Yso Corp is a developer and publisher based in France with several games that reached the top 100 in the Google Play store in over 10 countries. One of their most popular hyper-casual puzzle games, Stretch Guy, reached #7 in the Google Play Store in the US and #1 in the puzzle category.
Lucas Yalap, CEO at Yso Corp, and Jean Claude Yalap, the Head of Monetisation and User Acquisition, describe how working with ironSource and Playworks, ironSource’s in-house creative studio, helped them scale the charts by creating a highly engaging playable ad that had an IPM of 65 and boosted installs 400%.
Recognizing the potential for a playable
When we began running UA campaigns with ironSource we were using a video of ours and an interactive end card (IEC) from Playworks as our main creatives. The creative set drove some installs to Stretch Guy, but Playworks recognized there was room to scale and improve our performance. So, they proactively suggested creating a playable ad.
While traditional puzzle games have a clear end goal, hyper-casual games often do not, and the goal for the user is just to last as long as possible. Because Stretch Guy is both hyper-casual and a puzzle game, Playworks suggested using a playable as the best way to show its distinctive playing experience and engaging levels throughout the progression of the game.
Our game also proved it had the ability to sustain success and showed potential to scale, which Playworks checked by analyzing our app’s performance on App Annie and comparing the results to their internal benchmarks. As we learned, it’s important for a game to be able to sustain success and scale when working on a playable because it takes time to design and launch this creative.
Testing and optimizing the creative
With Playworks, we tested 6 variations of the playable - each had small differences to test their effectiveness at boosting engagement and driving installs. Of the 6 variations, 2 tested the level the user played through and 4 tested the amount of steps it took to finish the playable. We also tested variations with and without text that explained the game mechanics and we tested different characters, like a smiley face vs. a monkey face.
Overall, the playable was extremely effective at delivering the full experience of gameplay, so this helped boost our conversion rate once users reached the store to download it. By emphasizing Stretch Guy’s unique mechanics and testing which variations worked best, we were able to drive significantly more growth than our original creative set.
"By emphasizing Stretch Guy’s unique mechanics and testing which variations worked best, we were able to drive significantly more growth than our original creative set."
- Lucas Yalap, CEO at Yso Corp, and Jean Claude Yalap, Head of Monetisation and User Acquisition
Reaching #7 in the US charts on Android and looking to ironSource
Overall, after 3 days of having the Playworks playable live, it helped the creative set generate 53% of our global installs, boosting our UA strategy to the extent that Stretch Guy reached #7 in the US Google Play Store and #1 for puzzle games. The playable itself delivered 400% more installs and an IPM of 65, 2.2x higher IPM than the original creative set.
The success of the playable was coupled with the great experience we had working with ironSource and Playworks. They’re our go-to team for advice and suggestions to help us continue optimizing our UA strategy across networks, and we’re looking forward to continuing to work with them to build upon our success.
