The problem is that nowadays everybody wants you to install their api. While this is easy in the beginning, in the end it becomes a pain in the #$%#.

You can install http://www.flurry.com/ analytics on your app and be able to know the conversion to installs even for every creative you have on every social network or even links you give offline.

Really helped me track every possible detail on app promotion and the best of all... It's free ;)
Cheers,
Angel

If you want to do the most damage with the least amount of money you should do most of the following methods your self or with your in-house team.

What I would do is to first setup a retargeting campaign in AdWords (remarketing as they call it.) Set a rule that if someone goes to the page and don't register or don't signup for a free trial, they will see x amount of banners for the y amount of following days. I usually show a banner 8 times a day for the following 7 days in order to do some branding, conversions but at the same time don't break my audience's #$%#.

Then having retargeting ready, i'd build 2 good infographics. The world of seo is full of great stats and SEOs are hungry for stats. Build up amazing stats through research and go promote the first. Where you might say? I've written an article about infographics promotion here: http://www.moneytized.com/howto-promote-infographics/

Remember, if the infographic is mediocre in design and/or in stats, it will only bring some seo value (if any) and nothing more.

with the rest of the money i would go and split it by half, taking half and test adwords search network and with the rest run a press release at prweb and some banner diplay in same niche blogs through buysellads, seeing which converts better.

To be able to give much better guidance i would have to know much much more than your budget, eg. ticket price, profit margin, your features etc.

When it comes to hiring a professional, since it's design driven, you'll need 2, one marketeer and a designer who will help with the banners for retargeting and buysellads and then with the infographic.
If you find a person who can say they can do both and they are amazing at both, run. :P

Depends on the product itself but i think you'll need more money in order to promote it.

If you need any clarifications or need to discuss more, you know where to find me :)
Cheers,
Angel

Promoting a game especially when it's brand new, is really hard.
You need to have a lot of funds and/or a good team of marketing experts, community managers etc. to help you with that cause.

If the game is great, your word of mouth can do wonders because after all we nowadays rarely play alone ;)

Some areas i'd surely check out is:
YouTube video right before a gaming video.
This works both ways, you can do your branding and raise awareness even by people skipping your video (and you paying nothing for it) or in the other hand, pay 1-2 cents and have someone view your video and see if the game works for them. HIGHLY suggest this.

Ask for some "beta" testers on gaming forums.
if the game is new, many people will come check it out as they love being first in a great game and learn the ropes early.

Create an inforgraphic.
about the gaming industry or your game genre. This will help with links, awareness and seo! ;)

Try to create a community.
And this is the most important of all. Check out clash of clans forums or even their fan page. Also check league of legends fan page too. The second they upload something, there are thousands of comments. So the friends of their commenters see that their peer has commented on a game and they check it out.

Buy some banners on targeted websites.
For example if your game is a moba game, i'd surely go to the league of legends subreddit on reddit and buy ads there.

There's an infinite amount of things you can do to promote a game but it all comes down to time you have and available resources / business model for the game.

I'm new here and trying to check clarity out and since I LOVE games and game promotion, heres my free call link so you can call me free of charge and we can talk more about it, hope I can help you a bit with more and more precise pointers according to the game you want to promote.

My link is: https://clarity.fm/moneytized/moneytized
Cheers,
Angel

Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Some rules of thumb are:

You can go broader, the more money you have. A broad niche, means less conversion rates because you're not able to pinpoint what exactly makes your future buyers tick.

On the other hand, going niche on a small subniche might guarantee easy market penetration but at the same time small pool of buyers.

As a rule of thumb without knowing your niche specifics is to see if your sub-niche is big enough to support your business and go for it. If not, go for something wider.

in the end it's easier going from something general to something specialized little by little, than the opposite.

Since I'm new here, i'd love to hear from you and why not give you some helpful tips on what you're trying to achieve.
My free call link is : https://clarity.fm/moneytized/moneytized
cheers,
Angel