UD3. ARM Feeding the Funnel

Juan Gabriel Gomila Salas

/joanby@Joan_ByJuan Gabriel Gomila Salas

joanby

ARM Model• Acquisition: How do I gain new users?

• Retention: How do I retain those users?

• Monetization: How do I make money?

CPA < LTV

Acquisition

Acquisition: types• Paid acquisition

• Facebook Ads

• Google Adwords: Display y Banners

• Mobile Ads

• Email Marketing

• Incentivized Ads

• Affiliates

• Other: magazines, blogs, TV, Radio,…

Acquisition: types• Organic acquisition

• Viral

• Social

• Public Relation (PR)

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Cross-Platform

• Corss-Promotion

Acquisition: Ads & Display• Target: keywords, interests, demography…

• Creativities: format, sizes, CTR, CVR…

• Pricing: CPM, CPC, CPI, CPA…

• Examples: Facebook Ads, Google Adwords, Twitter Ads, Web Impressions, Zetanet, Ad4Game, LinianAds, LifeStreetmedia…

Acquisition: Email Marketing

• Bounce Rates

• Spam Filters

• Open Rate

• Examples: Mailchimp

Acquisition: Social Media

• Facebook Fan Pages

• Twitter Account

• Youtube Channel

• Blogs

• Web

Acquisition: Press & Public Relations

• Talking to the Press

• Get your game reviewed

• Talking to your fans & gamers

• Gaming conferences

Acquisition: Virality

• Make easy to invite friends (Facebook, Twitter, Gmail…)

• Incentivized Vitalization

• Enhanced Vitalization

k-factor = % users who invita * avg. invitations * % friends who accepted

k-factor < 1

Retention

Retention: Engagement• First 60 seconds

• DAU/MAU

• 1-day, 3-day, 7-day

• Monthly retention

• Average Session Length

• Number of sessions per day

• Reengagement

Retention Tools

• Leaderboards

Retention Tools

• Achievements

Retention Tools

• Collections & Badges

Retention Tools

• Tournaments

Retention Tools

• Missions & Challenges

Retention Tools

• Chats

Retention Tools

• Core Game Loops

Retention Tools

• XP and Level Models

Retention Tools

• Virtual Currencies

Retention Tools

• Rewards & Gifts

Monetization

Monetization: sell the game

• Advantages

• Fire and forget development

• Familiar process for many developers

• Similar revenue at launch

Monetization: sell the game• Disadvantages

• Focus on launch day gives only one chance to maximize sales

• Limits ongoing relationship with gamers

• Typically higher price point

• Hard to offer a free version of the game

• Requires 100% of development budget to spend upfront

Monetization: subscription

• Advantages

• Recurring revenue stream

• Predictability of income

• Easy for consumer and developer to understand

Monetization: subscription• Disadvantages

• Long-term commitment deters users

• Ongoing development costs

• Requires billing and consumer service infrastructure

• Hosting and server costs

• Limited upset opportunities

Monetization: premium

• Advantages

• Paid once, enjoy forever

• Offers clear value topremium costumers

• Easy to code

Monetization: premium

• Disadvantages

• Means hobbling the free version (i.e. your prospects get a poor experience)

• Needs different designs and layouts for each service, which adds usability and testing headaches

• Requires billing and costumer service infrastructure

Monetization: virtual goods• Advantages

• Allows the user to set the price they want to pay

• Easy to track and measure

• Flexible

• Often generates more revenue

Monetization: virtual goods

• Disadvantages

• Requires billing and customer service infrastructure

• Requires substantial investment in inventory management

• Hosting and server costs

• Ongoing development costs

Monetization: advertising

• Advantages

• Monetise traffic even if users aren’t paying

• Can be simple to implement

Monetization: advertising• Disadvantages

• Can cheap your brand

• Requires active management to generate substantial revenues

• Most ads currently targeted at gamers are for rival games

• Unlikely to finance your entire game, even once the current market improves

Monetization: sponsorship

• Advantages

• Substantial budgets available

• Can pay for the entire game

Monetization: sponsorship

• Disadvantages

• Work-for-hire revenue that simply swaps the publisher for a brand

• Requires significant and specialist business development work with media agencies and brands

Monetization: offer walls• Advantages

• Additional source of revenue for virtual goods business

• Offers alternative ways to pay for cash-strapped consumers

• Relatively simple to implement (provided virtual goods have already been implemented).

Monetization: offer walls

• Disadvantages

• Carries all the negatives of virtual goods

• Requires careful monitoring

Monetization: payment methods• Bank transfers

• Credit & Debit cards

• eWallets (Paypal)

• Mobile payments

• SMS Premium

• Mobile eWallets

• Phone Calls

• Prepaid cards (physical & vouchers)

Think about the ARM funnel

Exercise #1

• What kind of metrics should track an Acquisition Manager?

• What kind of metrics should track a Retention Manager?

• What kind of metrics should track a Monetization Manager?