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SENSOR TOWER · SEEMA SHAH · FEBRUARY 2024

Merge Gardens Advertising Underpenetrated on YouTube vs Gardenscapes

Sensor Tower’s Audience Insights product shows that Merge Gardens users engaged frequently with YouTube in 4Q23. Although YouTube heavily appeals to Merge Gardens users, it appears that Pixel United is seeing materially less impressions on the platform than it is with other platforms, suggesting that YouTube is either underpenetrated from an ad investment perspective, or that the network is underperforming. Alternatively, Playrix’s Gardenscapes is seeing a higher share of impressions come from YouTube at roughly 14% (vs 9% for Merge Gardens) while also displaying a high degree of overlapping usage on YouTube.

Merge Gardens Advertising Underpenetrated on YouTube vs Gardenscapes

Key Takeaways:

  • Sensor Tower’s Audience Insights data shows that the majority (+90%) of both Merge Gardens and Gardenscapes US users in 4Q23 used YouTube. However, Gardenscapes has more effectively and heavily leveraged YouTube to instill brand awareness with roughly 14% of its ad impressions arriving from YouTube vs 9% for Merge Gardens

  • In 4Q23, the bulk (67%) of Merge Gardens’ US audience was female; this was further evidenced by the fact that the top individual advertiser that served impressions to Merge Gardens’ users (by % of impressions vs average smartphone users) was e.l.f Cosmetics. Given that casual titles typically skew more female, deciphering how to reach, acquire, and engage more male users has become a challenge for publishers of casual titles

    • Compared to the general population of smartphone users, Merge Gardens users are each 231% more likely to fall into the PC Gamer and Console Gamer personas, and are also 184% more likely to fall into the Gamblers persona. On average, 58%, 64%, and 73% of PC Gamers, Console Gamers, and Gamblers in the US in 4Q23 were male, which demonstrates that there is an avenue for Merge Gardens to reach more male users should it launch user acquisition campaigns or promotions on sports betting apps, or other apps (and or networks) frequented by PC and console gamers

For more information, request the full report from reports@sensortower.com.


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Seema Shah

Written by: Seema Shah, VP, Insights

Date: February 2024