How to run a marketability test for your game

Imagine knowing with more certainty if your game will scale. You’d be able to take the guesswork out of which of your games is worth publishing and only put your time and resources behind those that show potential. That’s exactly what marketability testing can accomplish.

Find out precisely what marketability testing is, why it matters, and how you can start more accurately predicting your game’s success using the Unity LevelPlay marketability testing tool. Let’s start with the what.

As you develop new concepts, knowing which are most likely to be loved by users can help you direct your time and resources more effectively. Instead of putting your resources behind just one game – or scattering them across titles – then crossing your fingers and hoping you’ll succeed, marketability testing helps confirm if your game could be a success.

To date, marketability testing has largely only been run on social media channels like Facebook and TikTok, and it doesn’t always accurately represent a game’s potential for other user acquisition (UA) channels, like video networks. With this type of testing, you can get a comprehensive understanding of your game's full scaling potential.

Let’s say, for example, you’re in the concept phase with three hyper-casual games. Without an accurate marketability test on your app’s most relevant traffic sources, you’d have to make a decision about which game to put your time, energy, and development cost behind. Even if you had the budget and manpower to build out all three, it could end up being a waste of these resources if just one of the concepts ends up a success. But, with marketability testing, you can know with more certainty which of the three – perhaps even all three – concepts are likely to be a hit.

Using a marketability test, you can confirm your game’s ability to scale affordably by seeing where you fall on the eCPM curve – the higher your eCPM, the more potential buying power your game has.

Increasing eCPM earns you more impressions, and you can increase eCPM by either bidding higher or boosting installs per mille, or IPM (by improving creatives). If you can estimate where on the curve your game falls, you can accurately understand how well you’ll scale.

If the eCPM is too low (the red zone), you won't win enough impressions to scale. If it falls in the green zone, your game can be competitive in ad networks and scale affordably. As your eCPM climbs higher (such as to the top of the green zone), you can even increase your margins while still scaling – your campaigns are at peak marketability.

Now that you know what a marketability test can measure and why you should use it to confirm your game’s potential, it’s time to understand how to actually run tests. Keep the following three tips in mind:

1. Avoid testing during volatile periods, like holidays
2. Test with the creative that’s most likely to engage users and create certain emotions
3. Once you achieve a good result, launch as soon as possible because trends can change quickly

To get insight into how your game could scale with maximum accuracy and minimum cost, the LevelPlay marketability testing tool is the only solution of its kind today for understanding your game’s buying power before launch – all within a few days. In fact, Kwalee used the tool to quickly identify Hunt & Seek's potential, which went on to reach No. 1 on the global charts.

You can see the results of the test as a score, which indicates your location on the eCPM curve as compared to your competition.

Running a marketability test helps streamline your entire publishing process and direct your resources toward the games that show the highest potential of scaling. Start publishing with more confidence, accuracy, and efficiency by running your own marketability tests.

The marketability testing tool is exclusive to Unity LevelPlay mediation publishers and is not, alone, a guarantee of results. If you are not a publisher but are interested in putting these tips to use, connect with us to grow your app business.