Gaming app brand Panda Games is diverting budget from display adverts to influencer marketing.
The brand tested the channel recently, commissioning a YouTube video through Sponsokit for a few thousand euros.
Sophia Niekler from Panda Games said they were so impressed with the results they are tripling their budget for the second campaign.
The German brand’s product and marketing manager said: “We’re looking into spending more on this kind of marketing.
“We’re cutting out a few traditional marketing channels that are not working as well, and spending the money we had for that on this instead.”
“This test has been a great experience for us, I highly recommend influencer marketing to other brands.”
Most notably Panda Games is looking to cut down on its display advertisements.
Sophia continued: “People don’t look at display adverts. They don’t want to see pop outs – there’s so many of them. Whereas video advertisements also have the advantage of giving people an idea of the game.”
Sophia added the channel is great for the gaming industry.
She said: “The gaming industry is competitive, especially in Germany. Influencer marketing gets us quality installs because we’re in front of the right audience.
“But I’d recommend influencer marketing to other brands no matter what their industry. Try it with a small amount of money and if it works for you, you can always scale.”
Sophia Niekler
“The cost per install was really good compared to other marketing channels.”
Panda Games chose their first content creator because they liked the topics he discussed, his audience matched their target market and the estimated views the video was likely to get corresponded with the brand’s plan.
Sophia continued: “We knew the audience was likely to install our game. We really liked his videos and how he presented his content. The YouTuber had previous content focused on Anime, which worked well for us.“
Read our article on finding the perfect content creator for your campaign and get the influencer selection checklist.
Immediately when the video went live, installs of the game featured skyrocketed.
The brand asked their YouTuber to include a unique tracking link in the video’s description so were able to accurately calculate their conversion rates.
But in addition, Panda Games also noticed a significant boost in its organic installs – which they are attributing to the sponsored content.
Sophia said most importantly for the brand they were getting “high quality installs”.
Video Stats
50k
Views
3116
Engagements
6.5%
Engagement Rate
€0.04
/View
The cost per view of the video evened out at around four cents and the brand worked out their cost per install to be lower than other marketing channels.
Sophia commented: “The cost per install was really good compared to our other marketing channels.”
Panda Games decided to give influencer marketing a shot after another company recommended it to them.
But Sophia said their first venture with the channel was not a success.
She said: “We used an agency to contact the YouTuber. It didn’t work out quite so well. There were so many people communicating in between us and the influencer that information was lost.”
She said using the Sponsokit platform worked much better for the brand because they were able to communicate with the influencer directly.
From the test Sophia added the brand had learned how to better brief influencers to get the best results.
Read our tips on how to write an influencer brief and get the influencer briefing checklist.
Sophia said: “This test has been a great experience for us, I highly recommend influencer marketing to other brands.”
