The average cost to acquire a user who will make an in-app purchase in a mobile game decreased by 47% over the first six months of 2016.
This is according to a study by mobile marketing platform Liftoff. The company has released its annual Mobile App Engagement Index, which studied 65 million post-install events from 7.3 million app installs from around the world.
It found that while the average cost per acquisition (CPA) of a paying user in January 2016 was $95.88, this number decreased to $50.77 in June 2016.
It takes time
Liftoff suggests that this drop is due to younger players being out of school and having more time to engage with apps. This leads to lower marketing costs as players are actively looking for games and purchases.
The report also found that paying Android users were 24% cheaper to acquire than paying iOS users. Android uses had an average CPA of $57.21, while iOS users had an average CPA of $74.85.
However, in terms of engagement, the report showed that iOS users were more likely to spend than Android users. 7.8% of iOS users made an in-app purchase compared to 6.1% of Android users.
Gender divide
Female paying users were shown to be cheaper to acquire than male users. The average CPA for female users was $61.29, 13% less than male users at $70.50.
Female users were also more likely to make a purchase than men, with 11.8% of female users buying IAPs compared to 10.9% of male users.
You can view the full report on Liftoff's website.