Gamer retention is an essential metric for game publishers because it reflects players’ engagement within the game, their interest, and their level of loyalty. A higher retention rate generally means that users are more engaged, which leads to a lower churn rate and more monetization opportunities.
Mobile games spend $15 billion a year on player acquisition, but over 90% of these players are usually gone by Day 30. According to GameAnalytics, the top 25% of mobile games only see an average retention of 4% after 28 days. Day 1 retention caps out at 35% for the best performing titles, while the industry average comes in at 25%. Moving to Day 7 this number drops to around 11% for the best and 6% for those on average.
Here’s what this looks like graphically:
It’s called the retention curve. Reducing this churn has a huge impact on the business. Every game publisher should have as a top priority to flatten this curve to the extent possible. Industry experts cite a lack of investment in retention marketing as a key issue. Acquisition is so expensive that not investing in retention greatly increases the risk of business failure. That’s because retention means more players are exposed to in-game monetization strategies more often. Here is the basic revenue formula:
Retention = Monetization
Retention + Monetization = >LTV
>LTV => >Revenues
Looking for a new way to solve the problem?
acQyr eXchange (QX) has a retention solution you should consider. QX is a turnkey loyalty and cashback rewards platform to increase retention and LTV of your game’s most profitable players. To keep players playing longer and more often (retention), and to watch more rewarded ads and make IAP (monetization), we enable you to offer players cash rewards in your game through our platform.
You determine the behaviors you want to incentivize and reward, then we do the rest:
- We consult with you to design a loyalty and cashback program that incentivizes the monetization and retention behaviors that best fit your business objectives and game.
- We consult with your developers to link your game to our platform.
- You define offers in our Partner Portal and assign those offers a monetary value for offer achievement.
- You announce the new QX cashback rewards program to your players.
- Players download our QX mobile app and link to your game.
- You and QX communicate incentive offers to your players.
- We monitor player progress toward achieving offers you have defined.
- We report offer progress and completed offer achievements to players on our app.
- We issue QX Points to reward each offer achievement attained.
- Players accumulate QX Points in their accounts from your game and others on our platform to accrue meaningful cash rewards.
- Players redeem QX Points to their linked deposit accounts in local currency that they can spend however they want.
- We report your program activity and results on your Partner Portal dashboard to measure ROI.
- We share loyalty program insights and best practices with you in our monthly Partner newsletter to fine tune your program for optimal success.
QX rewards players based on the offers you set up. Offers will usually come from these categories: monetization activity, engagement behavior, competitions, and user acquisition. Sample offers could include:
Monetization activity This is a cashback rewards strategy. You’ll be receiving revenue from these activities and rewarding players in cash, so it’s basically self-funding. The objective is to increase revenue-generating behavior.
- Number of rewarded ads viewed in a chosen time period
- Number of IAP in a chosen time period
- Amount of IAP in a chosen time period
- Cashback on initial purchase of a premium game
- Cashback on upgrade purchase of a premium game
Engagement behavior These offers encourage game loyalty in the form of more playtime and exposure to monetization. Consider these rewards as an internal marketing strategy to increase revenues with existing players.
- Frequency offers that reward players for how many times they play the game over a chosen time period.
- Duration offers reward how long players play per session or over a chosen time period.
- Game achievement rewards players for levels attained and/or number of specific goals.
Competitions
- QX is an excellent method to reward tournament winners and other game competitions with cash prizes.
User acquisition Word-of-mouth is the most powerful marketing tool for gaining new users at a negligible cost.
- Reward players for referrals.
- Reward players for posting game reviews on social media sites and app stores.
It’s a solution with proven results
Do cashback and loyalty programs work? They’ve been around for over 70 years and approximately 90 per cent of retail companies have a program in one form or another, so they must be working.
Before a person downloads your game or starts playing it, they’ve been a retail consumer for many years. The average American participates in over a dozen loyalty programs. So, they’re familiar with the incentives and rewards for joining one. Based on 70 years of retail experience and research, here are some positive results of offering a loyalty program:
- Loyalty leaders grow revenues roughly 2.5x as fast as other companies in their industries.
- 75% of US companies with loyalty programs generate a return on investment.
- An increase in loyalty of just 7% can increase the lifetime profits (when spread out amongst customers) by up to 85%.
- 79% of consumers say loyalty programs make them more likely to continue doing business with brands.
- 75% of consumers say they are likely to make another purchase after receiving an incentive.
- 67.8% of consumers define brand loyalty as repeat purchases.
- 75% of consumers said receiving an incentive increases the likelihood of making another purchase.
- Acquiring new customers instead of building a customer loyalty program cost five to 25 times more.
Based on these proven results, the acQyr eXchange turnkey loyalty and cashback rewards platform can be your retention solution. It costs nothing to partner with us and you only pay for performance. This is the next big thing in growing your business and revenues by retaining more players longer.
If you have any questions or want to learn more about partnering with QX to introduce our retention program into your game, please contact Bill Wilson, QX CMO, at wywilson@acqyrexchange.com.