Cracking the Code: Top Troops Case Study Reveals Global UA Secrets!

Top Troops Case Study Reveals Global UA Secrets” by shedding light on Socialpoint’s strategic approach to mobile gaming user acquisition (UA). Socialpoint, a renowned mobile game developer and publisher with over 2M daily active users, has been leveraging its global presence to drive UA through a combination of soft-launch practices and data-driven marketing. Acquired by Take-Two Interactive in 2017, Socialpoint has expanded its expertise in targeting global gaming markets. The case study focuses on how Socialpoint, through Parrot Games SL, tests new mobile games in limited regions to optimize performance before a global rollout. This strategic soft-launching approach allows for efficient user acquisition, maximizing the game’s reach while minimizing risks.

What is the Difference Between Top Troops and Battle Legion History Lesson? 

The main difference between top troops and battle legion history lesson. It soft launched back in July 2021 and was released globally  – on October 4, 2023. Pretty long soft launch, right?

Social Point released this game while Battle Legion was in a very good shape spend vs. revenue-wise. It was early 1:1 Battle Legion, even with the same units and then they killed it and relaunched it with the Merge unit progression later in July 2021.

There was one other game Game of Nations under Stillfront which is basically dead.

Here we have an early gameplay video from Top Troops soft launch!

These games leverage the battle/strategy element, but we had also a few interesting games trying to leverage Merge mechanics for male audiences in the mid-core genre. Playtika’s Merge Stories, which they shut down already with the whole studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIz7uDnJeIg

Then we have Merge Vikings from Metacore which I thought its not even getting new updates and its dead. My former colleague explained the new season in the new YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27jAHI7IAEQ

Why the fuck am I talking about this? I thought you would appreciate a bit of a history lesson on how this game went from soft launch to Global launch and which games are in this category.

What is the Top Troops: Adventure RPG Gameplay Overview?

Top Troops: Adventure RPG is a new adventure RPG title brought to you by Zynga Inc. The game tests the strategic and commanding skills of the players as decisions related to deploying units and merging them with the enemy units that are defeated to make them stronger and better in terms of stats and raw numbers. The game works on the conquest approach as players can unlock new territories for conquest after defeating the dark army and gradually annexing the lost empire.

Understanding the basics of the game

Top Troops follows a very basic gameplay which is pretty easy to understand and makes the experience a smooth one for new gamers. Top Troops: Adventure RPG offers strategic gameplay with plenty of varied and unique battle units at the disposal of the players in the game to assign on the battlefield.

Each unit is expandable and upgradeable by merging them with other units of the same character. With each battle won and territory unlocked, players can get their hands on new battle units which then would be available to be used against the dark army later on in the game. The game follows a well-defined story, where players lose their full empire to the dark army and then gradually build up from scratch.

For each territory players unlock there will be rewards in the form of battle chests which will contain rewards such as currencies in the game and maybe some battle units if players are lucky, If you have three of the same troops and new troops they can be combined to form new and more powerful battle unit. The game has a very detailed class of battle units available for the players to choose their armies from. Be sure to check our character tier list to choose the best among them.

Understanding how the merging works

Top Troops banks on the merging gameplay which offers the game a unique genre of game altogether. The basics of the feature are to have a better and bigger army to deter the enemy forces and recapture the lost territories. To do this, however, the players should have three copy units of the same unit after which they can merge them all into one and form a better and bigger army force.

To merge the characters, players need to just simply select and drag the identical battle units together in one place. The game will automatically do its bits and add the battle units together making them better and bigger in terms of both numbers and statistics. Merging troops is the core concept of the game based on which most of the game revolves and is also vital for the players to win battles in the game. Hence it should not be ignored.

Troops are not the only features of the game that can be merged, the game also allows the players to merge chests in the game, thus giving access to better rewards which could be accessed via the players in the game, the game in itself is a bit tricky and resources play a huge part in the game, hence the merging of chests should not be ignored by the players in the game.

What Are the Key User Acquisition Strategies and numbers for Top Troops?

The key user acquisition strategies for Top Troops include leveraging social media advertising, influencer partnerships, and targeted app store optimization (ASO) to reach potential players effectively.Looks like the game peaked already after a bigger push last week, but let’s see how it goes.. It already looks quite bad in the first week after global, but they pushed both on Android and iOS

I tried to compare the global launch week to the Battle Legion global for obvious reasons!

Two weeks after global launch, they are sitting on 300k installs and around $1Mil in revenue. How did I come up with that? Listening to Felix and all his Excel sheet Admon mambo jumbo. External tools say 400k in IAP revenue, which is multiplied by a sadness multiplier of 2 = $800k in IAP revenues. Given the DAU and the few ad placements I saw, I would expect this game to have 20-25% Ad revenue.

I would expect to see way better numbers outside of the United States. One of our stronger geos was also South Korea!

UA Channel mix

Applovin is NOT the biggest channel in terms of spending. What a surprise! Well, they started last week according to some tools and that had an effect on the scale immediately. Since Zynga acquired Chartboost, no other mediation is an option. Right? No MAX, no UA fun.

Google

• Looks like Google is the biggest channel. Especially YouTube placement!  We will check why.

Facebook

• A bit of Facebook here and there.

TikTok

• They have an official page with content on Tiktok which they use as spark ads afterward. Very CLEVER!
  • Spark Ads is a native ad format that enables you to leverage organic TikTok posts and their features in your advertising. This unique format lets you publish ads:
    • Using your own TikTok account’s posts.
    • ​Using organic posts made by other creators – with their authorization.

Unlike Non-Spark Ads (regular In-Feed ads), Spark Ads use posts from real TikTok accounts, which ensures that all views, comments, shares, likes, and follows gained from boosting the video during the promotion are attributed to your organic posts. There’s no limit to how many times you can use the same organic TikTok posts as creatives in your ads.

Mintegral, Unity, Ironsource, and the rest

• it depends on the tool I use; some other channels are still relevant. 
  

Diversifying the UA portfolio efficiently is not an easy job. Here, we can see a good baseline of plenty of channels.

Influencer Marketing

• they are running quite big influencer campaigns since the global launch. Well, it kinda makes sense for this type of game!

What Are Merge CPIs?

Merge CPIs (Cost Per Install) refer to the advertising costs associated with acquiring new users for games like Top Troops that utilize merging mechanics. I am not using again the usual CPI image, because I don’t have merge games in there. Maybe I should refresh the picture with new data! Anyway, everybody knows Merge games have SUPER HIGH CPIs. We are talking $40+ in the US for Purchase campaign optimization, for Value optimization we are getting above $50.

That’s why its really mind-boggling why Top Troops use a LOT of merge mechanics in the creatives. I would do it slightly differently, which I am explaining in the creative section! Scroll down …

TOP IAP SKUs

What are the Creative Strategies to Enhance User Engagement in Top Troops?

The Creative Strategies to Enhance User Engagement in Top Troops are as followed : 

• UGC
• merge
• not a lot of emphasis on the battle itself
• cartoonish narrative based
• hooks (especially, good old no wifi hook!)
• top war, hero wars or storm shot inspiration (show both)

These fake creatives won’t work since Top Troops doesn’t have any of this implemented in the onboarding (not even Custom Product Pages for these types of creatives)

What is the Most Effective type of creative to Promote Top Troops?

UGC

What Fake Creatives Have Been Inspired by Other Games in Top Troops, and Can You Identify Their Sources?

Who is the Biggest Spender on YouTube in the Top Troops Community?

What Are Narrative Creatives and How Do They Enhance Top Troops?

What Hooks Are Most Effective for Engaging Players in Top Troops?

What Are the Best Battle Legion Creatives for Inspiration?

What Are the Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts on Top Troops?

The key takeaways and final thoughts on top troops are as followed : 

• You need both killer UA & monetization strategy for a successful global launch. It’s not easy to do it without one or another. With Top Troops, it looks like the scale could be limited by the Merge genre CPIs. I would focus more on the battle mechanic rather than Merge mechanic in creatives.

• I am surprised by how many different creative concepts the creative team of Social Point introduced from Day 1. Especially the inspiration coming from Top War, Hero Wars, and Stormshot. There is no shame in using fake ads. I LOVE IT! 

• Playables, playables, playables. After seeing the recent scale of Applovin, you need to start adding more playables to the mix to keep the campaign healthy. Same with new videos – every week 2-3 new videos!

• Great diversification of UA channels! Kudos.

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As always, special thanks go to Mobile action for providing the creative insights! You are awesome!