Players enter popular Webtoon world.
Solo Leveling drives global growth.

To boost brand visibility on the App Store before the game’s release, the team at Netmarble invested in pre-order campaigns globally. On release day, the app would automatically download to the devices of people who pre-ordered and notify these players that they could start experiencing the game right away. The team at Netmarble monitored pre-order campaign performance closely to gain insights into demand and budget allocation by region.

“Pre-order campaigns on the App Store have been incredibly helpful in identifying differences between our planned target markets and the actual performance in those regions,” says Netmarble Head of Performance Marketing Seungbok Lee. “Based on insights from pre-order performance across key metrics like cost-per-tap, tap-through rates, and costs in different countries, we adjusted our regional target plans leading up to the launch and expanded focus to more markets than originally planned.”

Closer to the game’s launch, the Netmarble team complemented search results campaigns with ads on the Today tab and Search tab, increasing their potential reach with gamers. With the prominent placement on the front page of the App Store, they maximized impressions, making their app some of the first content that people saw when they began their App Store journey. Search tab ads kept the game top of mind and influenced intent before players even searched. “Success with Apple Search Ads comes from looking at the overall impact, not just focusing on a single placement. We found that after running search results and Today tab campaigns together, we experienced a decrease in overall blended cost-per-acquisition,” says Lee.

After the official launch, the team at Netmarble increased budgets for search results, shifting to an always-on strategy to help them reach new audiences as well as capture strong intent for their brand and similar apps. “Thanks to these Apple Search Ads strategies at different stages of our launch and targeting different parts of the funnel, our game ranked as the number one most popular game in 78 countries during its first week on the App Store,” says Lee. “While we’ve had many successful titles, Solo Leveling became the fastest game to earn this honor.”

Based on performance insights from Apple Search Ads, the Netmarble team also consistently optimized ad relevancy by market. They created ad variations based on custom product pages set up in App Store Connect, aligning creative with keyword themes related to specific language nuances by market. The team also leveraged the game’s core visuals and guided users to a custom-designed product page that featured a continuous vertically scrolling format. This layout enhanced visual cohesion and ensured a seamless, immersive user journey, maximizing engagement from the initial click-through to the final interaction.

“Initially, we focused mainly on creating simple language variations for different regions. However, after receiving valuable insights into country-specific trends and user behavior, we began investing more effort into creating custom product pages tailored to the preferences of users in each market,” says Lee. “With ads across the App Store and custom product pages, we were able to create a compelling and uninterrupted brand experience that aligned closely with the game’s aesthetic and narrative.” The seamless vertical creative format led to 10x higher conversion rates compared to the default ad.