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Increasing user LTV by 45% with automated loyalty and dynamic pricing

Wappier CEO guides developers through automated revenue management

Increasing user LTV by 45% with automated loyalty and dynamic pricing

At the recent Pocket Gamer Connects London 2018, Wappier’s Founder and CEO, Alex Moukas, took the stage for his talk entitled: 'Don’t do it like a virgin - Do it like the Multinationals! Automated Revenue Management in Gaming'.

In this session, he discussed how the mobile gaming world could experience in-app purchase revenue boosts of as much as 50 per cent by adopting automated revenue management systems and practices.

This means using machine learning, predictive analytics and deep data pooling to maximise user lifetime value.

To find out more about Wappier and the topic of his session, we caught up with Alex to guide us through Automated Revenue Management.

PocketGamer.biz: Could you please explain what services Wappier provides?

Alex Moukas: Well, it all started back in 2015 with a team of five! Now, having secured our first round of financing by a top-tier US VC, we expect to be 60 by the end of the year to skyrocket our Intelligent Revenue Optimisation Technology for mobile games beyond ads.

It’s the first time in history we see 30 or 50 people companies trying to manage millions of consumers. Typical marketing segmentation and workflows are not enough.

What we offer as a company is a cloud-based platform that uses machine learning to optimise in-app purchase revenue, retention and user lifetime value for mobile game apps.

Our products are Automated Loyalty & Retention (creating a native automated rewarding scheme that makes users come back to the game) and Dynamic 1-1 Pricing (finding the optimal price for the right user at the right time).

Large-scale user acquisition stems from the knowledge that only a small percentage of players will convert to paying users. How can further investing in the existing user base help cut these UA costs?

This question actually triggered two years ago what we are today. Back in 2015 our data showed that roughly only two per cent of players are payers and 2.5 per cent of that two per cent is responsible for more than 50 per cent of the total IAP mobile gaming revenue!

It's time we focus on the existing audience of a game. The right pricing of IAPs, the proper retention tactics and a meaningful loyalty system can make all the difference.

It is an intensively condensed market and for some reason everybody keeps focusing on ads and new user acquisition.

We believe there are diminishing returns in terms of investing money, time and effort in advertising and acquisition, when you are about to lose 30, 50 or even 80 per cent of those users the next day or the day after that.

It’s time we focus on the existing audience of a game. The right pricing of IAPs, the proper retention tactics and a meaningful loyalty system are all aspects that matter to your existing users and are the ones that need to be optimised in order to make them come back to the game, and not just once.

Dynamic pricing is a controversial issue for some. How can this be used to work in the players’ favour?

This is a really hot topic lately, not only whether one should invest in it, but also what is the best technology out there and how it will work automagically with the game without harming its smooth – and fair for everybody – in-game economy.

For us, it’s pretty simple. You just can’t have a flat pricing across everything or everybody, it’s like the Big Mac. You need to adjust your pricing to each country and each user. But, there is a “but”.

It’s not easy to process millions of data, discover price elasticity curves and compute real-time the optimal prices for the optimal users at the optimal time, without affecting the sense of fairness among the global user base or mess-up the in-game economics.

We know it’s hard and that’s where we come in. Machine learning, predictive analytics and deep data pooling are the answer, the only way to make your pricing dynamic and personalised, while keeping your users happy and motivated.

What do you mean by a ‘loyalty system’ and how can this boost retention and LTV?

Loyalty is simple: (a) You need to give back something to your loyal consumers. (b) There is no “one size fits all” approach when it comes to loyalty. You need to make it meaningful and personalised, otherwise, sooner or later, they are going to find out it’s not special and will leave you hanging.

2018 will be the year of realisation. We are lost in the details, ignoring simple processes that can deliver significant revenue and retention uplifts.

That’s why we created our Loyalty & Retention Solution: an automated, closed-loop, fully personalised loyalty experience, native and seamless with gameplay, powered by 30-plus ready-to-launch tactics proven to optimise each user’s LTV individually by 45 per cent-plus.

We don’t want to sound too sales-y, we’re just really excited about this, so feel free to book a demo for more details.

What major trends do you predict for the mobile games industry over the next year?

2018 will be the year of realisation. The industry will realise two big things: One, we are lost in the details, ignoring simple processes that can deliver significant revenue and retention uplifts and two, we need to smart-up.

The industry lacks the technology and the tools to manage and optimise in real-time millions of DAUs, to test, measure and analyse deeply enough, to track, forecast and optimise each individual user’s LTV. And that’s exactly our vision.

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