Banner Ads Success Story: How Manga RPG Generated $6,887 in Just 7 Days!

Role-playing games (RPGs) have long captured the hearts of millions of players, and their popularity continues to grow rapidly with the rise of mobile platforms. These games transport players to fantastical worlds, where anyone can become a hero equipped with unique abilities and characteristics. Immersive storylines, meticulously crafted game worlds, and strategic depth make RPGs an incredibly engaging experience, fostering a loyal community of fans.

However, despite the vast variety of RPG games available, achieving success in this genre is a significant challenge. Fierce competition demands not only a high-quality product with a unique concept but also a well-planned strategy to attract and retain the target audience. For traffic arbitrage professionals, this presents an opportunity to turn a challenging task into a profitable venture.

In this article, we’ll explore effective ads for games and promotion strategies for RPG games that will not only boost organic and paid traffic but also significantly increase user engagement. From setting up advertising campaigns with the most relevant traffic sources to selecting the right creatives, we’ll demonstrate how to achieve success in the highly competitive online gaming niche.

Offer: Games
GEO: CY (Cyprus), TR (Turkey)
Traffic: Mainstream High and Medium Activity
Ad Format: Banner mobile
Targeting by Interests: games, manga/comics
Ad campaign period: 1 December – 7 December
Revenue: $6 887
ROI: 109%

The gaming industry continues to thrive, captivating millions of users worldwide. In this dynamic landscape, affiliate marketing has emerged as one of the most effective tools for boosting revenue and scaling campaigns. However, achieving success requires more than just understanding your audience—it demands precise campaign optimization and creative integration into the gaming ecosystem.

Why Is Affiliate Marketing Vital for the Gaming Segment?

The answer is clear: gamers are constantly seeking fresh experiences, improved solutions, and unique opportunities—whether it’s new games, gear, or gadgets. Capturing their attention through advertising means more than just clicks; it drives high conversion rates and deep engagement.

Successful affiliate campaigns don’t just promote products; they integrate seamlessly into the gaming lifestyle, fostering meaningful connections with the audience. This approach not only generates quality traffic but also builds engagement, which is critical for sustainable growth.

Effective Methods for Ad Integration

Today’s gamers expect advertisements to match the immersive nature of their games. This compels marketers to craft creative content that blends naturally into the gaming environment. Here are the key tools:

• Gamified Content Formats: Interactive quizzes or mini-games that provide personalized recommendations based on user preferences.
• Virtual Events: Showcase products in real gaming scenarios, such as live streams, tournaments, or virtual exhibitions, allowing users to experience the game firsthand.
• Exclusive Offers: Time-limited promotions or unique bonuses tailored to specific games that help brands stand out from competitors.

The Role of Trust and Value

In the gaming industry, trust is a cornerstone of success. Gamers are more likely to engage with brands that are associated with quality and reliability (e.g., Manga RPG). To achieve this:

• Ensure your offers are transparent and align with audience expectations.
• Use creatives and content that highlight the product’s value and relevance to the gaming ecosystem.
• Maintain consistent communication with users to reinforce their confidence in your brand.

Affiliate marketing in the gaming industry is not just a tool for driving traffic—it’s an opportunity to build a sustainable business by engaging with a loyal and passionate audience. Craft campaigns that resonate with gamers, leverage creative formats, and prioritize the quality of interactions to ensure long-term success.

Manga RPG is a one-of-a-kind game that masterfully blends elements of visual novels, adventure, and role-playing games (RPGs), enhanced by a vibrant and humorous atmosphere. Developed by the highly reputable and globally recognized Chibi Phoenix for PC, the game stands out with several key features:

• Engaging Storyline: Dive into a dynamic narrative filled with wit, humor, and a wealth of cultural references that are sure to captivate players from all backgrounds.
• Stunning Visuals: Enjoy hundreds of original illustrations available for free download, making the game not only immersive but also visually delightful.
• Diverse Gameplay Modes: Prefer playing solo or with friends? Manga RPG caters to both preferences, offering single-player and multiplayer options to suit any gaming style.

Following modern trends, Manga RPG adopts a free-to-play distribution model, making it globally accessible and significantly increasing its appeal. This approach presents exciting opportunities for traffic arbitrage professionals, as high-quality free products tend to perform exceptionally well in advertising campaigns.

Advertising Campaign Examples for Manga RPG:

For advertisers, Manga RPG offers a unique chance to tap into a growing niche, attract conversions, and engage a passionate gaming audience. Its universal appeal and immersive gameplay make it a standout product in the competitive gaming landscape, perfect for driving results and creating meaningful connections with players worldwide.

The RPG market is experiencing rapid growth, estimated at $25.34 billion in 2024 and projected to reach $42.22 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.75%. This growth is driven by increased time spent at home and the rising popularity of online gaming as a convenient leisure activity.

RPGs are one of the most lucrative categories in mobile gaming, with top-performing titles becoming household names with massive fan bases and impressive revenues.

So, how can RPG games be effectively promoted? Let’s explore the key strategies:

When selecting GEOs for promotion, it’s crucial to consider cultural nuances and audience preferences. While Manga RPG already enjoys popularity in markets such as Japan, France, the USA, Germany, South Korea, and China, emerging markets like Turkey and Cyprus hold significant potential.

Why Turkey and Cyprus?

• Young Audience: Both regions boast a high percentage of youth actively interested in mobile gaming.
• Free-to-Play Popularity: Manga RPG’s free-to-play model aligns perfectly with the preferences of these markets.
• Interest in Japanese Culture: Turkey and Cyprus demonstrate a strong affinity for Japanese animation and manga, facilitating product acceptance.
• High Internet Penetration: Widespread mobile device usage makes digital promotion highly effective.
• Low Competition: Moderate advertising costs make it easier to achieve high conversion rates and attract quality users.

Turkey and Cyprus share similar demographics in terms of openness to new entertainment forms, fascination with Asian culture, and active online engagement. These factors make them ideal for promoting mobile RPG games.

Promoting Manga RPG through Banner Mobile in HilltopAds is a strategically sound choice, especially for the gaming vertical.

Take a look at some creative examples:

To effectively promote Manga RPG, it’s important to have a well-rounded approach that targets the right regions, showcases the game’s best features, and uses creative ads that resonate with the audience. Turkey and Cyprus are particularly promising markets, thanks to their engaged gaming communities and lower competition. The Banner Mobile format in HilltopAds offers an excellent way to capture attention, build excitement around the game, and convert that interest into active players.

Let’s move on to the campaign settings.

Before launching an advertising campaign on HilltopAds, you need to register as an advertiser. You can register using this link.

Next, to create an advertising campaign, you need to:

• Go to the Manage Campaigns section
• Click the Add Campaign button
• In the campaign creation section, select the Banner mobile ad format
• In the Traffic Channels section, choose Mainstream High and Medium Activity

Next, it’s essential to set up the Postback to track the results of your ad campaign.

For a detailed description of working with Postback and the available placeholders, check out our guide.

In simple terms, for the final URL of the offer, we need to insert parameters to pass conversions and source IDs. The parameter for passing conversions is click_id, and the source ID is zone_id.

As a result, our Final Destination URL should look like this:

https://my_offer.net/?&click_id={{ctoken}}&s1={{zoneid}}

• {{ctoken}} – HilltopAds parameter for passing conversions.
• {{zoneid}} – HilltopAds parameter for passing source ID.

In general, you can add absolutely any parameter from the available options that is necessary for further campaign analysis. However, remember that it is essential to include the click_id parameter in the final link to pass conversions.

Next, we set the necessary targeting settings:

• GEO – CY (Cyprus), TR (Turkey)
• Device – mobile
• Targeting by Interests: games, manga/comics

You can also configure campaign filters and allow/disallow Proxy and WebView traffic from the campaign. In our case for the Mainstream Games offer, we disabled all filters:

• Proxy – disallow
• WebView – disallow

WebView is software that opens a landing page with an offer within a mobile application. In other words, upon opening the application, users are directed to a single-page website with the offer.

Instead of setting daily budget limits, we focused on optimizing the campaign from day one through direct platform settings. We’ll explain this strategy in more detail below.

Before launching the gaming campaign, the critical decision was to establish the cost-per-click (CPC) rate. CPC provides a performance-driven approach, ensuring that advertisers only pay for actual user interactions.

We set a CPC of $0.002, a calculated choice designed to balance affordability with the need to attract high-quality traffic. This approach allowed us to maintain control over the budget while ensuring that each click carried the potential for conversion. By focusing on CPC rather than broader metrics like CPM, we ensured a sharper focus on actionable outcomes, making it easier to analyze campaign performance and refine targeting as needed.

For new campaigns, starting with a carefully chosen CPC rate tailored to the offer and format is key. It provides immediate feedback on user interest and enables precise adjustments to maximize return on investment.

We implemented an automated optimization tool from the very start of the campaign, setting a 24-hour analysis period. The system was meticulously configured: if a specific zone generated more than 1,500 impressions in a single day but failed to deliver at least one conversion, it was automatically added to the Black List. This approach allowed us to promptly eliminate underperforming traffic sources and focus on high-performing zones.

The decision to enable auto-optimization from day one proved to be effective. We observed a significant increase in both traffic volume and conversions. However, this also led to a rise in overall expenses. Despite this, the carefully calibrated campaign setup enabled us to achieve impressive results over a 7-day period. Detailed campaign statistics are presented in the screenshot below.

After carefully tuning the advertising campaign for 7 days, we achieved the following results:

• Total Costs (Spent) – $3,295
• Total Earnings (Profit) – $6,887
• ROI (Return on Investment) – 109%

The statistics for 7 days:

ROI is one of the key indicators in digital marketing that allows you to assess the profitability of an advertising campaign. In simple terms, ROI shows you the percentage of advertising investments that you have managed to recover through earnings from the ads.

The formula for calculating ROI is:
ROI = (total earnings – total cost) / total cost * 100%

The 7-day advertising campaign for Manga RPG has once again proven that success in the highly competitive Games market lies in attention to detail. Every action—from selecting geographic regions and ad formats to fine-tuning auto-optimization—was meticulously planned to achieve specific objectives. A key factor in the campaign’s success was the ability to promote games effectively by leveraging creatives that seamlessly captured the essence of Manga RPG, ensuring strong audience engagement.

We achieved remarkable results, but more importantly, we gained valuable insights into how the audience interacts with ads for games and responds to different traffic sources. This case serves as a compelling example of how the right ad network, paired with a promotion strategy that highlights the product’s uniqueness and addresses user needs, can deliver outstanding outcomes. By aligning creativity, precision, and audience understanding, campaigns like this set a benchmark for effective game advertising strategies.