Sago Mini World · B2C · preschool play app
Advertise inside free kids games that match your age group
Surprisingly good on iOS; weak on Google Play, especially for the learning app
Mixedpaid-social
What they did
Run ads on game ad networks (Unity Ads, IronSource, AppLovin) in placements inside free-to-play apps that are close in experience and age demographic to Sago Mini. Gameplay trailers excite kids for the entertainment app. Focus spend on iOS.
What happened
A surprising amount of kids come from these placements and they work on iOS; much less success on Google Play, especially for Sago Mini School.
- Stage
- Scale (scaling)
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Build a Great Kids App with Minimal Data — Brennan Clark, Sago Mini“There- there are some pretty good apps that are free-to-play in terms of like how close they are in terms of experience, in terms of age demographic. So those placements typically do quite well”
“We haven't had as much success with the Google Play side, and I would say especially for the educational product, Sago Mini School.”
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More from this episode
- Sago Mini: Send players of your older apps to your main subscription appAbout 1M installs in a year; filled part of the gap left by lost ad channels
- Sago Mini: Add parent accounts so you can email parents about your other appsNo numbers; became key once there were several subscription apps
- Sago Mini: Send the kid's drawings to a parent app so parents see the valueGuest calls it a nice reminder of value; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Measure ads with Apple's anonymous data only and model lifetime value yourselfWorks because 80% of purchases happen in 2 days; still a slow manual process
- Sago Mini School: Aim ads for the learning app at parents and ads for the play app at kidsShifting further toward parents for the learning app; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Track app usage with only a per-device ID: no IP, ad ID or account IDGets 90-95% of the picture; parent and kid devices can't be linked
- Sago Mini: Choose partners willing to build custom tools for your rulesPartner built a compliant custom SDK in about 3 weeks with ~20 people
- Sago Mini: Bring kids into the office every week to test apps and check what the data saysCaught a 'popular' feature that kids were really tapping to get back to the menu
- Sago Mini: Keep all text out of gameplay so only store and account screens need translatingApps travel well internationally with little localization work, guest says
- Sago Mini: Offer free branded printable activities to collect parents' emailsNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Make special web offer pages for deals with phone carriers and device makersNo results shared; web hasn't been a big success overall
- Sago Mini World: Add a character creator and more customization so older kids keep playingGuest calls it a major step; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Launch apps for younger and older kids so families move up through your brandNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Sell a monthly craft box that matches the app's themesNo results shared
- Sago Mini: Skip launching on Amazon because it costs as much work as iOS for far less returnLearning app still not on Kindle two years after launch
- Sago Mini: Charge one subscription price with no ads or in-app purchases so parents trust youGuest calls safety and trust a big selling point; no numbers
- Sago Mini: Try small YouTube brand ads aimed at parentsOnly tested, never scaled