The developer brought us a game that combined two currently trending mechanics. Our first round of testing used the developer's actual in game footage, but CPI came in too high and installs were too low to reliably judge in game metrics.
Market research showed that top performing games in this genre led with the block breaking visual at the top of the screen, the moment that seemed to resonate most with the target audience. Our game did the opposite: the arrow mechanic at the bottom was treated as the main focus, with the block breaking effect as a secondary detail. I also found that the two combined mechanics appealed to different audience demos, which made targeting less precise. Based on this, I built a new creative concept, a cat rescue narrative, designed to foreground the block breaking pattern and speak clearly to one target audience.
The new creative direction dropped CPI by 59% (from $5.12 to $2.08) and drove significantly more installs, giving the business PMs enough volume and confidence to properly evaluate in game performance metrics.
| Campaign | Installs | CPI | Impressions | Clicks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 (developer provided gameplay footage) | 74 | $4.96 | 22,066 | 10,890 |
| Round 2 (hypothesis based creative) | 250 | $2.08 | 9,687 | 4,163 |