Marketing and Monetization for Mobile Indies: Data from the Trenches Keith Katz Co-Founder @Ztakk Investor Presentation: October 2013 How do I analyze the competition? What marketing and analytics services do I need? Where do I test/soft launch my game? How much cash do I need and where do I spend it? Can different networks impact my campaigns? What impact does featuring have? What ad revenues can I expect? How do I measure and iterate on early retention? How do I test my icon? Look for a “Goldilocks” pie slice Find successful games like yours in some way More important (and harder): find failures like yours Testing & Research User Acquisition Monetization & Analytics =SDK Required Mid-Core Dungeon Crawler Casual to Mid-Core Brawler Hard-Core Exploration RPG Hard-Core RPG All data comes from ad networks, Flurry, Apsalar: FREE <Special Thanks to Lysiane Charest> We Don’t Know Nothin’ (but we’re getting a bit better) “SuperData estimates that the cost per install was $2.73 for mobile games” -GamesBeat, November 2013 “In Q4 2013, iOS CPI rates…ranged between $.90 in China and $2.59 in Australia. The average CPI among all countries was $1.31” -Distimo, February 2014 “Android [CPI’s] dropped 29 percent to $1.27 in January from its December spike of $1.80…iOS increased 13 percent in to $1.01 in January from December’s $0.88” -Fiksu, March 2014 “For [Google Play] the average cost per install in the U.S. was $1.13, $0.95,in the United Kingdom, and $1.18 in Canada.” -Chartboost, March 2014 Daily CPI $0.00 $0.50 $1.00 $1.50 $2.00 $2.50 Chartboost 15/Oct Touch iPhone/iPod on 16/Oct Canada 17/Oct 18/Oct Daily 19/Oct 20/Oct CPI 21/Oct Indonesia for BAMF!for 22/Oct 23/Oct 24/Oct 25/Oct 26/Oct 27/Oct 28/Oct 29/Oct 30/Oct Daily CPI $0.00 $0.50 $1.00 $1.50 $2.00 $2.50 Chartboost 15/Oct 16/Oct Canada 17/Oct 18/Oct on iPad on 19/Oct Daily 20/Oct CPI Indonesia 21/Oct 22/Oct BAMF!for 23/Oct 24/Oct 25/Oct 26/Oct 27/Oct 28/Oct 29/Oct The Order of Souls: iPad CPI Shattered Planet: iPad CPI $1.85 $1.84 $1.60 $1.00 Sweden Indonesia Sweden Indonesia Facebook Daily CPI for MacGuffin Quest $3.50 $3.00 $2.50 CPI $2.00 $1.50 Daily $1.00 $0.50 $0.00 Australia Canada MacGuffin Quest Big Action Mega Fight! Canada Canada 1200 1200 1000 1000 800 800 600 600 Installs Installs 400 400 200 200 0 0 Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8* Organic Paid Organic Paid Canadian TV Minor Featuring Appearance Minor Featuring iPad Home Page $2k spent for each game during soft launch iOS Installs Android Installs 1000 1000 800 800 600 600 400 400 Installs Installs 200 200 0 0 Week Week Week Week Week Week Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Organic Paid Organic Paid $3.5k spent during soft launch (3 months) Onboarding funnel Shattered Planet iOS 60% 57% 39% 34% 29% 24% 16% 14% 13% 7% Teleporter On Locked Door Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Organic Chartboost Absolute Retention By Source BAMF! - US 38% 27% 23% 21% 19% 17% 13% 13% 13% 10% 11% 10% 8% 8% 8% 7% 6% 6% Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Facebook Chartboost Organic Must be Self-Serve; need to be able to make tiny buys without going through a sales rep Can buy on a per-install basis; optimizing CPC or CPM campaigns is time (and money) intensive Creative units must be interstitials or videos; banners don’t work and have tons of misclicks Chartboost Facebook Flurry 9.2% CTR 2.7% CTR 4.2% CTR $1.18 eCPI $2.05 eCPI $2.96 eCPI Interstitial Newsfeed Banners + Chartboost: Indonesia iPad Impressions Clicks Installs BAMF! 100% 12.4% 2.40% CPI: $0.62 Planet 100% 11.1% 0.66% CPI: $1.18 Order 100% 10.6% 0.94% CPI: $1.64 Chartboost: iOS Canada Facebook: Canada iOS $2.63 $2.05 $1.69 $1.69 Big Action Mega MacGuffin Quest Big Action Mega MacGuffin Quest Fight! Fight! BAMF iPad CPI BAMF iPhone CPI $1.27 $0.96 $0.86 $0.72 Chartboost Facebook Chartboost Facebook BAMF CPI: Canada MacGuffin CPI: France $2.18 $1.99 $1.99 $1.24 Android iOS Android iOS Archer. Wizard. Warrior. Loot up, power up, don't die. Easy, right? Don't bet on it... Finally, a dungeon-crawling adventure game that anyone can play...but no one can put down! MacGuffin Facebook CPI’s – Phones $2.90 $2.80 $2.71 $1.99 Canada - Core France - Core Canada - Casual France - Casual MacGuffin CPI - iPhone $1.24 $0.80 $0.85 France - Casual US - Casual US - Core MacGuffin Quest BAMF! Canada Canada 0 2500 0 3500 200 3000 200 2000 2500 400 400 1500 2000 600 600 1500 1000 Installs 800 Installs 800 1000 1000 500 1000 500 1200 0 1200 0 Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Average Average Weekly Ranking Average Average Weekly Ranking 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8* Weekly Installs Cumulative Installs Weekly Installs Cumulative Installs Strategy - iPhone Adventure - iPhone Arcade - iPhone Action - iPhone Week 6, 255 installs: rank 154 in Week 4, 231 installs: rank 377 in strategy / 238 adventure arcade / 452 action MacGuffin Quest Shattered Planet Canada Canada 0 2500 0 1600 200 1400 2000 100 1200 400 1500 200 1000 600 800 1000 Installs 300 800 600 Installs 500 400 1000 400 200 1200 0 500 0 Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Week Average Average Weekly Ranking 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Average Average Weekly Ranking 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Weekly Installs Cumulative Installs Weekly Installs Cumulative Installs Strategy - iPhone Adventure - iPhone Adventure - iPad Role Playing - iPad Week 6, 247 installs: rank 150 in Week 6, 250 installs: rank 301 in strategy / 227 adventure role playing / 363 adventure DAU, Daily Installs & Cumulative Installs BAMF! - Worldwide 20000 140000 18000 Total Installs to date: >140k 120000 16000 14000 100000 12000 80000 10000 8000 60000 6000 40000 4000 20000 2000 0 0 2013-11-07 2013-11-14 2013-11-21 2013-11-28 2013-12-05 2013-12-12 2013-12-19 *Cumulative Installs DAU Daily Installs * Total Installs are on a different scale Weekly Ad Revenue & Total Weekly DAU BAMF! - Worldwide $800 100000 $700 90000 80000 $600 70000 $500 60000 $400 50000 Revenue $300 40000 Weekly DAU Weekly Ad 30000 $200 20000 $100 10000 $- 0 11-07 to 11-1311-14 to 11-2011-21 to 11-2711-28 to 12-0412-05 to 12-1112-12 to 12-1812-19 to 12-2512-26 to 01-01 01-02 to 01-08 Total DAU Ad Revenue Weekly Ad Revenue & Total Weekly DAU BAMF! $700 100000 $600 80000 $500 $400 60000 $300 40000 $200 0.1 ad per session 0.3 ad per session Weekly DAU Weekly Ad Revenue Ad 20000 $100 $0 0 $ Interstitial $ More Games $ Video Ad Total DAU Rolling Retention Day 1 100% 80% 60% 40% Rolling Retention Rolling 20% 0% Max Level Reached in Day 0 Text boxes for every event Expandable UI for items, but and arrows had no text no explanatory text Tutorial Completion Rate: 49% Most text boxes removed, “Place” text added for bomb, single word hints for items hints for UI items as well Tutorial Completion Rate: 66% Simplified UI with all buttons on Full UI for items after placing screen, but limited at first bomb, heroes icons later Tutorial Completion Rate: 70% Attempt #1 Attempt #3 CTR Range: CTR Range: .52%-.57% .44%-.52% Back to the Drawing Board! Control image and copy in all 4 ads .717% CTR 1.085% CTR Actual icon we’re testing .618% CTR 1.194% CTR Round 1 .8% CTR Round 2 1.3% CTR 1.1% CTR Example Ad Round 3 1.7% CTR 1.8% CTR 1.6% CTR Winner, Winner! Contact: [email protected] @Ztakk @ExecutionLabs Investor Presentation: October 2013.