Fluent, Inc. (FLNT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On behalf of Fluent, welcome to today's webinar titled, "Unveiling Actionable Insights on Gamer Behavior for 2024." My name is Adam Remson. I'm the Senior Director of Marketing at Fluent. Now Fluent is a unique company because it owns and operates exclusive digital properties where consumers discover new games, products, and services. And additionally, Fluent can learn more about those consumers by sending them surveys. Now usually, we do this on behalf of our clients. But every year, we also asked our community about the games they play, and what motivates them to download and play them. Now today, we're going to be taking a look at some of those findings from that survey along with research from Google, Data.ai, and more to try and see into the future of mobile gaming for 2024. We have assembled a panel experts who are going to share their thoughts about what these numbers mean and where the opportunities lie so that you can feel more confident about your marketing strategy going into next year. Now in a moment, I'm going to hand the reins over to our host and panelists, but first, a little housekeeping for our audience. [Operator Instructions] Over the course of the webinar, we will be launching 3 polls. Please choose an answer, and we will share the results soon after. Keep an eye on the chat widget for those results. And last, we have uploaded some goodies into the resources widget including today's slides and the 2023 Fluent Mobile Gaming report. You can also find links to the other research we are reviewing today in case you want to take a deeper dive there. For some of you who don't know much about Fluent, I want to say that Fluent is a leading performance marketing company that specializes in customer acquisition through its owned and operated digital media portfolio. We leverage cutting-edge data science and a privacy-forward approach to enable brands to reach millions of engaged high-intent customers. Come visit us at fluentco.com to learn more. So with that, the housekeeping is complete, let's move on to today's session. Our host today is Peggy Anne Salz. She is well known to those working in the mobile gaming business as a writer, analyst, consultant, and founder of Mobile Groove, which is a top 50 ranked destination, providing strategic content marketing to the global mobile industry. Peggy produces webinars and podcast to educate marketers on the latest mobile and app trends, and how brands and businesses can grow sustainably through values-driven marketing. In short, we're lucky to have her and our panelists today. So with that, I hand it over to Peggy. The floor is yours.

Well, thank you, Adam. It's great to be here, and it's even better to be on a webinar where we look at the gaming market from all sides, from all angles and pinpoint exactly where that growth is. So I'm excited to be here. Let's dive in. So where are we in the market right now? The landscape is important to understand. And we've gone through a period of massive growth because everyone was a gamer in the pandemic, right? And that started it. And that behavior, well, those are learned behaviors and habits and they stick because mobile games are now a part of our lives and our routines. But interestingly enough, 2022, well, that was the time that we saw mobile gaming sales slip for the first time. And at the same time, we're also seeing that in addition to that change, well, there's also the arrival of the privacy-first landscape. We saw the end of identifiers, the full force of GDPR. And to make it even more interesting in a market that you have to understand and that will test your abilities, consumer spending, right? It was being hit by the arrival of a global slowdown. Games? Games are still the biggest market, right? They just adapt to this landscape. They find other ways to activate and motivate players, and it remains a massive opportunity because look at the headlines, look at what we're hearing and seeing in the industry, you see that it is a positive feel out there, a very positive outlook growth. Well, growth isn't stopping. It's just shifting. Some genres, they embraced the narrative that brought them growth. Some countries are also growing faster than others. Some demographic groups have huge demand for games. That's driving growth. So we have this dichotomy of, yes, a slowdown, but yes, growth speeding up. So where is the growth coming from? Well, that's why we're looking at research and insights. They both come into play, and we're going to examine both with our panel of mobile gaming experts. So let me introduce them. We have Piyush Mishra, Head of Growth Marketing at Product Madness, Piyush. Piyush is an experienced marketing leader with a proven track record in user growth at scale. Eight-plus years of experience in UA, growth marketing and areas ranging from growth marketing, of course, but also brand media strategy. I have to say Piyush is also my personal go to for all things related to attribution, reporting, data privacy, because this is what he does. He is a seasoned speaker, he hosts the biweekly podcast on Gaming UA. And he's also a writer, a filmmaker. He loves the narrative. And he's here to tell us the story behind the numbers. Piyush, so we are very fortunate to have you. Welcome.

Thank you, Peggy, for the introduction.

And we have another aspect here that I think is very exciting because we have Sola Saulenko, CMO of Pixonic. And there, we have brand performance in person here because you've been working in the industry for 20 years, and you have deep expertise in mobile games, marketing. And Sola also leads the marketing efforts behind hit titles that have been there forever, such as War Robots, which has accumulated over $750 million in revenue, 250 million registered users since it was launched, and it continues to dominate the App Store and Google Play. Sola, our guest here, well, she believes that games are a form of entertainment, just as significant as music and films. And I have to say, Sola, you are in the right place because that's what the research tells us. Games is officially a market worth more than movies and music together. So you are on the mark. Welcome, Sola. Great to have you.

Thank you for having me.

And Carolane Gariepy, Senior Account Manager at Fluent. Carolane, for the past 7 years, Carolane has developed into an expert at extracting insights and optimizing campaigns to acquire and retain customers at scale. She manages some of the world's biggest game developers and brands that represent many of Fluent's biggest clients. So she is just the person to dive into Fluent's own survey data, and we're lucky to have you here as well. Welcome, Carolane.

Thank you, Peggy.

So here we are. We have a panel of experts. I'm excited. We know you know your stuff, but we also have a global audience here, and we want to see how sharp they are. So we're going to kick it off with a poll, bit of an icebreaker. Multiple choice poll should now be appearing on your screen with the following question, which of these mobile games is not one of the top 3 most downloaded games of 2022? And as those votes tally up, and everybody uses their widget and votes, we're going to share the results with the audience, but in the meantime, we have some time here. Who wants to take a stab at it? Who wants to guess which game and why?

I mean, look, we've looked at the slides, Peggy. But I think my answer would be FIFA in this case.

Okay. Okay. FIFA. Who says it's for FIFA? Sola, where are you coming in at?

I'm actually choosing between Subway Surfers and Stumble Guys.

Not one of the top 3 most downloaded games. Okay.

Yes. Yes.

Okay. Carolane, come on.

I think I'm going to Road Blocks. Let's just cover all our bases.

Let's do them all. Well, actually, we have the answer, and the answer is FIFA. Piyush, you were on the money here. You were on the money. And despite all that IT investment, right, it only came in at #7 according to Atopia. I mean that is pretty amazing, and you nailed it, but not everyone did. Just wondering about what that means. A little bit of a surprise there.

It is a bit of a surprise. But also, I mean, if you look at it, Subway Surfer is a non-brainer, right? I mean that's just -- they're at the top every year. Road Blocks as well, for sure, like I think they have also scaled up pretty well. I was confused between Stumble Guys and FIFA. The reason to go for FIFA was because I think it is a very big game. Obviously, people play, but it's still -- it cuts off of a big percentage of people who are not into football, which I think -- if you think about it, it's a bigger continent towards more of India and those kind of -- it cuts off a huge part of the population from there because those are players who do not play these kind of games. So that was my rationale to sort of go with it.

Actually, that's what some of the research said exactly that. It was a bit limited in its geo and its focus. And therefore, big game, big money, but not the big success. So we're with market research, let's move on and stay at market research, but we're going to move from the macro to the micro. We talked about the market. You know yourselves the challenges. Now we're looking at the macro of the overall market, right? And it's an interesting story in these numbers because we're looking at total game downloads over time since 2015. We see the spike during the pandemic, I talked about that. Everybody. Everybody's mother, grandmother, they were all gamers. It was the same in my family. And then you see it sort of plateau at a high level. And then we see downloads heading up again. I'd like to ask you, maybe start with you, Sola, what should marketers make of this? What are the numbers? What's the story behind these numbers? What are they telling us?

Well, first of all, I have to say that this -- like high level, high base of the downloads after the pandemic, it was really a big challenge for all of the game developers because we're always gaining to stay on the level or be up at the level. So that's why we were trying to, I don't know, fight ourselves because we already have a lot of downloads, and we didn't want to get back to the previous level as it was in 2019, 2018. So we were trying to find a way but it was really very like hard time for all of us. It was a perfect stone because we also have this switching of IDFA from Apple. And that's why we also have like another part of a really difficult situation, because people were getting back to the normal life. And they switched their attention to another types of entertainment. So we had to fight for their time spent, for their attention. And it was really very difficult because we actually -- we still -- we do not have our tools for targeting all of these people.

And there was another dynamic there because I remember at the time, and that might also explain the dip was that everybody was playing games. So you were acquiring users who maybe weren't going to stay in your game, but you were still getting them. They were just coming in the door and some left, and that's what happened. And Piyush for you, it was also a point of thinking more about the mechanic because we're seeing that come back. It was almost embarrassment of riches. Everybody was playing games, and now it's quite different. What do you see in these numbers and particularly in that upward trend at the end?

Look, I'm looking at these numbers, and I'm feeling positive about gaming to be very honest. I wouldn't put a lot of emphasis on the 5% drop. The only reason being if you look at it year-on-year, right, before 2019, the growth used to be around 8% to 10%. 2020 was, of course, an anomaly because of COVID, right? But the growth was around 25% -- 20% to 25% roughly. The good thing is that in 2022 and 2023, it has stayed at that level, right, which is quite surprising. I would expect it to go down further. So I was saying now the benchmark has actually shifted, which is a good thing for gaming industry. I would have expected it to go from 56 to maybe 46 or 50 or something like that but it has stayed over it has, which is a good thing. I think the metric that we might have to look at over here is the engagement. I think that engagement would have gone down for sure as compared to 2020 and 2021. But it's a good thing to see that the downloads have stayed the same, and I'm looking at it in a more positive way than we might think.

Carolane, what would you like to add? I mean you're looking at it and you work with so many clients, big names in the industry. Do they have the same positive view as Piyush?

Yes. I think maybe a little bit more of a level of skepticism here. I think the trend that we were looking at is that while it's good that we've sustained post-COVID, we're basically in the same place that we would have been if we had just seen that consistent growth year-over-year from 2015 to 2019, right? Almost is in that same trend line. So I think reflecting especially as a marketer what has been done and what could be done to Sola's points to maybe capitalize a little bit more on this exponential growth and see more of it in the future. Yes.

I mean it's definitely there, and it's definitely strong. We want to look a little bit deeper into the data now because we're seeing the download growth. Now we're going to understand a little bit about where does that growth come from? We see sub genres, very interesting sub genres and some shifts there that account for some of that turnaround that we're talking about. And they are surprising. I mean, I didn't expect the simulation sports. When I saw this first. This is data that said there is money in the long tail for sure, different sub genres we hadn't seen. What are your thoughts about this? I'll maybe ask you, Piyush, because you're the positive one. What's the positive trend here?

This is more of a surprising trend, to be honest, Peggy. I would not have anticipated this to be driving in simulation sports where the growth is happening, to be very honest, which is a good surprise and not at all a back surprise. And like -- but this is also consistent with what I'm hearing across the industry when we're going and speaking to different people. They're saying that sports as a genre is coming back in the gaming space. And it's actually growing pretty well. And it's very like over here, if you look at it driving a simulations sports, arcade racing, all of these genres are kind of part of sports, right? So eventually, it's a good thing that it's growing. And yes, I'm a bit surprised, but it's a good thing.

There you go. It's all good. But it is showing some different areas of opportunity when you look at, for example, TEAM BATTLE, a significant rise there. So you're looking at this through the eyes of not just Pixonic, but also thinking about like the next game and where the next opportunity is. Does this give you some inspiration?

Well, actually, yes, because we do a lot of researches. Researches in-house, about the niche where we should go with our next project, especially when we have a lot of expertise in different genres in my games overall. And exactly in Pixonic, we're actually about PvP shooters. So but we are still thinking about exactly this TEAM BATTLE genre. We also think that it has a potential.

Yes, you're right. I mean it is booming. I have seen other charts, other research, other reports, it's massive. Very, very competitive. But interestingly enough, like all things, they seem to be morphing and melding. It was the [indiscernible]. Then we had more narrative, then we had casual trying to look more like mid-core. Trying to look more like casual. I'm just curious because sometimes it's in the intersection, you see the opportunity. Other opportunities here when we're thinking about our audience? What is something actionable from this shift as well?

Well, if I may add about these genres and mixing genres, I personally believe that next big thing in mobile game industry would be something really mixed because we are still like doing only this TEAM BATTLE or IdleRPG. We already have a lot of good examples in these niches. And they have a lot of downloads, strong streams of revenue, and so on. And maybe it is not necessary to go exactly to these genres. And we have to think about mixing together what is some driving simulation with IdleRPG, for example. And maybe this would be more interesting for the new audience, for those who now are growing up, and they have a different mindset. So for them, maybe we should do really something really crazy and like, in a year, this new genre will be on such a slide in the first position. So I think that we have to move into this direction.

Yes. Just to add to what Sola is saying, right? It's interesting because I do believe there is a line -- there's a thin line now between sub genres and it's going to become tier going over a period from there. There's going to be a lot of overlap. I think the reasons are two. One is obviously, from a gaming design perspective. The core mechanics are changing. I think the many games introducing another layer to the whole ecosystem in that sense. But I think the biggest focus actually figuring out, it has to do with the privacy changes. The reason being with the privacy changes, the audience targeting has become very difficult, right? Now we don't know what kind of user profiling is more for driving simulation and what can we use, which is in is more for TEAM BATTLE, right? We don't know how do we reach out to those consumers. And because of that, there's a lot of user acquisition hook that are being deployed in the market to figure out, let's get those users just come to the game and then they can play multiple options, because that's the reason why hyper casual is also becoming hybrid casual. As I said, mid-core is also moving towards more casual genre because the audience overlap is happening at a very high level. And ultimately, there would be a limited understanding of what sub genres would exist in the future, let's say, 5 years, 10 years down the lane.

So you let the game lead. You make the game, see who comes, and that helps you also decide a little bit where you're going to take it. If you have a mini game, for example. And there's always that question. Did they come for the mini game? Will they come for my game? So there's a lot going on in there. Let's check if usually, what happens is advertising dollars follow the audience. But we have a slide here about how advertising dollars are broken down by genre. And a little surprising here. I'll take you first, Piyush, because you're talking about this trend. And it's sort of translating into ad spend, but there are some disconnects.

There are some disconnects. Because I think the interesting but also would be to look at this research and sort of tap into how the revenue portfolio looks like, right? Because the hyper casual is not generally the same order of revenue. That's pretty clear. Now match and sort of positive games and stuff like that are becoming more casual because hyper casual is definitely becoming more towards hybrid now. So maybe the definition of what we're defining as a hyper casual is changing, and that's why the percentage is relatively low because this used to be higher for sure. Hyper casual needs to be higher in this sort of space, right? Casino and RPG, I think they have relatively stayed the same as compared with 2021. Simulation, as we all know, that has definitely increased, right? So I'm saying maybe there's been some transfer of hyper-casual and match games to other genres in here. And maybe that's the biggest part of the puzzle. What exactly is the mix there in others because the revenue curve of all of these sub genres are now very different as compared to what it used to be pre-COVID. And that's why the investment also is fluctuating in that sense.

Definitely a different lens to view it through. Sola, I'm interested in your thoughts here as well because you picked it, you said maybe they're all going to mesh and merge and be very different. And you're very bullish about puzzle in there. We see 4%, I found that odd.

Well, actually, maybe it was my mistake because I was talking actually about match games because sometimes you name the game and name the genre and it could be different in different systems. So actually, I was -- definitely, I was talking about well-known games like, I don't know, Candy Crush, Royal Match, Gardenscapes, and so on and so on. So we can continue because yes, Puzzle exactly on this slide is definitely a different genre. So as for me, these graphs looks pretty normal. I do not see anything that are out of line. But definitely, it is really very interesting what includes these other games and how they divide it in this piece of pie because definitely, for example, our title, it's going to be Shooter, and Shooter and mid-core games, they're in this 31%. But still, this would pretty healthy and what we see on the market, what we hear from our colleagues from different studios and companies, I think that's pretty true, pretty fair. Yes.

Let's look at the state of the gaming industry. We understand what's fueling the opportunity. We've seen that. We've seen the supply side. Now let's look at the demand side. What do players want? How is that developing? And here, we have the research, the research comes from Fluent's Mobile Gaming Report. And they've asked their audiences, do they plan to increase, decrease, or keep the same amount of games over the next 12 months? This gives us an idea of the opportunity, what's coming down the track, and we've, of course, split it. It's split by demographic. We'll get to that in a moment. But the overall trend. Yes, what you make of that as marketers? There's a healthy number who are planning to increase and maintain, I guess, perhaps if they are approached in the right way.

Yes. Yes. No. I mean, look, one thing is pretty evident from this one, which is Gen Z is definitely more prone to experimentation. And over a period of time, we look at how from [indiscernible], to Boomers, to [indiscernible] has evolved. Look at the number of people trying to maintain that as drug, right? Which means over a period of time, the users who are more, let's say, aware of mobile gaming as a whole because, for example, Gen X and Boomers are not as aware as Gen Z people are, right? So overall, you see that trend people are more likely to decrease. I think it's also because of the experimentation but it has not to do with the fact that people are actually not going to play the game, but I just feel that they play the game and they are installed relatively quicker than any other sort of geographic. And this also ties back to how exactly we're looking at targeting from a marketing standpoint, right? Because these kind of users exist in different platforms, right? For example, if I have to target a millennial, I'd rather go for a Facebook sort of a target as compared to how I would -- I might consider Snapchat for urgency, right? But I know that if I have this report and I look back and I say, okay, maybe the users are coming from Snapchat, and this is a maybe. The retention is relatively lower as compared to you is coming from Facebook, because of the behavior of the demographics that are associated with it, right? So it's really interesting to look at this. And yes, it's pretty much in line with how people around us also sort of behave when it comes to gaming.

I've also done interviews with some app marketers, and they're saying, looking at data like this, it just tells them to focus on channels most likely to give them precisely this audience. So it's like, yes, I want a very young audience, I want Gen Z, put it all in TikTok, and it will just generally be that type of channel. So go after the audience rather after more granular details about the channel.

If I may add about the sources, I totally agree with Piyush. But actually, we always have to think about the game or the app, which is attracting this audience from these different channels. That this game should be prepared for the young audience, because actually, even if it is not, there is no reason to spend money, I don't know, on TikTok because they're really very young audience, very [ tweak ], who likes to be entertained and so on. And if you have some game, which is, I don't know, it's not so funny, it's not very tweak. It's not so entertaining. So for them, it would be not interesting, their attention would be really low, and you just lost your money. And that was what I wanted to add to Piyush. And looking at this graph, I also would like to see some positive things that actually this percent of the people who actually wants to decrease their like number of games or apps on their devices. It's not actually changing. So it's still in pretty the same level. So it's also a very good sign for us. But actually, people are still wanting to try something new. They do not want to limit their time in games. So we just have to find ways for these audiences, and we have to have our great product to showing them.

Just adding to one point. I mean, for our genre in the social casino space, right, the typical profile -- again, this is just how exactly if we look at the data, it's 35-plus moment, right? And they are most likely to play what kind of this that we produce in the social casino space. I was surprised to see that TikTok was one of the best performing channels there. So our assumption is that TikTok is for younger generation. But from this data, it turned out that [indiscernible] doing really well.

Well, yes. I understand what you're saying, but I also want to say that TikTok actually it's not like some kind of new platform. It's already has been on the market. I'm not exactly sure about the years, but still I mean that its audience also growing. So that's why you can find your audience there. It doesn't mean that, for example, TikTok is only for the young audience. And when you turn, I don't know, like 30 years, it's like, okay, no, I won't use TikTok anymore. But I'm pretty sure that there will be new advertising sources in the very nearest future with the new audience. And we are thinking about it, and we have to think about the way we will show them the ads through these sources. So it's really a very, very big question, and I always like to talk about it.

An interesting point about that. I look a lot at attention metrics, and it's actually the social channels that, yes, you will get someone's attention, but everything is moving to your point, Sola. There's all sorts of stuff going on. And if it's not cool and entertaining and fast and whatever, as quickly as it comes, as quickly as it goes. That impression is not lasting literally almost pun-intended. I'm just wondering, Carolane, because this is the research from Fluent and looking at it from both sides, which you can hear. I'd love to hear your thoughts just sort of weighing in on these trends because the positive is, yes, there is a ton of people across all generations, across all demographics who want to maintain their number of games. So that's good. What are your thoughts when you look at this? What kind of story does this tell you?

Yes. I mean, Piyush and Sola said it best. We're looking at younger users that are more likely to download, but they're less likely to have long-term game play, right? Their initial interest don't always lead to overall better engagement down the line, which is why usually at Fluent, we have a completely different EA approach for users under 25, under 30, to Sola's point. We're playing with the ad, we're playing with the approach completely, and we're targeting them differently than users that are in the Millennials and Gen X and up but really affluent what we're doing is challenging these categories, right? Any rewarded discovery platform, we're really pushing to play with these metrics. I'm looking at this graph, and I'm seeing there's a huge opportunity on maybe older users. What we like to do is provide an incentive to create the opportunity and have more or find our own opportunity within the increased category here on this graph, right? We see that users sometimes don't wake up in the morning thinking that they're going to try out a new casino at, right, we give them a reason, and that's where we find that we can find a gap and really capitalize on it.

And in a different context as well, as you say, they don't wake up thinking that, but that is what they end up doing. And to your point, yes, I wonder about the Boomers, and the Silent, Gen X. I've read all those articles about how that might be an incredibly interesting untapped opportunity, but we just don't know how to engage them. They're not in the usual places. They're a little bit outside of that, which brings us, I think, a great segue to our second poll, which is about to how do people discover games? We know that they're going to increase, and we know they're going to maintain, but the question here is, which is not one of the top 3 ways people discover new games? Again, of course, we'll be sharing the results after the votes come in. But I want to just give everyone here a chance to answer. Everyone in the panel has a chance to also think it over and chat a little bit about this one because this is an interesting question, particularly for people in UA, such as yourself, Piyush. So I'll ask you, which channel, which are the ways that people do not discover new games, which is the one they don't use?

I mean App Store, for sure, I mean, they organically discover there's app there and people just go and play on with [indiscernible] and figure out the games. And social media, we only do it. We run at on social needed to make sure that people convert. I'm confused in due to video or a printing family because even in is also because there is a huge chunk of influence on marketing being bumped in, right, because through YouTube and Twitch people do convert and trying new games and stuff like that. So I'm considering YouTube video in friends and family. But I don't know. I'll go with YouTube video, I just feel that there are less number of people right now. They're very focused group of people who play games and watch YouTube videos. They are very much gaming hard core, but the scale would be, I would say, lower. That's my point.

Okay. Sola, which one are you going to go with?

Well, maybe just because we have our mid-core game, and that's why for us, you took videos, YouTube influencers and its creators are really one of the not the main part, but we have pretty strong position about YouTube videos, and we do realize that actually all of these influencer's campaigns for us are very important because we actually got some organic installs and so on. So maybe I will choose actually friends and family.

Okay, friends and family. And Carolane, last vote.

Yes. I mean, friends and family is kind of hard to even quantify. I'm wondering what the measuring stick is there. But I might have to go with YouTube, I think you said it right, the sample size there just purely -- I'd be interested to talk to Sola more about that approach that they have on that platform, but I think just the sample size alone I'm going to be.

Okay. And we have the results, the results are in. And it is the case that YouTube videos, Piyush and Carolane, you're right, they are not one of the top 3 ways. When I saw that pop up just now, I was surprised. Does that surprise anyone here on the panel?

Well, definitely, it surprised me.

Okay. That's where you took. You're going to bet the [indiscernible] on that one.

But I do agree with Carolane saying that how do you quantify friends and family? It's quite a [indiscernible] thing. But, anyway, it's good.

I was thinking to friends and families, I thought, no, no, no, we live in our immersive universes. We don't. We get our input, our ideas, our discovery comes through different channels, but there you go. And we're going to take a look a little bit deeper. So our next slide has the full breakdown because we've been discussing it here, according to Google's Mobile Gaming Insights Report. So here we go, and we see what the top places are, where they find new games. App Store, absolutely, you were right there, although who knows. We have alternative app stores coming, Social ads, friends and family, and YouTube down there. So that's discovery, but there's a big question that we're going to look at in the next slide. What gets players to take the plunge, right? And here, we get into what influences gamers to try out new games. And there's a lot you can read out of this data. And I'd like to maybe throw it out to you for your thoughts because the story is important but there's a lot about the game. There's a lot about the product and a lot about the audience. So maybe Sola, I'll start with you on that.

Yes. And think about gameplay videos, I also can say, for example, that exactly from mid-core games in our advertising creatives. The best way of showing the game is actually showing the real game play. That's what our mid-core gamers want. They do not want any misleads or a lot of storytelling. They just want to see what they will get. So for us, gameplay videos is also very important. Genre alike, it's totally understandable because I won't play, I don't know, real-time strategy because I do not like this genre. So I will try something which is similar to what I like. Positive feedback, I'm not sure about what exactly do they mean, but maybe it's also these app store reviews. When you see the game and you in the process of like making the decision, whether I want or you do not want to download the game when you see a lot of this, this is amazing. I spent a lot of time there. I found new brands and so on and so on. So maybe it will be also like a strong influence that makes you download the game. But I think that if I would make such kind of categorization for me, it would be definitely genre I like, gameplay videos and good review positive feedback. For me, it will be my top 3.

Okay. The reviews are very important. I hear about that a lot. Really interesting, though, with the videos because that means the right ad format. It's a popular ad format. It's one that gets people engaged. Piyush ,only not surprising for you, but maybe surprising how many gamers and people respond to this in a positive way.

Yes. No, definitely. I think the biggest part of what there, I'm pretty sure would be the rewarded video specifically as a category because a lot of people user values to enhance the game play or advance the gameplay in that sense. So that would be pretty -- I'm pretty sure most of it would be rewarded with you. The thing I'm surprised about the joke is a small file size. People still care about that. It's at the bottom. So that's good. But yes, I mean, nothing extremely surprising. I agree with Sola. I think it's ultimately either the ads are functioning, which is the gameplay video or the first, obviously, genre like in my head, is again organic behavior that people know what they're going to go for. And the feedback, again, is the review of system. App Store review or friends and family is also part of the feedback in my head. And the good reviews and how the game is looking and stuff that obviously adds the trailer also. So everything is part of the entire brand cake, let's say, of how that we are positioning the brand.

Yes, that's true. I mean, not too many surprises, but it's always good to see what the data says and you have a confirmation of what you think are the trends, what you think people really think and do. So we're going to move on to the next slide, and this is from Fluent's own survey. So Carolane, I definitely want some comment from you here and some context. The question is, have you ever downloaded a game in exchange for a monetary reward? So again, that way of interacting and engaging with players. And yes, split across generations. Very interesting in the Millennials and others. I'd love to hear you just weigh in here and share your thoughts. I mean, what place do you see rewards having here?

I mean, yes, I definitely can speak to the fact that Fluent is heavily integrated here. We have a whole rewards product surrounding an upfront message to incentivize users to download the app, play with a game within their interest to earn a reward. So we see that alignment and success by then targeting user interest, especially when we're competing within each of these generations. We all know that there's high value in knowing your audience and identifying the opportunity within. I think that's how we get to this 40% conversion rate in the chart, which is using engagement just based on how we know generations interact within the economy in general. I think we see that -- there -- we talked a little bit earlier about how they're set in their ways. I think that translates their mobile app activity and we take those insights and we ingrain them in our campaign strategy. But again, similar statements, younger audiences are a lot easier to convert on and then we're getting a little bit more creative with the outside generations.

The generation split is very interesting. Surprises there maybe with the Millennials, the Gen Z, I mean you're talking yourself, Piyush, your major audience, main audience, 35-year-old women. Tell me something about what they might respond to or maybe already responding to in games at Product Madness.

No, definitely. It's pretty much in line with what we are seeing because that's our main audience as well. I would have expected the -- it's pretty surprising that the Millennials and Gen X are relatively higher as compared to Gen Z in that sense. And it's pretty also consistent with how the user behavior could be. But going back to the slide over here, like almost 44% people are downloading. My assumption would be that it's also to do with how we target users from a CPE point of view, just Cost Per Event, right? There are a lot of partners out there like genre of sort of trying to figure out a way to monetize the game, but it's also an exchange or downloading other game and reaching a certain level there or something like that, right? So I think that could be one of the biggest factors here. I do believe affiliated marketing, for example, is also pretty much very big reason for this jump. And I think of end marketing used to be pretty big back in 2012 to 2017 space when Millennials used to be younger, right? I think that also could be a big factor for that affiliate marketing tend to rely heavily on commodity values. And if we're marketing right now is going down, and that's why we might not be working for the current Gen Zs, that's how we look together.

And you ran an interesting point there, Piyush, about how it's intertwined with where we place rewards and emphasis in UA, which means that almost -- I'm hearing more and more about this because marketers need to do more with less. And I'm hearing people say, we have pre-conceived notions about the demographics of where something will fly and where it will fail. And maybe that's not the case at all. So maybe there is untapped opportunity in intertwining rewards with UA for a different demographic that we're not yet targeting because rewards that's typically a certain type of game or typically a certain type of demographic. But what do you make of that new thinking because that's brand new and gaining traction.

Yes. No, I completely agree with you, Peggy, because also it goes back to what you said initially, which is Boomers and Silent Gen, for example, they are untapped. You're absolutely right on that front. People don't look at them as a potential source of making more revenue from these sort of demographic. So it is very consistent, but it's also surprising because -- like if you think about how marketing works, and that's a hard and very when I'm looking at these research, right? It goes back to how these users build targeted from what channel. Typically, Boomers will be targeted through Facebook, right? Was it the Millennial generics might be targeted to more of search or affiliate marketing versus Gen Z more through Snapchat and TikToks and others like that, right? And it is very evident that the users who are coming from these sort of channels are behaving in a way that is consistent with the research in that sense. And that's really important to sort of look at when you're trying to put your marketing in front and how do we reach out to these [indiscernible] and through what can.

That's important. That's the context. And I'm thinking, Sola, about what you said before about the importance of the outside factors that can contribute to an attitude for a game toward a genre, in this case, maybe towards rewards. What outside factors do you think contribute to a player's attitude towards rewards?

Well, I think that maybe also in mid-core, hardcore games for the audience, it is easier actually just to pay. And they do not want to do some difficult things in order to get something they can pay. So for us, this rewarded video. I can say that work not very good very often. But maybe that's because as Piyush say, we still are investigating, which are the best channel where our audience can watch this rewarded videos and go back to our games where we have to think about, for example, if we are talking about in Incentive Traffic, about the Funnel and so on and so on. So for us, it's still like it's a point of growth actually. But For mid-core games, it's a bit more difficult than, for example, for some casual games or for casino games maybe.

So with that, we're just going to switch gears and move on to our third and final poll for our audience. Which 2 game genres were the first and second highest grossing revenue genres in 2022? Once again, yes, we will give our audience some time to answer using their widget there for the poll. Panelists, we're looking at it as well. Let's take some guesses, which one looks most likely to you? Maybe Sola, I'll ask you.

I'm already afraid, guys. I know some of the times.

You want one of them, though, come on.

I actually wanted to Google because maybe I want to win just once. But still, when we are talking here about Puzzle, are we talking about puzzle-puzzle games or about magic games because if we are talking about some kind of like Royal Match, definitely, it would be -- my answer would be B.

Okay. Definitely a taxonomy question here, yes. I get it.

Yes. You go with B. Yes.

Two genres. Piyush, your best guess.

Casino has to be there. So I'm just -- that has to be the first one in my opinion, I think. So I'm just confused, is it casino and strategy or casino and RPG. That's where I'm -- I'll vote casino and strategy, C would be my answer.

Okay. Casino and strategy. All right. Go ahead, Carolane. Give it a shot. What do you think? What one looks most likely for you?

Based on our conversations and all the guesses in today, I thought RPG would for sure be in there, and then we know the casino is high. So I'm going to be on this one, RPG and casino.

Okay. All right. And guess what? Myself and Sola....

Thank you so much.

Myself and.....

All of us are wrong.

We were all wrong. Exactly. I was like I thought I knew this stuff, but no, RPG, strategy, so we are definitely not on the mark. But we had some different thoughts there about strategy. I just want to give you a little bit of an insight about RPG $20.2 billion; strategy, $16.3 billion; casino came in down #4, it was $8 billion. So there we are. We have a lot to weigh in on here because we were all dumbfounded. Who wants to take it away first. Sola, you tried so hard, you're even going to Google it. What was your thought when I told you the answer?

Actually, of course, it's not like a big surprise because we also saw the numbers on the previous slides about the growing of some of these genres like also it was RPG. But still, I was thinking about Royal Match and Gardenscapes and Candy Crush. So that's why I'm a bit confused. But yes, I will research all of the reports from that AI and Sensor Tower and so on and so more careful next time.

It did take us for surprise. Yes, Piyush, what do you think?

I'm surprised. I'll be very honest. I'm surprised because I thought casino would be there. Maybe it was pretty high in 2020, '21 and post-COVID it went down, could be that high. I don't know. And right now [indiscernible] is just becoming pretty big in the casino space, I say. But yes, I'm surprised with RPG I would have expected. I agree with Carolane on that. Strategy being the second is a bit surprising to me to be very honest.

Yes, because strategy is always the one where it's like, yes, it's big, but there's not a ton of growth because it's just people getting into their strategy, and it's not got the movement, not like the dynamic of the other. So it was surprising. I want to move on to talk to you about the players, right, and tapping into Fluent's report. Once again, we have some interesting breakdowns by gender about how you are most likely to spend money in a mobile game. So where are you going to spend it and the breakdown by genre and the breakdown by gender. Men are 40% more likely than women to spend money on gambling and 33% more likely to pay the skip-a-level and waiting periods. That's sort of what you think, men can be at times impatient. But let's hear from you, Carolane. This is your report. I love to hear from you what it's telling us.

Yes. I mean I think this reflects the marketplace and app engagement by gender. Males are playing more RPG games, which involve item, currency, adjustments, avatars, and battle lines. Women are playing more casual match 3 games that are level-based gameplay. I think paying to skip a level is interesting here, both for males and I guess, both genders really. It's like we have a whole kind of language strategy that aligns with this, where we're immediately letting users know which apps allow you to progress faster with the purchase. We refer to this as a pro type or a secret hack in the ad. Users are more likely to connect and engage with an app that has some sort of rewards features. I'm not surprised by this. We often include skip-level language. Usually, when we are attracting users that want to level up in the game. They're going to be competitive, they're more likely to be higher value. They're going to play long term. So we're really kind of playing into that and making sure that we're converting on better users there. But just a really good call out here on the importance of the creative approach and the language as it relates to your individual app. But I also think that we should take this with a grain of salt, right? Any gender breakdown with the grain of salt, I think a good example of this and understanding your audience is for example, a 40- to 50-year-old mom that doesn't consider herself a gamer, but is religiously playing Candy Crush, and investing in the app might answer these questions a little bit more skewed than her actual actions. And so I think part of any survey-based data, we should always just look into what those outliers are and then layer that into any campaign strategy. But think overall, this is a pretty decent representation of what's taking place.

And skip levels and waiting periods. That's an interesting one in thinking about how you interact with players, how you motivate them. Piyush, maybe you weigh in a bit on that because you have to use a lot of different mechanics in social casino pay-to-skip levels. Is that something that you see?

Not very consistent with what we see at least specifically for our subgenre. But again, as I said, social casino are a very niche genre. So it cannot be similar to how the gaming as a whole genre would react. But it's interesting to see that 14% to 16% people are actually spending money on items to currencies and skip level is 9% to 12% depending on the demographic. The thing that I'm a bit surprised about here, Peggy, is like customized avatar, it's 11% and 8%. I mean, I would not have expected this number to be that high. I don't know I could be wrong, but people spending money for avatar and maybe it's in line with how things are changing on the Facebook and the meta side, how they are sort of moving more towards [indiscernible] we are gaming and stuff like that, I don't know, across the board. I don't want to use the word Metaverse, I'm a bit scared. But I'm just saying like, overall, maybe that would be the reason, but I'm surprised to look at that percentage being that pretty much similar to how skip level could be for male, for example, like 11% to 12% is not very far and same with 8% to 9%. So that's really interesting.

Yes, I got to align with you on that one because customizing the avatar, that was -- it feels a little bit sort of [ Avakin Life ] a little older, a little old school in the world of games, but it's still extremely important. That tells us, again, some of the offers, some of the mechanics, some of the features that get people excited and willing to pay in a game. So that's always a good insight to have. Speaking of insights, let's get going to move on to one more because we have the breakdown by generations. And here we go, we see gambling spikes of males, Gen Z, likes custom avatars as we were talking about before. Yes, where do you see some interesting trends or opportunities here because some of those numbers very impressive?

Regarding these avatars, and spending money on avatars. Actually, it confirms the previous slide that RPG and strategy are actually the 2 genres in top grossing. The guys talk about avatars. Just good to create games where you can change your avatar and upgrade it. So it's actually a proof about what we saw in the slides about 2 grossing -- 2 top grossing genres. And -- when I look at this graph well, of course, for me, it's just like for human being, it's really very interesting why there is so high level of gambling in the Millennium generation. I honestly, I cannot find any explanation why it can be sold. Maybe guys, you have any clue, because for me, it's just really impressive.

Yes, I think it's interesting when maybe you can look at the percentage or like the SKU of when you're making the most money, right, you have more disposable income as you are older especially if we're talking about gambling, the Gen Z generation is not even part of that marketplace yet, right? You ask a late-teen early something if they've been to a casino that's most likely going to be a no. But yes, I think it's interesting if we look at disposable income or even income disparity, if we're looking at the last slide on this slide, that's playing into these demographic breakdowns and needs to be considered in mobile gaming in general when you're targeting these users. We have to understand all those variables. So I think that might be coming into play a little bit, and why we're seeing a SKU. But Millennials are just really doubling down here for sure.

Yes, I completely agree with you. I think that was about to be my answer as well. There is income disparity between Gen Z and Millennium. That's why you have high percentage in gambling. And if it's considered with what we are seeing in our space as well, buying the social consumer as well. And that people, obviously, it's not in the gaming space, but like are people in this demographic spending more, because there are some of them, not all of them, some of them are -- so they do go to real casinos and they play there. For us, they play for entertainment, but they do [indiscernible]. Going back to the avatar thing again, Peggy, surprising 18% on Gen Z for both customer with 80% and 80% at currency. And actually, averting is lower, which makes sense. But it's pretty -- I was talking about -- it's booking my mind. It's pretty high.

It is mind blowing. I'm thinking the great thing about it is if you did the story correctly, you could bring it into a number of different genres because maybe it's something about the demographic, sort of like the core requirement to personalize, to customize, to express when you look at all the player type research. The desire to express oneself is a great motivation to play a game to play certain games to play them in certain ways. I just look at that and say, that's an opportunity, just got to figure out how to tap it, but it is a strong, strong interest in what I didn't expect. So avatars may be one of those things to watch, one of those trends. I'm going to move on to some different research here. This time it's from Google, and it goes on to examine what motivates an audience to tap on games and how often they do it. Now there's a ton in here and very interesting to read if you look at what we've just been talking about. So there's an interest in an in-game incentive, and we've seen that before. It's not your research, Carolane, but I'd love to have your take here because I feel that you'll bring some richness to this analysis as well.

Yes. Peggy, I'd echo those statements. I think this shows the weight of incentivized traffic here, especially in those first 2 columns here, earning game incentive and receive a discount and coupon, I think users are more likely. I think it's a low-risk situation, and we're likely to engage more frequently. If we're looking at a few times a week, once a week. I'm not surprised by those results. And then as we move into the later graphs, purchase the product might be less likely to do that more often. I think that speaks maybe a little bit about the difference in audiences, and we can zoom in on if Millennials are still grabbing at a ton of this, but definitely interesting when you to look at where we can attract our users from, and with what language and so on.

Yes. And discount, interesting language is an interesting term that also gets firm attention as well. Sola, you have such a vast portfolio. It's something where some of this is very relevant. And others, well, it might represent a learning for you as well.

Yes, definitely, definitely. And while my games, we are operating more than 70 games. This behavior can rely on almost every game in our portfolio where we have this in-game ads. And definitely, exactly for me, it's not a big surprise that actually those who do not want to pay, but who want to get some in-game currency or some boxes and so on. Of course, maybe they do it even more often than a few times a week. So maybe several times a day. So for me, there are no big surprises, but I'm not sure about like receiving discounts and coupons. We are still like when we are talking about this incentive part of our games is almost always about in-game currencies and not about the discount. It's like show and then get.

Yes. I'm trying to think of games where I get coupons. I can't think of any. Piyush, again, you have a very focused niche game genre, but there is a lot here about behavior. What could maybe literally help you up your game? What do you make of these numbers?

I mean I would say the numbers are a bit skewed towards how hyper casual user would behave. The reason being, I think, the sample size is actually users who are clapping on the in-game ads. And most of the in-game ads, I mean, not most, but a high percent of in-game ads are being served from hyper casual games. And their behavior is to have low retention, right, and just switch on between different games. So I think that's why the whole sample size could be a bit skewed, I might have been because I'm surprised to see purchase product being that low. I think was portion a bit towards the left in my opinion. But yes, I mean, as a marketer, I would like to see never pretty much less. I would want people to click on the ad, interact with the ad more so that they can convert eventually. I would like to see the green button go away if impossible in the future. But yes, maybe a bit more reflective of how a hyper casual user would behave, but it's still a research and it makes sense. It's [indiscernible] what we see.

That's sure it could be the sample size because purchase product, if it really was that low, some of [indiscernible] be here. So it has to be higher than that. There's an industry behind that. It has been a fantastic webinar. We've come to the close of it, but we've gone through so many different topics and levels. Looking at the market, macro, micro, player behavior, motivations, activations. Let's try to wrap it up a little bit because what we're looking at is genres, opportunity, and also generations where you can target some of that. We have an audience of marketers here. I'd like to hear what you find actionable, what you found surprising. Something that marketers should operationalize maybe take back to the office or remote office with them on Monday. I'll start with you, Sola.

Well, thank you once again for having me on this pretty cool webinar. And when I am thinking about like next step about what should marketers do to gain the exact audience, which will like their game and I always think about not only the good creative, not only good sources, not only ROI, and so on, but it's definitely very useful things. But we have to think about also emotions and how can we hope the attention? What we can provide for our potential players, which will entertain them. So we always have to think about it. And I'm pretty sure that marketing teams and developers teams, product teams, they have to work really very closely in order to create not only a great game, but also this feeling and emotion and it's not only about performance marketing when you were showing the ad and someone [indiscernible] to the ad.

Absolutely, product and marketing together. Everyone is looking deeper in the funnel. And that's why it's so important to understand also player insights. So a survey like this is also something to factor into a marketing strategy. Piyush, something that you're taking away from this that is actionable, something that's actually going to impact how you do your job.

I'm definitely going to go and research about the RPG and strategy part, [indiscernible] 2 genres. I'm just saying. But going back, look, definitely, it's actionable, I have been to multiple conferences, speaking at multiple webinars as well, right? But we always tend to look a lot at how performance marketing functions, what's the bidding strategy and how can we -- what happens when usable data [indiscernible] and stuff like that. It's a very good idea to just set a step back to look at the broad picture of how exactly gaming as a genre going, right, how exactly sub genres are behaving. Because there are a lot of impacts in here as to how they use the behavior is. What demographic [indiscernible] to what kind of use of behavior and that becomes an actionable item. It's not just for marketers, it becomes an actionable item for product teams. It becomes actionable item for live ops teams. What they can take from it, for example, the avatar thing I'm going to show it around to the [indiscernible], look Gen Z is responding. Look at it. So yes, thanks a lot for invitation, Peggy, and thanks for all the research.

Absolutely. And great to have you here. And to talk about the research, I mean we're very lucky to have had it from so many different perspectives, so many different levels, the player research, the survey, but also the macro. Carolane, you put it all together, this is what gets you up in the morning. This is what you love to do. Let's have your final take.

Yes. I mean contacts and content is key. Sola is right, she said it right, without marketing approach, I think all themes that we've identified today with knowing your audience, understanding and anticipating interest. I guess from where I'm sitting, it's worthwhile and investing in extensive targeting capabilities, and looking into those types of partners, especially anyone's looking at Fluent strategy, then that aligns with a lot of the audiences that we're targeting here, but also to a lot of your comments today, Peggy, about finding where the gap is on top to market and then leveraging those targeting, leveraging the knowledge that we have, digging deeper, really questioning and challenging all of these trends that we've seen today. There's some importance there as well, not just, I think Piyush just said, did I just say a little further. I think there are some trends that are exciting that were not anticipated, and there's a reason for that, and we just got to figure out why. And as Sola mentioned, forgot what makes our users tick and what their picks, their interests, and keep that going. I think that's usually the secret sauce.

It was a great conversation, a great opportunity to look at it from so many different ways. I'm going to give back to you, Adam, with a big thank you from us, your panel, because it was just so much fun.

Well, I thank you, guys. Your insights are what make this thing great. And thank you, Peggy, for hosting and sharing your insights. Your expertise is not to be overlooked for sure here. So I really appreciate that as well. And so before we go, I just want to thank all the attendees for their attention and their participation in our polls. As a reminder, everyone checked the resources widget for links and downloads related to today's session. And please keep an eye on for invitations for future webinars from Fluent. And to visit us at our website, if you want to learn more about how we keep our clients or help our clients reach their user acquisition goals. So we'll be hosting a webcast at least once a quarter where we invite in-house superstars like Carolane and experts on our panel today. We hope you guys will come back if we invite you, and we look forward to seeing you next time. So goodbye for now.