User Acquisition Insights with Xianjue Liu

In this series of articles, UA managers will answer six questions to share their insights on UA and industry trends.

Xianjue Liu is Overseas Marketing Manager at Me2zen, a global mobile games developer with its headquarters in Hong Kong and offices found all over the world. Me2zen has established itself as a leading developer of casual games with a specific focus on the social casino and card game verticals. Among its top titles are Slots Classic, Solitaire Tripeaks: Farm Adventure, and Slots Double Hit. The games developer’s goal is to create top global mobile games and today has a specific focus on markets such as North America, Europe, and Asia.

1. What advice would you give other developers from your region when planning to grow their user base outside of APAC?

When expanding into new regions, it is first important to understand the needs of the users in each target market and then narrow the focus to determine who the core users of each game are. In order to do this, creating a general marketing research study on European and American users is important. This helps to determine the approximate age and gender of our game’s target audience.

We are then able to optimize our understanding through the use of in-game player comments and feedback on gameplay, features, UI, activities, and art style among other things in order to understand the users’ real thoughts and suggestions.

2. The past 12 months have resulted in an overall gaming boom. What are your most significant learnings?

We have seen a growing increase in the number of boutique games as well as the emergence of AAA-quality games. This has resulted in more game developers shifting their focus towards long-term game development cycles in order to make games of this quality.

For example, it may take two or three years to develop a game as opposed to the trends we saw in the past. These games are host to finer designs and have more detailed content and gameplay. For example, games like Genshin Impact take a more sophisticated approach which then requires more strategic user acquisition strategies like targeting a user’s age, gender, and device models for smart acquisition.

3. How do you test new markets and ensure that you’re finding the right user in every GEO?

Understanding real player feedback and analyzing in-game data is very important for us. This is where data such as retention, time spent online, and in-app purchase rates help us determine whether we are successful or not. If we are not achieving the performance we want, then we go back to our product and UA strategy to see where we need to optimize and if we need to adapt to a new region.

4. How would you define the ideal audience for Solitaire?

Our target audience is mostly comprised of Tier 1 female users in Europe and the US above the age of 35. We have found that our ideal Solitaire user tends to be older and has more free time. adjoe’s user demographic targeting allows us to more precisely segment users by focusing on age and gender among other options.

5. How important is rewarded advertising in your UA strategy?

Rewarded advertising is an integral part of our UA strategy and currently accounts for approximately 40 percent of our overall acquisitions. It has grown to be an important part of our strategy, since the most common attribute of these users is that they are mostly gamers. This is because of the targeting options and the traffic sources available through these kinds of partners.

Rewarded advertising is an integral part of our UA strategy and currently accounts for approximately 40 percent of our overall acquisitions.

Xianjue Liu, Oversees Marketing Manager at Me2zen

6. Should we expect to see any exciting new games coming out in the next months?

Me2zen will bring more games to the market in the future! It is our intention to continue making games that our users love.