How Are UA Marketing Creatives Made? The Work of Aloha Factory’s Creative Team
In the highly competitive mobile game market, UA (User Acquisition) has become increasingly important for driving business growth. The ability to create high-quality creatives that lead to high user conversion, along with a detailed process that analyzes and improves marketing KPIs at every stage, is crucial.
While many companies now employ performance marketers to handle UA, it’s still rare to find organizations with an in-house creative team dedicated to producing UA-specific content. Many rely on marketing agencies or general creative teams. This is because producing effective UA creatives requires not only production skills but also a deep understanding of marketing.
At Aloha Factory, we’ve established an in-house creative team specifically focused on UA to ensure strategic responses to market challenges. So, what does Aloha Factory’s creative team do?
Video Production for New Projects
Before a game enters the operational stage, our team plans and produces creatives for marketability testing and initial marketing phases. During the early concept testing stage, the goal is to assess whether the game can attract user interest through test marketing. The creatives made during this phase highlight the game’s core mechanics, play style, and concept in a way that potential players can easily understand.
At this stage, it’s important not to overuse flashy video techniques or trendy elements to artificially boost engagement. Instead, the creative should focus on showcasing the game’s concept and basic gameplay to determine whether it has natural appeal. Based on the CPI (Cost per Install) and other performance metrics, we decide whether to proceed to the next phase of development.
This focused approach allows Aloha Factory to test the true marketability of a game early on, ensuring that the core concept itself is strong enough to resonate with users.
For the upcoming launch of the Shadow Survival game, we designed creatives that primarily showcase the gameplay while ensuring that the game's concept is clearly conveyed. Specifically, we emphasized the unique attack strengths of each character, highlighting the distinct features that set them apart. Instead of testing with just one creative, multiple variations were produced to obtain clearer insights from the marketability test. This allows us to better gauge the game's potential appeal across different creative approaches.
Key Points for Creating High-Conversion Creatives:
1.
Select the top 4 most enjoyable moments from gameplay.
2.
Show a scene that grabs attention within the first 5 seconds.
3.
Based on this, create a video that is easy for anyone to understand.
Trend-Based Creative Production for Live Service Projects
For live service projects, which have already completed marketability tests, content tests, and profitability tests, and are now in a stable operational phase, it is crucial to maintain the game's profitability through continuous UA (User Acquisition) marketing. The key goal here is to keep CPI low and sustain ROAS at the targeted level over an extended period.
To achieve this, the creative team focuses on periodically refreshing marketing materials by incorporating parodies of popular games and using various ad editing techniques. These creatives are updated regularly to maintain engagement and efficiency. Additionally, the most successful videos are used to create variations and combinations tailored to each project, maximizing the overall effectiveness of UA marketing.
Popular Game Parody Videos: Dragon Island, Monster House, and Hell Manager
For Dragon Island, Monster House, and Hell Manager, the creative team produced parody videos by mimicking popular game genres, such as coloring games and puzzle games. These parody creatives take well-known mechanics from successful games and adapt them to fit the unique features of each project. This approach allows us to tap into the familiarity and appeal of trending genres while highlighting the specific strengths of our games.
Actual Gameplay and Live-Action Footage Usage
In addition to parody videos, we also use actual gameplay recordings and incorporate live-action backgrounds to create variations that capture user interest in different ways. By showing authentic gameplay scenes, we provide potential players with a clear idea of what to expect, while live-action elements can add a unique and engaging twist, making the game stand out.
Applying Various Editing Techniques
We also employ advanced technical editing methods, such as using Cinema 4D (C4D) for dynamic 3D animations and character face morphing effects, to create visually engaging and attention-grabbing points for users. These techniques add a layer of technical creativity that enhances the appeal of the video, making it stand out in crowded ad spaces.
Video Trend Research
Aloha Factory’s creative team produces a monthly trend report that tracks the latest developments in games and identifies creatives that resonate with users. This trend research serves as a source of insights and inspiration for internal creative production and is also shared with our development partners under the Aloha Partners program.
The trend report includes an analysis of current trends in game stores, notable new releases, and the content trends that gained popularity during the period. By analyzing these elements, the team stays updated on the mechanic trends of recent games and explores the content that is currently popular on platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
This research helps the team craft the most effective creatives for UA marketing, ensuring that the materials align with the latest trends and user preferences. It’s a critical step in developing engaging content that drives user acquisition and keeps Aloha Factory’s projects at the forefront of the gaming market.
This post has covered the creative production process within Aloha Factory's UA marketing process. We hope it provides valuable insights for game development teams working on their projects.
Aloha Partners
supports every stage of the game value chain, from initial market testing to launch, marketing, and monetization. We are here to help you create a successful hit game in the global market.
For publishing inquiries: business@aloha-corp.com