Victory without ViralitySocial Gaming Summit East

December 1st, 2010

Jessica RovelloArkadium

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 2

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Timeline of Policy Changes

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 3

May 2007: Virality begins with access to Facebook Platform, Spam becomes

an issue

January 2008: Facebook begins cracking down on

deceptive marketers, limits distribution of news

feed stories

Farmville

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 4

0

10000000

20000000

30000000

40000000

50000000

60000000

Farmville MAU First 3 Months

MAU

52,408,349 MAU4,367,362 new users/week

Timeline of Policy Changes

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 5

January 2008: Facebook begins cracking down on

deceptive marketers, limits distribution of news feed stories

December 16th, 2009: Facebook limits the

amount of responses and communications per user action, virality starts to

decline.

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

Social City

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 6

11,479,043 MAU956,587 new users/week

3/2/

2010

3/8/

2010

3/14

/201

0

3/20

/201

0

3/26

/201

0

4/1/

2010

4/7/

2010

4/13

/201

0

4/19

/201

0

4/25

/201

0

5/1/

2010

5/7/

2010

5/13

/201

0

5/19

/201

0

5/25

/201

0

5/31

/201

00

2000000

4000000

6000000

8000000

10000000

12000000

14000000

Social City First 3 Months

MAU

Timeline of Policy Changes

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 7

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

January 2008: Facebook begins cracking down on

deceptive marketers, limits

distribution of news feed stories

December 16th, 2009: Facebook

limits the amount of responses and

communications per user action, virality starts to decline.

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

March 1st 2010: Facebook does

away with notifications, adds bookmarks to side

bar

Millionaire City

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 8

5,752,194 MAU479,350 new users/week

5/27

/201

0

5/31

/201

0

6/4/

2010

6/8/

2010

6/12

/201

0

6/16

/201

0

6/20

/201

0

6/24

/201

0

6/28

/201

0

7/2/

2010

7/6/

2010

7/10

/201

0

7/14

/201

0

7/18

/201

0

7/22

/201

0

7/26

/201

0

7/30

/201

0

8/3/

2010

8/7/

2010

8/11

/201

0

8/15

/201

0

8/19

/201

0

8/23

/201

0

8/27

/201

00

1000000

2000000

3000000

4000000

5000000

6000000

7000000

Millionaire City First 3 Month Growth

MAU

MAU Growth of the Three Games

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 9

0

1000000

2000000

3000000

4000000

5000000

6000000

7000000

Three Games MAU Growth Over First 3 Months

Farmville (Jun. - Aug. 2009)Social City (Mar. - May 2010)Millionaire City (Jun - Aug 2010)

Timeline of Policy Changes

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 10

March 1st 2010: Facebook does

away with notifications, adds bookmarks to side

bar

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

January 2008: Facebook begins cracking down on

deceptive marketers, limits

distribution of news feed stories

Sept. 21st 2010: Facebook takes

games off newsfeed, virality limited to discovery stories,

invites

December 16th, 2009: Facebook

limits the amount of responses and

communications per user action, virality starts to decline.

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

May 2007: Virality begins with access to

Facebook Platform, Spam

becomes an issue

Impact on Zynga

April 12, 2023 April 12, 2023 11

6/9/

2009

7/1/

2009

7/23

/200

9

8/14

/200

9

9/5/

2009

9/27

/200

9

10/1

9/20

09

11/1

0/20

09

12/2

/200

9

12/2

4/20

09

1/15

/201

0

2/6/

2010

2/28

/201

0

3/22

/201

0

4/13

/201

0

5/5/

2010

5/27

/201

0

6/18

/201

0

7/10

/201

0

8/1/

2010

8/23

/201

0

9/14

/201

0

10/6

/201

0

10/2

8/20

10

11/1

9/20

100

50000000

100000000

150000000

200000000

250000000

300000000MAU

MAU

First round of virality

limitationsRemoval of wall posts for games

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 12

So what do we do now?

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 13

Discovery Stories

From this…

To this…

Advertising

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 14

Facebook Ads

Games Dashboard Promotion

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 15

Self Service Ad Platform

• Begin with very general targeting• Target a large population

(i.e. US users, any age)• Determine a baseline for

CPI• Large volume of potential

users

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 16

• Bulk upload and editing of ads

• Ad scheduling, i.e. “Monday night ads”

• Automated bid strategies

• Conversion tracking from click to install

Ad Management Tools

Optimize! Optimize! Optimize!

• 13% lower overall CPI than orange

• Lower CPAs for users 25 and under, and users 35-54

April 12, 2023

• 40% lower CPI for users 55+ than blue

• Slightly lower CPI for users 25-34

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 18

Invites

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 19

AKA the Wall Post loophole

Creative “Invites”

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 20

Gifting

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 21

Likes

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 22

Cross Promotion

You don’t have to be Zynga to Cross Promote

What Matters in 2011

April 12, 2023April 12, 2023 23

ThenMAU

Now

DAU

ARPU DARPU

Growth Retention