Like Mobile Shopping, Mobile Games Traffic Surges Worldwide During Thanksgiving Holiday

Americans weren’t just buying things online during last week’s holiday. According to new numbers from Chartboost, they were also glued to their mobile devices playing games, with those types of mobile software titles experiencing surges in traffic, as measured by sessions per day, and also with cost per install (CPI) going up outside the U.S., but experiencing a small dip within the country.

Chartboost found that traffic both inside and outside the U.S. spiked considerably for mobile games last Thursday, on American Thanksgiving. Versus the previous 8-week average, sessions per day were 148 percent their normal volume in the U.S., while they were 120 percent their usual even in international markets where the holiday wasn’t being celebrated.

CPI was at 98 percent its usual Thursday average within the U.S., but rose to 108 percent its previous performance internationally. Chartboost argues that the difference in CPI was due to marketers outside the U.S. extending themselves and their campaigns to try to capture more attention during the frenzy, but not necessarily being fully prepared for the opportunity. And on the U.S. side, there was a dip since many of those responsible for mobile game marketing were on holiday. Chartboost argues that neither group is necessarily doing enough to exploit the mobile gaming opportunity represented by spiking consumer interest during the holidays.

Of course, plenty of publishers heavily promote their games during the holidays, and we usually see big studios like EA and Gameloft reduce pricing on all their titles in an effort to try to dominate app store sales charts. But Chartboost believes mobile game marketers can and should be doing more to get their products in front of eyeballs at a time when many consumers are just booting up new devices and looking around for something to play, and the numbers at least seem to back that up.