Backflip Studios acquires high value players on Snapchat

Backflip Studios' DragonVale is the original dragon breeding simulation game with over 400 different dragons to breed, hatch, raise, and collect. With in-app payment options, DragonVale monetizes by offering players the opportunity to expedite their breeding and hatching cycle with a unique in-game currency. Backflip Studios came to Snapchat excited to tap into the platform’s engaged community in order to drive downloads and acquire high quality, paying users.

Backflip Studios was itching to get started on Snapchat but was missing one thing: vertical ad creative. Thanks to Snapchat’s free editing tool, Snap Publisher, the company was able to easily convert horizontal videos and turn static images into engaging gif-like content with ease. 
Backflip Studios also experimented with a range of targeting criteria to discover which audience segments were the most likely to convert. Snapchat Ads Manager made it easy to break out multiple ad groups by operating system, gender, and age in order to execute tests with a clear learning objective and see performance in real time. With Ads Manager’s clean reporting, it could quickly learn and easily optimize its DragonVale campaigns. Backflip Studios also optimized bids for installs, thereby leveraging Snapchat’s machine-learning to efficiently automate ad delivery to reach Snapchatters most likely to download. 

Snapchat not only offered DragonVale new users at a low cost, but it provided an impressively high volume of users who went on to spend in-app. DragonVale was able to acquire paying users for a 30% lower cost than its goal — and was able to do so at tremendous scale. The company has been able to sustain this performance as it’s increased investment, thereby turning Snapchat into a reliable driver of acquisition and user quality quarter over quarter.