James Crabb is a key figure at Almedia, a company known for its innovative gamified promotion platform, Freecash.com. With a strong background in driving user engagement and acquisition, James has been instrumental in helping brands achieve their goals through unique solutions that blend gaming and marketing.
We interviewed with James to learn more about Almedia’s Freecash platform and all about the rise of rewarded user acquisition.
How did Almedia identify the need for a rewards platform like Freecash?
Our rewarded user acquisition platform, Freecash, has seen phenomenal growth in the last year in particular, and mobile games have been a significant driver of that. That growth very much came from Almedia identifying a need for a new approach to UA in the mobile gaming space.
Increasingly, we’ve seen how consumers have become much more savvy to their value and role in monetising games, while developers and publishers have faced increasing challenges in the UA space, from spiraling costs to rising competition. It was clear to Almedia that a platform built around a fair exchange of value between mobile users and those making and providing games could bring tremendous potential.
As such, we began to level-up FreeCash by investing in product, marketing, sales, and CRM, which ultimately enabled us to start to launch with our first direct advertisers. We soon found ourselves working with some of the world’s biggest mobile games, such as Monopoly GO!, validating our belief in the rewarded user acquisition model as a powerful solution in gaming.
We continue to watch the space carefully, and we’re certain personalization and precise targeting will become more important to rewarded user acquisition, which is why we are currently investing in our data team, as well as across the company.
As a platform for acquiring users into games, Freecash lets players earn real rewards, such as cash or gift cards for downloading and playing titles they enjoy – and it’s already delivered results for games like Monopoly GO!
How have you helped to scale BD operations and help to grow the brand commercially, and what challenges are you facing?
Initially our main focus has been on building out a results-driven, robust product, but now we’re equally working on establishing a strong team with well respected and experienced people from across the industry.
We’ve onboarded too much great talent to list in full here so check out the Mobidictum article(!), but people such as Federica Stiscia, Senior Gaming Partnerships Manager who joined us from Remerge, and Sabina Halilovic – our Fraud Analyst who previously served the retailing giant Zalando – are positioning us for more success.
The main challenge is overcoming the historic stigma of incentivized traffic, which we’re doing with our market leading fraud prevention tools and commitment to genuine transparency.
What core factors have driven the rapid growth of ‘Rewarded UA’ in the mobile gaming industry?
As we continue to see rising user acquisition costs and increasing competition in terms of running campaigns on platforms like Meta and Google, developers face tough challenges in today’s landscape.
Our model of rewarded user acquisition offers a simple, scalable solution; developers connect directly with high quality users through our platform, where players are rewarded based on their progression and skill. This approach empowers players, allowing them to discover their new favourite games and earn rewards for engaging with.
And returning to that point on scalability, games can grow their rewarded campaigns in tandem with increases in their success and reach. Freecash offers both publishers and consumers a simple business model that can be adapted as games’ needs or audiences change.
Ultimately, in introducing the concept of incentivizing gameplay – rather than downloads alone or ad views – our rewarded UA model introduces a profound shift in the game’s potential to succeed, and that’s driving the rapid adoption and growth.
What are the benefits of reward-based campaigns for mobile games?
In a nutshell it’s discoverability, incentivizing players to become spenders or spend more, and handholding them to get through onboarding or tricky points in the game.
Rewards-based campaigns offer mobile games several key benefits: they drive long-term engagement and retention by ushering players through specific parts of a game. The same campaigns can even directly help users overcome the game’s more challenging elements, keeping them invested and avoiding losing them at points where retention might otherwise stop.
That also helps keep a broader demographic – and broader sweep of ability levels – engaged, maximising potential audience size. Rewarding players, especially with incentives like cashback on in-app purchases made via Freecash.com, will also help developers see increased revenue and players feel more value.
In those cases, a player might receive a one dollar reward for a three dollar purchase in the game, meaning rewarded players that still deliver monetization. That can convert new players into spending customers who can continue to spend after they complete any rewarded gameplay campaign – and turn existing spenders into bigger spenders.
In a shifting discovery landscape, rewarded UA platforms like Freecash.com equally provide an alternative to the traditional app store model. We offer players a smaller catalogue of curated games, with less noise and competition from other titles – a stark contrast from the main app stores, where you are competing for attention with hundreds of thousands of other titles. And that all comes with the lasting scalability that our model provides.
What are some common misconceptions about ‘Rewarded UA’?
A common misconception about Rewarded UA is that it’s a niche or short-term tactic, but that view is quickly changing as the method grows in popularity and as more long-term campaigns succeed.
More game developers and publishers are adopting rewarded UA as they see its effectiveness in driving quality engagement. Our rapid growth – to a team of 60, set to double in the next 12 months – shows just how much demand there is for scalable, rewarded UA solutions that resonate with players and deliver long-term value for games.
We also see some legacy misperceptions of rewarded UA as ‘gaming the system’ because rewarding users was historically a way to boost app store rankings. Those days are long gone, and Almedia’s approach to transparency goes a long way to dispelling this.
Some gaming advertisers have even expressed concern that the model is not proven, but as seen in our work with partners like Mad Brain Games – who saw peak ROAS climb to 50% higher in their title Word Barn Adventure – rewarded UA is absolutely a proven approach. Fortunately, as awareness increases those misconceptions are fading. And publishers and developers now seem to have a firm understanding that Freecash users bring high value.
How does the format foster a better user experience compared to other advertising models?
Rewarded UA offers a great user experience because it lets players discover games on their own terms, via platforms such as Freecash. Unlike traditional ad formats, nothing is forced, so gameplay remains uninterrupted. If a developer wants to run rewarded ads in their game that they place on Freecash, they can. But instead of just watching ads to earn in-game rewards, our players are rewarded, outside of the game, as they play, progress and overcome challenges, making the experience more enjoyable and rewarding.
Simply put, they are rewarded for playing games. Additionally, the rewards can even be cashed out as real-world value, adding tangible benefits to the fun of gameplay. Rewarded UA enhances the user benefits without intruding on the user experience or vision of game designers.
We’re not just confident we’ve found a revenue generating way to acquire and retain that works for publishers and players – we’re excited about the tremendous potential that brings to the entire mobile gaming landscape.
Have you noticed differences in the effectiveness of ‘Rewarded UA’ across different geographical regions or demographics?
We’ve seen rewarded UA thrive particularly in the US, where the largest global marketing budgets and high-spending players are concentrated. However, this also means we are staying proactively vigilant about fraud, implementing strict measures to ensure rewarded UA remains safe and effective, and delivers real value for both developers and players across all regions.
As global rollout continues, we’re starting to see encouraging results in numerous territories.
How do you see the future of ‘Rewarded UA’ evolving in the mobile gaming landscape, especially considering emerging technologies, privacy regulations, and changing user preferences?
The future of Rewarded UA in mobile gaming looks incredibly promising, with exponential growth on the horizon.
We may see traditional ad networks consolidating or acquiring key players as they recognize this shift – in fact, we’re convinced the next AppLovin or major new ad network will come out of the rewarded UA space, as rewarded’s platform-first approach supersedes the existing network-first approach. And increasingly, personalization is going to become more defining of the rewarded UA approach as on-platform segmentation grows ever more precise.
That will mean more recommendations and offers tailored to individual players who have opted-in to tracking to claim their rewards. Rewarded UA marks a big change by empowering users with more discoverability, choice, and real rewards – and it is continuing to evolve. We’re focused on driving this evolution forward, continually bringing value to both players and developers.
