United Kingdom based Puzzling.com has been developing and publishing puzzle games for a wide variety of platforms since 1988.

The challenge

Puzzling.com, developer of hit games “Puzzle Page” and “Picture Cross,” has historically slowly released and built its games organically over time. With the puzzle market only becoming more competitive, however, it realized it needed to pivot its launch strategy. Publishing a new free to play title would also be challenging and expensive, so the studio used App campaigns for pre-registration to give the new launch of “Picture Cross Color” on Google Play a competitive edge.

The approach

First, Puzzling.com ran a two-week-long campaign to drive pre-registrations in the United States — its top and most competitive market. Following all of Google’s best practices, it also developed customized creatives offering users that pre-register in advance of the game launch an exclusive token reward. Lastly, it maintained competitive bids.

The results

Using App campaigns for pre-registration, Puzzling.com achieved more than 38,000 pre-registrations globally. The developer also saw phenomenal results in the US – the campaign achieved a click-through rate 2.5X higher than original projections, demonstrating strong engagement from users who saw the ad. In addition, the campaign achieved a high pre-registration to install conversion rate of 80% and generated a 20% return on ad spend (ROAS) within the first month of launch.