How to Test and Optimize Safely in Rewarded Advertising: A Guide to Playtime 

Rewarded advertising: once an experimental UA strategy, now a prominent part of scaling a mobile game. Users are more eager to engage with ads that promise added value, bringing advertisers higher engagement and retention rates. 

Playtime stands out among other rewarded advertising solutions with its polished format and focus on both time-based and event-based rewards. 

In a recent webinar hosted by Tenjin, Milky, adjoe’s Senior Demand Growth Manager explained how to set up these campaigns if you’re new and how to optimize them if you’re already on board.

It can be done both safely and effectively, leaving no room for advertisers’ natural concerns over wasted budgets and unclear results. This manual focuses on clear data-driven optimizations to ensure the best possible outcome, whether you’re new to Playtime or not.

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Why Rewarded Advertising?

Rewarded ads are a win for users as much as for advertisers. 

Users receive in-app rewards – such as currency or items – in exchange for their attention, which makes the ad experience nonintrusive and adds value to their interaction with the game. 

It pays to have happy users. Data shows that users are up to nine times more likely to make in-app purchases after engaging with rewarded ads compared to traditional formats. Motivated users also bring better retention rates and clearer performance metrics for advertisers.

Playtime allows for advanced time-tracking based on first-party data from the user’s device, which makes the rewarding process more stable. It operates on a CPI model, focuses specifically on gaming, and offers personalized ads with advanced targeting through opt-in device data—all fully compliant with GDPR. 

This advanced level of targeting and personalization is what sets Playtime apart from other rewarded advertising formats, e.g. offerwalls  that typically use CPA (one-time reward) or CPE (multiple rewards) models with targeting limited to geo and source data. 

Choose Between Time-Based and Event-Based Campaigns

Playtime rewarded ads come in two flavors: time-based and event-based campaigns. Knowing how to reward your app users is key to running a successful campaign.

• Event-based campaigns: Available for both iOS and Android, these campaigns reward users for reaching specific milestones or completing certain tasks. These campaigns are ideal for keeping users engaged over a longer period, as the rewards can be tied to key in-game achievements. 

💡 Pro tip: For maximum impact, start with five to ten events. Early events should be easy to complete (targeting an 80-percent completion rate), while the last events should be more challenging, with a completion rate of five percent.

• Time-based campaigns: These Android campaigns reward users based on time they spend engaging with the advertised game. They are easy to manage, as adjoe’s algorithm handles time-based reward logic automatically, ensuring that users are motivated enough to continue but not so much that they lose interest in organic gameplay.

💡 Pro tip: Test both time-based and event-based campaigns simultaneously as any type of game audience consists of both explorers and achievers, in varied ratios. Doing so allows you to gather more data and gives users options on how they want to engage. Depending on player preferences – whether they are explorers who value time-based rewards or achievers motivated by milestones – running both campaigns ensures you reach a broader audience.

Optimize Your Bidding Strategy

Higher bids correlate directly with higher reward levels, which, in turn, lead to increased user retention and overall better campaign performance. This way, you’ll secure premium ad placements to effectively scale your campaigns. The secret here is a granular bidding strategy:

• To tailor bids to different user segments. For example, increase bids for high-performing age groups or geographic locations to maximize returns and reduce bids incrementally for underperforming segments rather than pausing them outright. 
• To target different publishers. Increase bids for well-performing publishers to maximize their potential, while decreasing bids for sources that are underperforming.

Remember that you need sufficient data for meaningful optimizations – generally, 150 to 200 installs per day per campaign is a good target to collect sufficient performance data. Then continuously monitor these metrics to optimize your UA campaigns. 

In one case study Milky shared during the webinar, adjusting bids based on age group performance led to a 32-percent improvement in ROAS for a particular age group. The key takeaway is to avoid halting campaigns entirely for underperforming segments; instead, lower bids and keep optimizing.

Set the Right Markets and Budget

When setting up your campaign, begin by focusing on top-performing markets. 

Tier 1 geos – such as the United States, Germany, France, and Japan – offer high ROAS and are ideal for initial testing 

Depending on your budget, you can include Tier 2 and Tier 3 countries to your test list for performance comparison. However, do so only if you have enough budget to test all of them properly – consider a competitive bid, aiming for 150-200 installs per campaign over a period of 4-6 weeks. Otherwise, it would be a waste of your money and time.

The test budget should be defined by multiple factors, including the type of game, monetization mix, and KPIs. For casual games, budgets tend to be more conservative compared to RPGs or other genres.  If you’re struggling with determining an appropriate test budget, our platform expert will advise you to ensure optimal results. 

Keep in mind that a successful rewarded campaign often requires at least two weeks of data collection to move past the learning phase and into optimization.

To make your campaigns even more effective, ask your dedicated platform expert if you could take advantage of adjoe’s automated ROAS-driven optimization, which helps manage bids and adjust targets based on real-time data. 

💡 Pro Tip: To expand your reach effectively, consider targeting a lookalike audience as a separate campaign. It will engage groups with characteristics similar to your existing audience – these often demonstrate higher engagement and conversions.

A Systematic Approach to Testing

Finally, remember that success with Playtime rewarded ads requires a systematic approach to testing. 

Whether you are an indie developer or part of a large studio, consistent testing and optimization are key. Make data-driven decisions to fine-tune bids, creatives, and targeting options until you find the combination that maximizes both engagement and returns.

Download our team’s key tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your Playtime campaigns here – and build a loyal, engaged user base.