On 1/08/21 I released my game and so far I’ve spent 446 on ads and around 50 to test out sponsoring. Fortunately I made 400 back from me and my friends playing the game with premium payouts. After all of this, my game’s player count is 0.
My question is how do I grow my game efficiently?
Some things I've tried
Ads:
1.10% CPR
0.87% CPR
0.47% CPR
Sponsors:
0.00% CPR (I already know sponsors are bad but I gave it a shot)
If your advertisements have such a low CTR, this may be an indication that you need some new, more appealing ads to catch the eye of your target audience and encourage them to play the game.
I would also strongly recommend increasing your advertising budget after doing this. You can read up on advertising a lot more here:
To ensure you’re not wasting your money when running higher CTR advertisements, make sure your game has high quality, eye-catching, appealing GFX on its page (thumbnails, a video if possible); the reasoning behind this is to encourage as many people who click your ads as possible to want to play the game.
To help maintain a consistent player count without relying too heavily on ads, it would be wise to set up a group for your game, and offer in-game perks or benefits for group members. By doing this, you’ll grow the size of your group - and therefore your fanbase. Players who join the group are more likely to come back and play again, which is what you want.
To make players invest their time into your game, make sure it’s of a high enough quality; take the time to develop it properly and test it thoroughly to iron out any issues. By doing this, players are far more likely to enjoy your game, so they will continue playing.
This last part isn’t directly related to marketing, but for marketing to be successful (and a worthy investment) it’s vital you make sure these other points are covered properly. There would be no point investing money into adverts when players only spend a short amount of time in-game because they don’t like it.
If you have any further questions, by all means ask me - I hope this was useful.
To add onto what @sou_p said, in some cases making an ad that wouldn’t be considered attractive but gets the point across with bright visual colors can get you a higher CTR. It depends on the type of audience your game is targeting in the first place.
Also, i do suggest putting more robux into your ads, because R$400 wouldn’t be considered effective. Not only will you get more players on at once, it’s gonna help with having more players click your ad and eventually, having more players join your game.
I agree with @sou_p and @DreamsAltRB_1 I would suggest to use a bit of that 9,500 (Not too much, R$1,000 or R$2,000 should be enough) to hire a quality 3D/2D artist and ask them to create a vibrant, eye-catching ad. Colors like red, yellow, green, pink, light blue are colors that are really appealing. I personally don’t know if GFX’s gain more attention or 2D art. So I would suggest to research a bit on that.
Heres some people I suggest to do the ad
2D Artist
FalllenAnqell (I dont know if he does ads)
KneadMo
IronDRW
3D Artist
evelys
1ovelina
And a bunch more! A lot of talent is on the DevForum
I do think the ads arent that appealing, you want something that sticks out. I would get a GFX artist to make a banner for you and your game. Just so your ads have more appeal.
Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I’m going to keep my eye out for GFX artists but in the mean time is this new logo good or what can I improve off of it.
Its not bad. You have nice images on the top of the text and the logo shows what the game is! But it could be more appealing. Heres somethings that you can change. First of all, the color of the text is pretty dull. I would suggest changing the Farmer’s green to a bright, vibrant green. And the brownish color is quite dull as well. Maybe change it to a bright orange color? And also the font isn’t very appealing, I would change it to the font Grobold on dafont.com. Also making the text have an outline would make it more captivating. I am thinking about something like this!
Just change the text to say Farmer’s Homestead, Change the colors to a vibrant green and orange, Add nice vector images about farming, change the font and remove the background. I would put the logo on any of the icons/thumbnails/ads that are for the game. Im extremely sorry if I sounded harsh or mean. I didnt mean it in a rude way, I just wanted to give you specific detail on how to make your logo look better Good luck with your game!!!
on ads and around 50 
Good luck with your game!!!
Your suggestions were very thoughtful and helped me improve. If you’d like to give more suggestions feel free to!