Gram Games, a mobile app development studio based in Turkey, has reached the top of the Google Play and iOS charts in almost every country. They build original mobile games, ranging from strategy to casual, mid-core and more. Their highly-addictive game 1010! Puzzle is one of the most popular games in the world today – with more than 5 million people installing it via Google Play alone. When Gram Games began to see success from their games, they knew they were ready to expand their business and used Google from the beginning – from Google Apps for Business to Google Admob to maximize revenue.
Developing a global user base
Initially, they turned to Google Play for distribution beyond their home base of Turkey and were able to use the Google Play API to quickly implement features such as leaderboards to keep users coming back to their apps. Focusing on “lean and mean” development across platforms, Gram Games keeps language and localization to a minimum, enabling them to connect with a worldwide audience more easily.
With a number of games under their belt, and a proven formula for success, Gram Games saw the opportunity to take their business to the next level – but they needed to get noticed.
Building on success with Google Ads
Gram Games had used other ad networks in the past for promotion without much success, but they were very happy with the results and reach they saw from Google Ads. They were able to grow to 20M users, with a monthly retention of 14%.
Not only did Google Ads help them achieve their goals, it also helped to keep costs low. In the US alone, their cost-per-install (CPI) using Google Ads was about $1, much lower than typically seen in the industry.
Making money with AdMob
Finding success with Google Ads, Gram Games decided to use AdMob to monetize their apps and turn that popularity into revenue.
Not wanting to impact the user experience, Gram Games started out using a premium model for their apps, but had limited success. They decided to implement in-app advertising - showing AdMob banner ads during game play and then expanding to full-screen interstitials between rounds.
With their direct approach to app development, they tapped into the Admob network of millions of global advertisers. The configured Admob to show the right ads to the rights users, and generated $5K in earnings in a single day, helping Gram Games grow their business 7X overall.
Looking to the future
Gram Games believes mobile is the future of gaming, and as they expand, they plan to continue to use Google advertising platforms to make the most of the evolving opportunities in the gaming world. “We are platform agnostic, but we’ve found it’s a lot easier to engage users with Google”, finishes Mehmet Ecevit, co-founder of Gram Games.
