Tags Google Play AdMob Google Cloud
According to Newzoo’s 2018 report on gaming, the global games market is expected to grow from $138 billion in 2018 to more than $180 billion in 2021¹. For the first time, mobile gaming revenue is set to pass PC and console combined. With its diverse range of successful titles, including Design Home, Covet Fashion and the Tap Sports Baseball franchise, Glu has emerged as a leader in the mobile gaming industry, engaging millions of gamers around the globe and reaching $384.6 million in annual bookings in 2018.
Over the years, Glu has worked hard to adjust to changes in the industry, which aren’t always easy to predict. “We used to be focused on single-player games and would crank out 10+ new games each year,” says Chris Akhavan, Glu’s Chief Revenue Officer. “We’ve now evolved to community-driven, LiveOps-heavy games — which we refer to as growth games. We believe that’s going to be the core of what drives this industry for future years.
”Along the way, they’ve partnered with Google to help fuel this growth. They worked with several different Google product teams to support their development lifecycle.
“Google has been an incredible partner for us across so many aspects of our business and has enabled so much of what we do. “Glu generated $50 million in ad revenue in 2018, and Google AdMob was a key partner that helped us achieve that,” Chris says. “We really wouldn’t be where we are today without partnerships across multiple parts of Google.”
“We’re always confident that when we are serving an ad from AdMob, it’s going to represent our product well… the diversity of the ads we see — from big brands to small businesses — is incredible.”
“In the end, our Diner DASH Adventures studio chose Google Cloud because ‘things just worked,’ ” Chris says. “Google Cloud delivers scalability, simplicity and value, like only paying for resources actually used or making it simple to move to another server across the world. Their tools make it easy to isolate and resolve issues, and the Google Cloud team has been highly responsive: Follow-up is fast, they jump on any issues, and the team actually plays our game.”
“With [App Campaigns], Google’s ability to help us find the right audiences is really unique, and in addition to the great inventory, has made it a very effective user acquisition channel for us.”
“AdMob has grown tremendously as a monetization channel for us, and rewarded video ads have really been the key driver,” Chris says. “Our entire ad monetization strategy is completely focused on rewarded ad experiences. They’re the best combination of driving revenue and offering a great user experience because users actually get value from interacting with the ads, and we see great results because we’re getting an engaged user interacting with our ad.”
- Gain an improved view of customer journey
- Reduce lost revenue from customers who abandon their carts before purchase
- $50 million in ad revenue in 2018
- $384 million in annual bookings in 2018
- 20% Bookings increasing year-over-year in 2018