Players transform into strong generals.
Kingdom Itadaki
grows downloads.

Before the game’s launch, the Rudel team created pre-order campaigns on the App Store to boost awareness and capture early interest. For people who pre-ordered, the app would automatically download to their devices on release day and notify them that the game was available to play. To amplify this pre-order strategy, the team invested in ads on the Today tab, a prominent placement on the front page of the App Store. “The impact of our Today tab ads for pre-order was phenomenal. Ads on the Today tab are highly visible placements that drove massive reach and exposure leading up to our release,” says Rudel Marketing Lead (Adrea Division) Taku Sasaki.

Pre-orders for Kingdom Itadaki reached over 250,000. “Our pre-order campaign was key to our success because it maximized core player acquisition at the time of launch,” says Sasaki. “The number of pre-order users was the most important metric to measure the impact of our prelaunch campaigns, proving to be an efficient way to acquire core, loyal gamers who show higher purchase intent.”

After the game’s release, the team at Rudel expanded their potential reach and visibility with gamers through continued investment across the App Store. Search results ads drove low acquisition costs by capturing strong intent from people searching for high-performing keywords. Additional ad placements on the Today tab, Search tab, and product pages helped keep their game top of mind as as well as influenced consideration before players even searched on the App Store.

"Ad placements across the App Store were a valuable investment that expanded our user base and sustained the momentum of the postlaunch period, increasing downloads by 85 percent,” says Sasaki. “Ads on the Search tab, Today tab, and product pages helped us reach new relevant audiences, build credibility, and capture players’ attention before they search,” says Sasaki.

With the addition of view-through metrics, the Rudel team was able to better understand the additional value of impressions from ad placements across the App Store. View-through metrics display the number of installs from users who viewed an ad, but didn’t tap it, within a 24-hour window. This reporting showed that cost-per-acquisition from Today tab ads improved by 35 percent, while a multi-placement strategy contributed 47 percent additional overall downloads.

“View-through reporting allowed us to more accurately evaluate the performance of our ads across the App Store and make more informed investment decisions,” says Sasaki. “Now that we have more clarity on the actual ROI of placements beyond search results ads, we can factor in the strong efficiency and conversion rates of a multi-placement approach. We plan to continue growing our investment across search results, Today tab, Search tab, and product page ads in future launches.”