31 Games is a casual game developer based in China, known for hits like Magic Paper Dolls, Mix Master, and Yoyo Decor Life: Room Makeover.
Xianman Tu, Head of User Acquisition, explains how leveraging ironSource Ads’ event optimization to scale their growth increased installs 2x and grew ARPU by 143%.
Driving growth with event-based campaigns
31 Games has worked with ironSource Ads for a number of years, focusing on maximizing UA. They were looking for new ways to scale their game Magic Paper Dolls, so the Unity team recommended implementing event optimization to drive growth and maximize the number of high-quality users acquired, while minimizing the amount of time needed to reach them.
Tu notes, "The Unity team introduced us to event optimization campaigns, which automatically reach users through the ironSource Ads network who are more likely to achieve key milestones in our game. As a result, we’ve managed to save both time and operational resources while engaging high-quality users who don’t just download our game, but also want to complete an action.”
Optimizing campaign performance
In order to launch their first event optimization campaign, 31 Games worked with the Unity team to set up the campaign and maximize performance.
1. Identifying the best in-app event
To set up the campaign for maximum success, 31 Games worked with the Unity team to identify the right in-app event to scale Magic Paper Dolls. Given that their app's revenue is ad based, 31 Games determined that encouraging users to watch videos would be the most effective approach to reach and retain long-term users while boosting conversions.
As Tu notes, “Bidding optimally on different supply sources and calculating the value of the users we acquire can often be time-consuming. Event optimization dynamically adjusted our bids so we acquired users who are likely to complete video views at the specific price we set.”
2. Setting the right event goal
Once they selected the right in-app event, 31 Games worked with the Unity team to identify which campaign goal was the best to start off with, basing their goal on a combination of the eCPA from previous manual campaigns and their objectives for event optimization.
In the first few months after launch, 31 Games and the Unity team worked to optimize their campaign goal. To further boost their install rate, they increased their goal and monitored campaign performance.
After seeing a steady rise in ARPU, they increased their goal again to boost installs even more. As ROAS grew, they expanded their campaign and launched a second event optimization campaign to scale their app, Mix Master.
As Tu explains, “Seeing growth this early on in our campaign signaled that our event optimization campaign was able to scale our user base with high-quality users who don’t just download our app, but also take action. So it made sense to us to integrate event based optimization into our UA strategy for other apps.”
3. Expanding campaign reach to more geos
When setting up their campaign, 31 Games focused exclusively on acquiring high-quality users in the US. Immediately after seeing strong performance in the US, they expanded globally and continued to see positive growth.
Doubling installs and increasing ARPU by 143%
Event optimization has transformed 31 Games’ UA strategy for Magic Paper Dolls. In fact, installs doubled while maintaining stable CPI and ARPU increased by 143%.
They saw equally impressive results with Mix Master, including a 72% uplift in ARPU and a 193% increase in installs between April 2024 to July 2024.
Tu concludes, “Under the Unity team’s guidance, event optimization struck the perfect balance between the users we acquired and the event conversions we set. As a result, we acquired high-quality users at scale at an average cost that aligned with our goals - making it more efficient than previous campaigns.”
31 Games plans to implement more event optimization campaigns to scale additional apps, including running multiple events simultaneously. This will help them identify the best-performing events and see if combining events has the potential to generate even greater results. With this feature in mind, they’re currently in the process of identifying the in-app events they’ll include in future campaigns
