“All the market research you need is in the top grossing apps,” said Brian Sapp to his audience at Casual Connect USA. “Play these games and understand what they are doing!”
As Director of Developer Partnerships at Tapjoy, Brian Sapp brings new developer partners on to the Tapjoy network, to help them maximize their monetization and meet the goals of their user acquisitions campaigns.
Sapp works with developers of all sizes, from two- to five-person indie studios to massive games corporations. Tapjoy’s services to developers cover everything from game design (e.g. tutorial flow, store funnel, retention, monetization, etc.) to marketing campaign planning. Since the company works with developers on both user acquisition and monetization, Tapjoy most frequently acts as a consultant.
“If users aren’t engaging with an app, and the content isn’t compelling enough to keep them engaged, the developer and Tapjoy won’t make any money,” Sapp said. “Both go hand-in-hand.”
Applying Lessons from Other Hit Driven Industries
Sapp gained his insight into hits-driven businesses through his work in the entertainment industry, specifically in music and film.
“I understand that all the stars need to be aligned for a game to takeoff and have massive success,” he said. “If you look back at successful mobile games over the past two years, you can point to various combinations of several things — a rare combination of talent, planning, relationships, and luck.”
Minimizing Dependance on Luck
Sapp also said that many developers think they are making the next Angry Birds, Clash of Clans or DragonVale, but sheer odds make that impossible. “What Tapjoy does is help make sure all the developer ducks are in a row so they are relying less on luck and more on all the other important factors,” he said.
Sapp believes that a true hit transcends genre — in music and in games. “Candy Crush is a great example of that in practice,” he said. “I know a lot of folks who didn’t consider themselves match-3 gamers, but now they’re addicted.”
As the mobile games market becomes increasingly competitive, Tapjoy seeks to create new products that are complimentary to its clients’ existing revenue generation and user acquisition strategies. It works closely with developer partners, making sure studios consider their input on everything they are building and releasing before taking it to market. The best value of this relationship is that Tapjoy has time to build tools that other developers know they need, but do not have the time to build themselves.
Sapp is very satisfied in his career, seeing the success Tapjoy’s developer partners have achieved over the past few years and the companies they have built through great games. These include Hothead Games, Funzio, Smule, Kabam and Ludia. He said that since 2010, Tapjoy has paid out over $200 million to developers.
Brand Advertisers Finally Join the Mobile Party
Sapp notes that brands have been very slow to spend on mobile compared to the amount of time users are spending on mobile. Over the past year, however, there has been considerable increase in spending from brands: Tapjoy saw 61 of the top 100 brands spend on their network in 2012. Sapp expects the total number to be even larger in the next year, with the money made from in-app purchases climbing at a steady rate. Both revenue streams are a win/win for developers and users.
At Casual Connect USA, Sapp plans to introduce developers to the company’s 9.1 SDK, which includes rich media ad units. Tapjoy also has a new video-only ad unit that developers can leverage. Sapp feels these are both superb new features, especially as they deliver more unique branded advertising to developers and users.
Find out more about Tapjoy and its new SDK here.
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