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By Aileen, Matthew
To achieve success in a game, having exceptional ideas and creating fun gameplay are the most fundamental elements. However, it is difficult to predict whether implementing what we have thought of alone can lead the game to success.
To operate a game that is loved for a long time, it is important to provide elements of fun that allow users to come back during their journey of reaching and playing the game, and to measure and improve the game's ability to generate sustainable revenue efficiently.
In this post, we will provide a series of guides on the concept of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for improving game revenue and the basic analysis of these data!
To improve a game's revenue, an increase in paying users is necessary, and to increase paying users, it is necessary to increase traffic or increase the proportion of Purchasing Users (PU). In addition, to increase traffic, a structure that leads to an increase in user inflow or re-visitation (retention rate) should be formed. In this series, we will explain the basic analysis of user metrics to increase traffic.
KPI Metrics in the User Acquisition Stage: NRU
When a user installs and runs our game for the first time, the newly registered user is called NRU (New Registered User). NRU is a metric that is particularly checked at the very beginning when measuring how effectively many users have been acquired relative to the cost of User Acquisition (UA), especially during UA activities.
UA: User Acquisition refers to the activities of acquiring new users in a game or service through marketing campaigns.
Pathways for NRU Acquisition (1) Organic Users
Organic users refer to users who reach us naturally. As users who have entered through channels other than advertising or marketing campaigns, they tend to have higher retention rates than paid users since they came in due to their needs. The main channels for Organic Users are through exploration/search via stores, entering through the publisher's account on the store, or entering through Cross Promotion in the game portfolio. By identifying the channels through which Organic Users came in, various strategies can be executed to increase Organic Users, such as optimizing ASO (App Store Optimization).
TIP) ASO (App Store Optimization) work is important to increase Organic Users.
The process of optimizing the metadata elements of the store to increase the discoverability of games in the store search process for the most relevant keywords for the service we provide. We will discuss the specific strategies for ASO in the next post.
TIP) Organic Users can also be viewed as a viral metric and can be used as an element to measure the game's potential.
The general Organic User metric for games is around 15% for games that actively pursue Paid UA. However, this metric can vary greatly depending on the game's viral level. If the game has strong social elements or fun or witty elements that spread by word of mouth, it can attract Organic Users without any Paid UA and generate significant revenue.
For example, a user searched for Hell Manager on the store and installed it for the first time. At this point, the acquisition pathway is Organic, and the newly acquired user is collected as NRU 1.
Pathways for NRU Acquisition (2) Paid Users or Non-Organic Users
Paid users refer to users who are acquired through advertising or marketing campaigns. Acquiring users through UA activities after launching the game has become an essential activity in mobile game operations. Since the performance of Paid Users varies greatly depending on the marketing method, it is important to clarify the purpose and strategy. In the past, marketing focused on maximizing exposure through mass media such as TV, but recently, performance marketing, which designs UA strategies based on ROAS (Return On Ad Spend), has become more important. It is important to execute campaigns through various channels and creative productions and adjust the cost and composition of network channels to adjust performance, rather than simply paying and executing marketing.
TIP) The Importance of Paid Strategies in Global Games
When preparing for a global game launch, the corresponding strategy is more important than anything else to optimize our revenue (ROAS) relative to costs in a market where numerous apps are released. The growth and profitability of the game can be significantly improved by refining the suitable advertising strategy and cost adjustments in the optimal channels. In particular, global game launches depend on performance by country, media, and content type.
KPI indicators for user traffic
DAU (Daily Active Users) refers to the number of users who are active during a certain period. It is a representative criterion for user engagement, indicating how much user traffic is maintained.
This indicator is particularly useful in analyzing immediate user responses, such as updates and promotion performance, and in setting operational standards such as inspections and pushes, even in game operation.
However, this indicator is a simple indicator that represents the number of users introduced on a given day, so it is important to interpret it comprehensively with other indicators mentioned later to judge the performance of the game.
DAU (Daily Active Users): how many users used the app per day?
WAU (Weekly Active Users): how many users used the app per week?
MAU (Monthly Active Users): how many users used the app per month?
Examples of measuring DAU and WAU
Five users installed Hell Manager (NRU) on January 1 and visited for seven days until January 7.
β’
The total DAU in the example below is 35, with a DAU of 5 visits per day.
β’
WAU = 5 (calculated as unique users over a week)
Example of WAU
User | Jan 1 | Jan 2 | Jan 3 | Jan 4 | Jan 5 | Jan 6 | Jan 7 |
Asher | | | | | | | |
Matthew | | | | | | | |
Genie | | | | | | | |
Woody | | | | | | | |
Robin | | | | | | | |
Checking the active users not only on a daily basis, but also on a weekly and monthly basis is important because it can be difficult to understand the size and status of the service with just daily aggregation. MAU is useful for measuring business size and estimating the number of users participating in the app each month.
There are also insights that can be gained by looking at these indicators together. For example, when DAU rises while MAU is maintained, it can be judged that although the monthly number of play users is the same, the frequency of their visits is increasing, and thus, the game may be improving or events may be taking place.
This is called User Stickiness, a measure of user engagement represented by the 'DAU/MAU' ratio. If this ratio is around 0.2 (sometimes expressed as 20 by taking x100), it is generally normal.
In cases where DAU is declining, there are cases where MAU does not fall similarly, but falls steeply. In such cases, it means not only the users who enter every day but also the number of users who enter relatively less frequently and casually is decreasing, so it is necessary to check where the decrease is occurring, as it means that the overall traffic size is decreasing.
In the next post, we will explain retention analysis.
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