Rewarded Video (V4VC™) Best Practices

1. Should I reward soft or hard currency for rewarded videos?

Many games have two virtual currencies which are often referred to as soft and hard currencies. Usually, the soft currency is earned currency from gameplay and is used to buy standard items and for paying for gameplay actions.

Hard currency is usually purchased through the IAP store and is not easily earned in the game. Usually hard currency provides the highest margin of monetization due to its rarity and due to the associated items only that currency can buy. The 5-20% of users who do actively make in-app purchases are typically the most loyal, engaged and knowledgeable users (sometimes referred to as “whales”). In order to not harm the cash flow from these users, make sure you are mindful of how much you reward users if you choose to reward using hard currency.
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2. How much should I reward my users for each video view?

The best monetizing social games have monetization actions as core to the gameplay, and the game is designed around monetization mechanics. When implementing rewarded video, be aware that some users will view this ad unit to its daily limit; that earning potential must be calculated into the game’s economy.

Since many games use hard currency for “limited edition” items or special content, careful planning should be taken to make sure users do not gain access to all the premium content in exchange for low-margin revenue and subversion of in-app purchases. Devaluing in-app purchases, especially if the game was designed around it, can result in long-tail decreased revenue and a less effective in-game economic structure in the long-run.

We recommend publishers do diligent economic analysis and testing of their rewarded video reward values to ensure it provides incremental revenue without skewing any original game mechanics or economies balance.
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3. How do I use limits to control rewarded video usage and prevent abuse?

Limits are used so that the developer can control the amount of rewards each user can get from rewarded videos. Limits are important and should be carefully considered for each use case. They can potentially limit your revenue from rewarded ad units, but can also ensure that your other revenue streams are not majorly affected. Failure to utilize limits may de-incentivize users from taking certain actions in your game.

Also consider whether lifetime limits for each user are beneficial if your goal is moving users from lower-margin revenue streams to making the higher-margin in-app purchases.
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4. What are general recommendations to follow for a proper and effective rewarded video implementation?

1. We recommend you be very exacting when granting hard currency, and that you only award soft currency in some app economies.
2. We recommend carefully choosing daily caps for your virtual currency, especially for hard currency rewards.
3. We recommend prioritizing AdColony or separating ad providers if you plan to waterfall multiple ad providers. Different technologies display content to users in different ways, and it will affect revenue from AdColony. For example, an ad network which utilizes streaming technology will provide a poorer user experience with long ad load times compared to AdColony’s Instant-Play™ ads, and this may deter users from wanting to watch video ads due to long load times.
4. We recommend using custom views which appear to be seamlessly integrated in your application to promote your users to “earn” currency for watching videos.
5. We recommend performing call checks for video ad availability before displaying the opt-in button to the user. This will provide for a better user experience.

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