I optimized player retention and revenue for Disney mobile games for Inside Out Thought Bubbles and The Good Dinosaur: Dino Crossing by leveraging user behavior insights to boost ARPDAU and implementing level balancing to reduce churn and increase LTV.
Challenge
Inside Out: Thought Bubbles
How can we introduce ads to maximize LTV without cannibalizing paying users? The goal was to implement a monetization strategy for low-ARPDAU players that balanced ad revenue with player retention and satisfaction.
The Good Dinosaur: Dino Crossing
How do we create a mobile game that serves as a true extension of the movie experience? The challenge was to design gameplay that remained authentic to the story while raising awareness about the film.
Opportunity
How might we implement ads in a way that boosts LTV without alienating our paying users?
• Conducted tests to determine the optimal timing for displaying ads based on user progression, ensuring minimal impact on retention.
• Introduced strategic interstitial ads for non-paying players, resulting in increased ad revenue without negatively affecting payer satisfaction.
Whether ads are ROI+ is heavily dependent on ARPDAU for the game.
- For low ARPDAU games, ads are virtually always a win
- For high ARPDAU games, eCPMs need to be fairly high for ad revenue to offset the hit to LTV
eCPM | |||
ARPDAU | Low | Mid | High |
Low
(<0.05) | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Mid
(0.05 - 0.10) | run scenario analysis | run scenario analysis | run scenario analysis |
High
(>0.10) | ❌ | ❔ | ✔️ |