hello, new here. I would like to get some opinions on advertising your game, I just got my first godot game out the door. What did you do that help with your number of installs? I am considering joining google ads, but my game is free with reward videos, I do not want to lose money.
What have you done that worked for you?
I have a few games out on the Apple store as well as Google Play store. It's a low priority hobby for me, but I've messed around a little with Google Ads. Not sure if it's because my target CPA (cost per action) is set too low for Apple, but it helps on the Android side for sure and zero for iOS. I've spent $100 total (see, small time!!!), and that was free money Google credited me for signing up. So far, zero out of pocket. I also "wasted" a lot at first with too high of a CPA setting. You can actually go as low as $.01 or $.02 and still get ads clicked on, but in my experience if I bump up to $.05 target I'm able to get a lot more hits.
Good timing on the question BTW, I just decided a couple days ago to restart my ad campaigns using my own money this time. I'm limiting my self to $1 per day per app for my 2 apps I care about and $.05 CPA target. So far it looks like yesterday I got ~140 clicks for ~$1.80. Not sure how many of those turned into active installs, but it's better to look at this stuff on a monthly basis, instead of daily. My piddly little games with $100 in advertising back in July/August last year earns me a whopping $15 to $30 a month. Technically I'm in the black. :). I have a banner on the main screen, interstitial every few levels, and no reward videos (which I think is where the good money is).
My point in all this is, you can start for nearly free. If google is still giving away advertising credit when you sign up, then you can try it literally for free. Set your own targets, limit your budget, etc. Whether you make a lot of money or not really depends on how good your games are and how much people play them. One thing is certain, before I started advertising I had essential zero installs and zero income. Since you are probably going to ask, my games generate an average of around a half a cent per active install per day. Not much, but with a low enough acquisition cost and high enough retention it's profit. I'd do things differently if I was serious and trying to make a living, but for a hobby this is pretty much risk free.
edit: To be clear, while I started with Godot and did have games written in Godot on the app store, I re-wrote them in Unity due to the difficulty getting admob working for Android/iOS. Things have changed quite a bit for Godot since then, and my next game I'm getting ready to write will be Godot, even if it means no iOS or no AdMob.
Thank you @skep. That is really helpful insight.
Thanks, this is great info. I started learning godot with no prior mobile app experience 2 months ago, it's a fun journey, a great tool. Yes, my (very little) experience with admob is that it has many issues but not difficult enough to turn me away, so it must have gotten way better. It is working for me on both platforms, I also added facebook ads with admob for the android version (in case one of the ad network couldn't fill my request). My problem is that so far I am trying to figure out how to get visibility to the users.
I don't suppose the game would magically have installs increased over time if not being advertised?
I too, not planning to survive by making games, but what's the point of making it if there is no one to see? :)
thanks again for the advice, I might try the $1 per day strategy.
I was wondering if there is a godot community that can support an api to rotate and advertise all godot games in-game. Just an idea, if you want to get your game advertised, sign up and upload 1 or 2 images that can be shown as interstitial ad in other people's games. Of course, free of charge. and automatically expire after x days, sign up again if wish to continue. I would do it.
Good to hear you have admob working for Android and iOS without much difficulty. If I'm completely honest, I may not have given Godot a fair shake the first time. This was before the plugin system. I started reading about recompiling templates, and reading posts and threads from people that couldn't get it to work and really just a bunch of negative stuff trying to get ads to work within Godot, especially on iOS. So without really putting effort into it I turned to Unity, re-wrote my game, and everything just worked, ads and all. I prefer Godot, it just makes more sense to me, so I'll be starting my next game in Godot when I can carve out some free time.
Extremely unlikely you will get installs without advertising. Sure, friends and family will when you tell them, but that's really still advertising. The problem is, there are hundreds of new games added to the app stores every day. Even if someone searches for a game just like what you wrote the chances are slim to none they'd see and install your game. You can have the best game in the world, but without advertising or some crazy fluke, it just isn't going to get many installs.
Let me give you one last piece of advice that I did NOT do, and if I ever go back and update my games it's the first thing I will. You really need to include a "please rate this game yes/no/later/already did" type pop-up that will take the user straight to your games rating page. If you go to one of my games on the play store it shows 1,000+ installs and has a total of exactly 2 reviews. Both are 5 star reviews which is nice, but the way google does their ratings only 2 reviews means it doesn't show any stars. As you know, people don't want to waste their time with crappy games so one of the mental filters is how many stars. I'm sure if I had put a "please rate this game" link in I'd have a ton more reviews, have a good overall rating, and a lot more installs.
this is another really great advice for a newbie like me. Asking review in game is a good idea. Thanks a bunch.
I'm still a newbie.. I wrote a few games last year over the course of a couple months, then haven't done anything for the last 7 months - just starting to get back to it. I'm happy to share what little I've learned, and pass on the mistakes I've made.
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok can be super effective for indie games. When I launched my own game, I noticed a lot of traction from these platforms, especially since they're visual and allow you to show off gameplay clips and trailers easily. It helps if you can pinpoint a particular niche or unique selling point and target that audience.
One tool that really helped me out was the adspy library. It gave me insights into what campaigns my competitors were running. I basically cherry-picked the best strategies I observed and molded them to fit my game. It's a tip that might help others when launching their game.
One data point: I did nothing, and got about zero sales. To be fair, it's hobby games so small scope and limited art skills.
One would think to successfully advertise, you gotta build up a persona online with twitter, tiktok, youtube presence, wherever the peoples are congregating then gather subscribers and the rest is history...
Many people advertise with so called "dev logs" and then just releasing the full game...
IDK what im talking about because i never released anything so far, and this is just my observations from the other side of the wallet.
