How Thumbage Expanded its Global User Base with Data-Driven Marketing

"Sensor Tower’s core metrics, including downloads, revenue, and active users, closely reflect real market conditions. They have been instrumental in enhancing our market analysis, improving the accuracy of our forecasts, and informing our overall marketing strategy." — Ilcheon Park, Head of Marketing, Thumbage

South Korea-based mobile game publisher Thumbage, founded in 2013, has established a track record of releasing commercially successful, genre-specific titles for international audiences. The publisher’s titles are characterized by accessible gameplay mechanics, designed to achieve broad appeal and user adoption across diverse regions.

A significant milestone for the publisher was the 2018 launch of its sports-fighting title, Boxing Star, which has accumulated over 45 million downloads and $71 million in lifetime revenue. Building on this success, Thumbage expanded its RPG portfolio in 2024 with Gods Raid, a title that showed solid initial performance by generating 700,000 downloads and approximately $1.6 million in revenue within its first month on the market. 

Thumbage's Challenge: Scaling a New Hit in a Competitive Global Market 

Boxing Star continued to retain a dedicated fan base among global users. However, with the title maturing, the rate of new user acquisition gradually levelled, presenting a challenge to its long-term growth trajectory. With a primary reliance on organic channels for downloads, maintaining app store visibility and discoverability became a significant hurdle. This necessitated an evolution of the company's user acquisition strategies.

In preparation for the global launch of Gods Raid, the team needed the ability to analyze ad creatives trends and identify market positioning more quickly and precisely. Without a dedicated market intelligence solution, conducting the necessary competitor analysis was a time-intensive process. This process risked delaying critical decisions in key markets such as the United States.

To establish a differentiated strategy in the RPG market, the publisher required a structured framework to segment the market by genre subtypes, monetization models, and core mechanics, enabling the use of trend data to inform its go-to-market campaigns.

1. Unlocking Organic Growth through ASO Experiments

To boost effective user acquisition for Boxing Star, Thumbage conducted a series of experiments using Sensor Tower’s keyword research, download estimates, and keyword ranking tools. These experiments involved strategically incorporating keywords into the app’s title, description, and screenshots.

On Google Play, tests using keywords like “Real” and “Fight” resulted in an increase in organic downloads of over 22 percent. Similarly, on the Apple App Store, metadata optimization yielded a 16.17 percent increase in organic downloads.

Sensor Tower’s ASO tools played a critical role in helping the team quickly assess pre- and post-test performance and adjust their strategy accordingly. This successful approach has now been established as a repeatable and scalable model for optimizing upcoming titles.

2. Gaining a Competitive Edge: How Ad Intelligence Informs Creative Strategy

To streamline creative benchmarking, Thumbage implemented a structured process for monitoring competitor campaigns. This reduced the time required to analyze ad creatives from over two weeks to just two days.

This newfound agility proved critical during the game’s 1st-anniversary campaign, enabling the publisher to respond rapidly to emerging trends and refine its messaging. As a result, Gods Raid achieved the highest growth rate within the highly competitive Squad RPG genre during this period.

3. From Market Segmentation to Go-to-Market Strategy with Game IQ

Using Game IQ, the publisher analyzed the RPG landscape by monetization model, gameplay mechanics, and subgenre. These insights enabled a more effective repositioning of Gods Raid against competitors and informed decisions on audience segmentation, channel selection, and market prioritization. This strategy delivered more precise audience targeting and resulted in a significant increase in active users during and after its 1st-anniversary campaign.

4. Leveraging User Personas and Engagement Data for Strategic Growth 

Sensor Tower's platform provided Thumbage with a deeper understanding of its user base across key dimensions, including demographics, user personas, and app engagement patterns. This allows the publisher's marketing and product teams to design more effective in-game events and promotions aimed at driving user growth.

Specifically, analyzing top app engagement data reveals audience overlap with competing apps. This allows the publisher to identify shifts in user preferences and make timely adjustments to its marketing and user acquisition strategies. 

Moving Forward: A Scalable, Data-Informed Future

Thumbage continues to strengthen its marketing strategy by embedding a structured, data-informed decision-making process throughout the organization. 

From market segmentation and audience targeting to creative optimization, the publisher now applies a consistent and scalable framework to its portfolio of upcoming titles across all genres..

Sensor Tower's platform has been a key enabler in this strategic shift, empowering Thumbage to continue leading the market with insight-driven execution.