire and Imperial Examination Promotion are designed in the game.

Idioms Fight Landscape game interface

Idiom Solitaire requires players to select appropriate words from the listed Chinese characters to fill in the blanks based on two connected idioms and complete a certain number of levels to get official positions, houses, spouses and vehicles; The imperial examination mode requires players to select the correct combination of idioms from two homophones/similar words within a limited time. At most 14 scrolls and 13 reminder opportunities can be obtained in a single time.

In-game props

In terms of game props, there are mainly three types: Scroll, reminder, and test card.

In-game props

In-game advertising design

Based on the characteristics of fast-paced, high retention and strong immersive experience, Idioms Fight Landscape adopts in-game ad monetization as the business model. In consideration of user's gaming experience, developer selected native, interstitial and rewarded video as the main in-game advertising formats. At the same time, they made reasonable design in ad placements and advertising display frequency.

In-game ads design of Idioms Fight Landscape

Key points of ads revenue increase
The advertising placement design of Idioms Fight Landscape is very reasonable and complete. However, like what many developers faced, the actual performance of ad monetization revenue does not match the performance of user data. After analyzing the past revenue of the game and the advertising operation strategy applied, TopOn operations team found that ads revenue is mainly limited by the following two aspects: 1. The number of selected advertising platforms for access is less, resulting in a low advertising fill rate; 2. The sorting of ad requests is relatively rough and there is no refined operation of ads with the help of waterfall layering function.

The in-game advertising scene of Idioms Fight Landscape

TopOn optimzation strategy

Based on the demand for revenue enhancement and operational key points, the development team finally selected an ad monetization solution that can increase revenue significantly + have less impact on user retention.

1. Aggregate multiple advertising platforms through TopOn SDK

Before using TopOn mediation platform, Idioms Fight Landscape only integrated one advertising platform. To increase revenue, firstly, we plan to expand the advertising optimization space. Integrating multiple mainstream advertising platforms at once through TopOn SDK, we have released developers' technical docking and maintenance work, helping them focus more on product operation optimization and create more room for the revenue growth.

2. Waterfall layering operation of ad requests   

A. To ensure and maximize the advertising fill rate during the test period.

Setting up request sorting for advertising platforms A/B/C/D/E and other multi-layer advertising sources. By adjusting the order, each layer of advertising sources can get a certain exposure opportunity and at the same time accelerate the platform algorithm to become familiar with the new IDs and ensure eCPMs can be calculated on the basis of enough traffics.

B. After the test period, hierarchical optimization was carried out based on the actual data performance (fill rate, eCPM, etc.) of each advertising source.

For example, a better-performing A/B advertising platform is set to two high eCPM reserve price request positions A1\B1, and cross-sorted in the head request position. In addition, the advertising platform A/B/C/D is split into A2/B2/C1/D1 and the order is in the middle filling position. The remaining advertising platform requests sorting are placed at the bottom as the supplement filling. That is to say, the overall order of ad requests is: A1>B1>A2>B2>C1>D1>A3..... Starting from the high reserve price layer and request layer by layer to ensure that the head offers of each advertising platform are displayed to the greatest extent.

C. Parallel request settings

For advertising scenarios that are frequently displayed, by setting the number of parallel requests and sending requests to multi-layer advertising sources at the same time to ensure that eCPM is maximized while improving display efficiency.

3. Multi-dimensional data + Youyi network + real-time adjustments

During the optimization period, the development team also analyzed the fill rate, display rate and other data of each layer of advertising sources through the multi-dimensional data report of  TopOn. Then TopOn backend and adjusted the advertising platform request sequence, reserved price, added, deleted or replaced different ad networks in real time to optimize waterfall configurations in the bidding order. Combining the advantages of Youyi network's advertising platform resources, TopOn ensured that every display is assigned to the advertising source with high eCPM. Under the dual support of multi-dimensional data presentation + real-time operational strategy adjustment, Idioms Fight Landscape easily achieved a 30% increase in advertising monetization revenue.

TopOn demo operation interface

Extension- Word game

As an important segment of casual games, word games also have a relatively large audience in overseas markets. For example, Wordscapes, which has always been at the forefront of the free game list in English-spoken regions and it has the same gameplay as Idioms Fight Landscape. From the perspective of game mechanics, these two games are very similar. However, in some respects, English is not as complicated as Chinese. For example, in Q3 of 2017, there have been such domestic mobile games that have achieved success in overseas markets. The domestic game Word Connect won the top three positions in the game download list in the US market, ranked 3rd and 4th in the App Store and Google Play respectively.

"Wordscapes" by PeopleFun

In terms of business model, overseas anagram games usually adopt a mixed monetization model of in-game purchase + advertising monetization and mainly rely on advertising monetization for revenue. Therefore, for similar products seeking to go overseas, the advertising monetization design and refined operation strategy of Idioms Fight Landscape can be referenced and reused. Choosing to access TopOn and using convenient and efficient mediation management functions to increase advertising revenue. Furthermore, TopOn supports segment group management function. Developers can implement different advertising monetization strategies to maximize the monetization value of users by country, time zone, device and other custom labels.