Success Cases

​The User Acquisition Diagram serves to show the ideal optimization technique and flow to generate the best possible results from first impression all the way to blended LTV and ROAS. Blended means "combined" in-app Purchase, in-app Ads, Cross-Promotion, and Organics Revenues. Having a holistic, end-to-end, full funnel, multi-channel, cross-platform strategy - hence the 360 degree view of the 3 main funnels or stages:
1. Best possible media buying User Acquisition strategy and plan. 
2. Effective ASO/SEO to improve "install" conversion rate. 
3. Optimize UA having Ad Monetization well in mind to maximize TOTAL Revenues from the get go. 

​

The User Acquisition Flow Diagram shows the three main product Funnels and "KPIs" needed for optimal success:

1) Retention should be the very first KPI to consider to analyze and assess whether the product works or not. To measure overall quality and engagement. Whether it is an app, mobile game, or website, Retention encompasses all of the main in-product events or levels in a single KPI. You have in hand the industry or game category benchmarks to optimize towards. You should know well the Retention of your main competitors as the main benchmark to consider. Retention should be measured in daily cohorts: D1, D2, D3 ==> D7. Depending on your product or game genre and sub-genre, you will have different benchmarks to consider. Puzzle, RPG, or Strategy games have high Retention while Casual games have much lower Retention. Same goes for an ecommerce or marketplace product with high Retention while a Fintec crypto app might have lower Retention. Always have your benchmarks handy. As part of the Retention analysis, you should also check your product stickiness - DAU/MAU.

2)  Same applies to the next KPI: user Lifetime Value (LTV). Always know your competitors' LTV as a main benchmark to aspire to and optimize towards. Firstly, analyze ARPU (Average Revenue per User) and ARPDAU (Average Revenue per Daily Active User) blending all Revenue sources. Then, use Retention in order to come up with the LTV prediction formula. Retention + ARPDAU should be considered in the final LTV prediction formula. Once you have your LTV in place, you should measure it by daily cohorts: D1, D2, D3 ==> D7 and beyond. This allows to calculate cohorted ROAS in parallel with your LTV and CPI (Cost per Install).    

3) Lastly we have the ROAS metric -- Return on Ad Spend. As mentioned above, it is calculated in daily cohorts and allows to measure Revenues earned for the spend or budget used in the user acquisition marketing campaigns. ​​​​​​​​​​​

​

The first days upon launching the performance marketing UA campaigns, you focus on "Actuals" results. At this stage, you have the "real" view of the performance, activity, revenues, and the actual ARPU coming from the users acquired. The main goal here from D1 - D3 is to focus on creative performance and optimization measuring Impressions, Clicks, Installs ==> CTR, CPC, CVR.      

From D3 and onwards, you focus on the most relevant events (milestones) that can give you the best indication on user engagement, retention, and overall user quality. You can still rely on the Retention KPI alone here, as all the events are already encompassed within Retention, but it is still a pretty good practice to rely on specific top funnel and mid funnel events and their corresponding conversion rate and CPA (Cost per Action). You can check competitor and market benchmarks to compare your performance.  
At this stage, you go from an Actuals focus to a more Predictive model from D3 to D7 and beyond. Once you have your LTV in place, you can calculate the desired daily cohorts. It's become an industry standard, specially in mobile gaming, to rely on D7 ROAS. At D3, the main focus should be on campaign performance focusing on the best performing geos and channels to drive LTV and ROAS. 

​

​

​