Brutally Honest #60 by Matej Lancaric

No 💩​ BS newsletter with useful stuff about UA in the post IDFA world

Hey FAM, what's up?

🥃 Drink talk

MAU will be pretty big, thanks to some of my friends. We will have two live podcasts! One on Tuesday (pre-conference) and one on Wednesday during the main conference. Thanks a lot to everyone who made it happen!

Also, we are co-organizing a party you don’t want to miss on Wednesday. Register here!

🦩Tip of the week

I’ve been talking about how to identify trends in creatives multiple times. What I didn’t talk about too often is the creative team structure and the number of creatives they need to produce for a certain level of UA budget.

There is no best practice! Thank you very much for reading …

Ok, jokes aside. There is no best practice, but this is how I usually structure it:

Monthly budget & number of new creatives:

0-50k per month

• 4 new unique creative concepts per month (+ iterations)

50-250k

• 4-10 new unique creative concepts per month (+ iterations)

250k-500k

• 10-16 new unique creative concepts per month (+ iterations)

500k-1Mil

• 16-20 new unique creative concepts per month (+ iterations)

1mil+

• 20+ new unique creative concepts per month (+ iterations)

What should be your creative team structure?

• 1 motion designer

• 2 illustrators

• 3 graphic designers

• 4 flying unicorns

• 5 flamboyant flamingos

Ok, ok, ok, stop with the bullshit. Ideally, you want to have a mix of 2D & 3D motion designers, character animators & riggers. Illustrators & graphic designers are really nice to have, but you can live without them.

As a pair of new eyes, you should be working with an external creative agency. Not because they are going to steal your job but because they have a lot of experience & can produce concepts you would not think about.

I have 10 motion designers on my team - mixing 2D & 3D motion design, character animation & rigging. We have done some crazy shit!

Johny Sins say hi! 🍆

💀  Dr. Doom is not amused

One of my industry friends amused me with his direct and honest TL;DRs, so we agreed to share it here too! My friend remains anonymous as Dr.Doom!

"A breakthrough research forecast reported by Reuters, which estimates that by 2035 the fabled Metaverse (of course the one built by Meta Duh!) will contribute 2,4% of US GDP alone (760 Bil.$ to be precise). But wait there is more, it will also contribute 538 Bil. $ to EU economy. So all together, 3.6 trillion $ per year in world GPD!!!. And only thanks to Zuckerberg spending 13 Billion$ just in 2022 on it, genius investment! Whos is behind this research? Consulting firm Deloitte commissioned by Facebook. Dammit Mark, trying to trick me gain" - Sincerely, Dr. Doom (https://www.pcgamer.com/meta-says-new-study-shows-the-metaverse-could-boost-the-global-economy-by-dollar36-trillion-per-year-and-yes-it-probably-is-worth-noting-meta-paid-for-the-research/)

🎉  “Ha-ha” moment

Because life is too short to be serious!

🎮 two & a half gamers #64

Dividing our latest session into three super interesting parts:

Ad monetisation - Meta enhances interaction on ads

What does this mean? This means that they’ve added a click template at the end of their video ads after the 5 second timer when a video finishes. So users have to spend 2 seconds to click out of the ad… which by the way they very nicely in a PR manner call “Interacting”.

Creative trends in Q1 2023 - showcasing top games and their top creatives

Soft launch sonar - update on 20 games in a soft launch from top studios.

You don’t want to miss this one. Tune in:

🎧 Listen on Spotify

📺 Watch on Youtube

👾  Mistplay is the #1 loyalty app for mobile gamers

Tap into loyalty-powered user acquisition to reach high-value users that drive retention and LTV. Learn more!

🦄​ Diary of a Dancing Unicorn

Today was a good day.

You should change the conversion window to 3 days instead of 7 and test it out.

We would like to, but we don’t have the 3-day option available.

That’s weird. Could you screen share, pls?

Yeah, look, here it is... There is no option like that in the dropdown menu.

You are right, and it’s not there. What you do instead, you select custom and put three days in.

Oh! Okay.

Yeah, that’s it. You are good to go now.

Omg, I guess this is precisely why you work with a consultant who knows what to do and where. We were trying to find the solution for multiple days—all three of us.

Glad to help :)

Today was a good day.

🤺​ Quote of the week

“Some people are just human ads.” Jakub, 2.5gamers internal chat

Soft launch sonar, creative trends & Facebook fun

🧞 Level up yourself

I launched a YouTube Channel. I'm putting a ton of energy into creating valuable content I think you'll like. Check out the latest stuff, and give me a like and subscribe.

👾  Nostalgia games

Do you remember this game? What did you play when you were young?

Twisted Metal 2 - One of the most iconic games!

More info here: https://hardcoregamer.com/features/member/member-twisted-metal-2/393487/

🥦​ Before you go

10 tips for killer UA? Find out here!

---

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

Please do me a favor and share this with someone in your network who you think would benefit from the insights and brutal honesty. It would mean a lot to me!

Take care, everyone! See you next Monday!

👇 Reach out for feedback or questions, or say hi!

Give me some love (or hate) & Subscribe everywhere! ♥️

---