As the tide of games going overseas continues, many Chinese game companies are seeking to survive and develop in this field with a scale of up to 100 billion yuan. While reaping more and more achievements and making the entire global game market realize the power of Chinese games, the competition for games to go global has also become more intense.
On the one hand, the actual sales revenue of China's self-developed games in overseas markets has declined for two consecutive years due to various reasons - according to the latest authoritative data, throughout 2023, the overseas sales revenue of China's self-developed games will be 16.366 billion US dollars, a year-on-year decrease of 5.65%, and the "headwinds" are still continuing; The relative lack of gameplay and content innovation in the mobile game market, and the homogenization of the competition trend of highly volume art and volume packaging have deepened, including the large consumption of purchased materials, users have been repeatedly washed many times in game scenes and advertising scenes, and the taste has gradually improved, which has also raised the threshold for the promotion and distribution of game products.
In this context, any way to leverage and take advantage of the situation to reap dividends has been increasingly tried, and in the past 1-2 years, the marketing concept of Q5 may be one of the characteristics.
As one of the important links of e-commerce promotion, Q5 has received more and more attention from game companies, according to Lin Zhe, head of Snapchat's game and pan-entertainment business in China, only compared with 2022, from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024, the number of local game companies participating in the Q5 game marketing competition through cooperation with Snapchat has increased by 1.5 times, which does not include manufacturers who have strong intentions but ultimately fail to land for different reasons (if they are included, then compare 2022). The number of vendors participating in Q5 increased by 2.5 times).
Lin Zhe, head of Snapchat China's game and pan-entertainment business
As one of the first companies to promote the concept of "Q5" to the Chinese game industry, Lin Zhe, the relevant person in charge of Snapchat, also gave an interview to the CIS, focusing on the interpretation of the "Q5" marketing concept, and the game company faced the general methodology that "Q5" should establish and master, including how to combine a social media platform with strong uniqueness like Snapchat to play Q5 and other issues.
Q5: From e-commerce, to games
As mentioned above, Q5 was originally a marketing concept derived from the field of e-commerce, which starts from Christmas every year and lasts until the end of January of the next year, spanning the end of Q4 of the previous year and the beginning of Q1 of the new year.
"The reason why we will take Q5 out of the e-commerce field and put it in the game industry is because around Q5, we found that this node will have a great impact in the future, as well as some magical phenomena. First, in the cooling-off period of e-commerce promotion, the overall cost of traffic will drop comprehensively and significantly, and many companies that are good at seizing the Q5 opportunity will even give up the New Year's Day and Spring Festival holidays, and they must also seize this opportunity to vigorously launch, because when the unit price is the cheapest, the cost of a user in North America can be as low as 2 US dollars, which is really like the New Year for the delivery team. Regarding the opportunity for the game industry to enter Q5, Lin Zhe elaborated.
In addition to the dividends after the impact of e-commerce, Lin Zhe also summarized some other key points in the interview. For example, a large number of consumers will buy new mobile phones and other digital products during the e-commerce promotion season, and the launch of new devices will have a significant incentive for users to download, including games. According to data provided by Snapchat, Snapchatters are 4.4 times more likely to activate their new phones on Christmas Day, as shown in the chart above. After seizing the Q5 node, it is at this stage to launch new devices, which contains a lot of demand, of course, there are also potential opportunities, and the visible effect is also very considerable. Not only new devices, but also new content of games is also an important measure to stimulate users at this node, according to Lin Zhe, many game companies have begun to pay attention to this, and then launched a large-scale version update in early January to stimulate the consumption environment through new content.
Overall, Q5 is a golden marketing node with an overall decline in CPM, increased user ability and willingness to pay, and better recovery. However, just as the competition for games to go overseas is becoming more and more fierce, after the advantages in terms of its cost and effect have been paid more and more attention, its overall dividend is not as big as before, of course, comprehensive comparison, Q5's unit price is still much lower than in November and December's e-commerce sprint season, and what is in front of the game company is an opportunity to "have a fast hand, a slow hand without it", and it will always be better than "next time" to shoot now.
Real gold game CPMs showed a downward trend during Q5
However, in terms of the final effect, different categories of products and markets in different regions still show some different characteristics.
From the category dimension to the regional dimension,
Who is the "Chosen One" during Q5?
In this interview, Lin Zhe shared some data and insights from Snapchat about the Q5 node with the CIS. According to the data cited in its "2023 Q5 Snapchat Game and Non-game App Year-end Strategy", according to the relevant data of data.ai, during the end of 2022, light games represented by casual puzzle games in the United States, Europe and the Middle East respectively saw significant download growth, but only in Europe showed significant revenue growth, while medium simulation games and heavy action games showed significant revenue growth in the United States and the Middle East markets at the end of 2022.
During Q5, in terms of downloads, the number of downloads of casual games in the United States increased significantly on both iOS and Android, and in terms of revenue, the revenue of simulation games on both iOS and Android increased significantly.
During Q5, in terms of downloads, the number of downloads of casual games and simulation games in the Middle East increased significantly on both iOS and Android, and in terms of revenue, action games and simulation games increased significantly on both iOS and Android.
During Q5, in terms of downloads, the number of downloads of casual and puzzle games in Europe increased significantly on both iOS and Android, and in terms of revenue, the revenue of casual and puzzle games on both iOS and Android increased significantly.
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On the whole, Q5 seems to be a node that is more suitable for users of medium and light products to invest vigorously and acquire users. In response to this point of view, Lin Zhe gave a more comprehensive interpretation: " In fact, medium and light and medium and heavy are not the same situation, from the perspective of medium and light products, because during the Christmas period, most overseas areas are in a state of vacation or semi-vacation, users choose more travel and outdoor activities, and there are many fragmented scenes in the process, so casual games can fill this part of the time better, while heavy games can get more revenue than usual because they have loyal users, because during this time, users have more budget in their pockets, and they will also be more inclined to pay for new content of the game as their own rewards on the occasion of the New Year, similar behavior It's very common for Snapchat users to share content. So I think it's fair to say that Q5 is a good opportunity to boost activity and increase user retention for casual games, and a good opportunity to increase revenue, payment rate, and ROI for heavy products. ”
In addition to the discussion of categories, Lin Zhe also introduced the situation of different overseas markets during Q5, in his opinion, casual games that rely on advertising monetization, in a relatively stable state of eCPM, the unit price decline during Q5 is an excellent opportunity, so there will be a very obvious increase in downloads in T1 markets like the United States; In the dominant Middle East market, a large number of game companies have already used Snapchat's daily traffic sufficiently, so they will pay more attention to revenue during Q5, and the revenue curve growth in Q5 will be more obvious.
Focus: To participate in Q5 marketing,
Preparation is required 3 months in advance
After understanding some of the characteristics of the Q5 node, it is also necessary to master the macro methodology to do the corresponding marketing work. In this regard, Lin Zhe believes that the most important thing is to do the following three things.
One is to define the marketing proposition, which in simple terms, is to prepare what you want to market. For example, some game products will do IP linkage, and some products will start strong operations through major version updates, etc. However, whether it is IP linkage or major version update, because it takes a lot of time and cost to negotiate business, supervise, creative planning, and R&D, etc., it is best to start preparing for Q5 nodes 2-3 months in advance.
The second is budget planning. Since Q5 covers a period of time across years, it may involve spending money for one year and the next year in the overall planning. For any business, how the budget will be split requires advance planning, and while this is a very detailed exercise, it is important to determine if the focus can be fully broken down to cope with Q5.
The third is cliché material. Lin Zhe said that whether it is brand advertising or effect advertising, any form of marketing needs to consume a lot of materials, and due to the increasing number of participants in the Q5 node, whether it is the production resources of creative materials or the actor resources of real materials, etc., will become more tense. In this regard, Lin Zhe also specifically mentioned that for deep partners, Snapchat has begun to fully release its material capabilities to help them for free.
In the macro methodology, there are also some micro-operation skills, such as the budget planning part mentioned in the second point above, at the end of the previous year, the budget should be put in the stage after the CPM market improves, and at the beginning of the new year, if it can still cover the Q5 node, then the budget in January should be slightly concentrated; on the other hand, compared with the e-commerce field, the Q5 delivery of game products should also be simpler and more direct.
Of course, more importantly, how to better combine the features of Snapchat to do this well. As mentioned earlier, the launch of new devices will bring a bonus period, and Snapchat is also based on its growing user pool (and the conceivable growth space behind it) to make more powerful assistance, including personalized customization such as accurate positioning of new mobile phone buyers, etc.
Here's the trick to getting around Q5 with Snapchat
In fact, when it comes to the details and tricks of doing Q5 marketing through Snapchat, we have penetrated a considerable part of the previous article, and it is more well known that Snapchat has always been known for the gathering of young users, but in fact, most of the young users are just a uniqueness compared to other similar platforms, and the age distribution of Snapchat users is relatively even. In the United States, for example, more than 80% of Snapchatters are 18 years of age and older, and more than half of Snapchatters are 25 years of age and older. In addition, in the 14-18 age group, which is considered less valuable by most gaming companies, Snapchatters are much more receptive to new things, interested in experiencing interesting content, and eager to share than other groups, and they play a very important role in spreading the word.
According to Lin Zhe, in addition to high-quality user groups, more cutting-edge technology new products have been launched, data correction with a number of MMPs (mobile monitoring partners) and other work have made the entire Q5 marketing through Snapchat better in terms of richness and accuracy.
When asked how he can better leverage Snapchat's marketing potential during Q5, Lin Zhe still summarized three key points: One is the aforementioned that although Snapchat is known for its gathering of young users, it is not only young users.
The second is that Snapchat isn't just about branding. Previously, when we discussed Snapchat's marketing case, we often mentioned that its AR filter ads were of great help to the new version of Genshin Impact in terms of brand influence, but in fact, Snapchat has been upgrading and optimizing the corresponding capabilities of products and services in terms of performance advertising, and they have also formulated more detailed hands-on guidance for different categories of game products and different life cycle target appeals to help partners on Snapchat to be able to find a more suitable marketing method for yourself.
miHoYo partnered with Snap to create Genshin Impact AR filters
Third, based on the knowledge content and service cases that Snapchat has accumulated, including the expanding team size and continuously upgraded technical capabilities, it has established a complete service system, which is best evidenced by the successive cooperation with FunPlus, miHoYo and other leading star companies in the game going overseas.
epilogue
Throughout the history of the global gaming market, in fact, it has been a tradition for decades since Christmas to buy gaming-related equipment as gifts, and after years of development in online stores for home consoles such as PS Store, Nintendo Shop, and digital distribution platforms for PC games such as Steam and Epic, it has long been common for game manufacturers and platforms to work together to run marketing campaigns during the time period covered by Q5. In the past 1-2 years, when this trend has spread to mobile, it has also brought a new and worthwhile promotion idea to games that are caught in fierce competition. Compared with the aforementioned "winter sales" and "special sales" for home console and PC buyout games, the marketing and promotion of mobile games are more granular in all aspects, and more effort needs to be invested. In today's continuous escalation of global competition for games going overseas, improving the success rate of game products through golden marketing nodes such as Q5 will also be an important point to help the majority of Chinese game companies break the game in going global.