People play – people talk? July ‘16

Founded in 2009

Based in Berlin, more than 40 nations

Five hits in six years

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3

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Organic Adoption and Word-of-Mouth on Mobile

Inferring User Base Dynamics from Sparse Data

Customer value>

Customer acquisition cost

Cost per installLifetime value

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Useracquisition

Organics

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Useracquisition

Discovery

Word-of-mouth

Social media

Search

BrandPress

Featuring

ASO

PR

TV

Offline

Fun product

A lot of traffic cannot be (easily) attributed

to a source

INS

TA

LL

S

Digitalmarketing

Digitalmarketing

CPIX $

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INS

TA

LL

S

Organics

Digitalmarketing

CPIX $

eCPI=

30%of CPI

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Digital marketing

CPIY $

INS

TA

LL

S

Organics

Digitalmarketing

CPIX $

eCPI=

30%of CPI

13

CPIY $

eCPI=

70%of CPI

CPIX $

eCPI=

30%of CPI

INS

TA

LL

S

Digital marketing

Organics

Digitalmarketing

Organics

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Effective CPILifetime value

Organics contribute majorly to making app marketing profitable

Better understand Organics

Predict organics for marketing budgeting

Model organics for LTV predictions

Identify opportunities for snowball effects

Better understand Organics

Predict organics for marketing budgeting

Model organics for LTV predictions

Identify opportunities for snowball effects

Better understand Organics

Predict organics for marketing budgeting

Model organics for LTV predictions

Identify opportunities for snowball effects

Better understand Organics

Predict organics for marketing budgeting

Model organics for LTV predictions

Identify opportunities for snowball effects

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• Using simple predictors like DAU, Marketing metrics, Featuring

•Works pretty well

• Doesn’t enable conceptual understanding

• Out-of-sample performance ???

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Predicting Organics

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Modelling Organics

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Geo 1 Geo 2 Geo 3

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„Uplift response functions“

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Geo 1 Geo 2 Geo 3 Geo 4 Geo 5 Geo 6 Geo 7

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Global log-log model

Game 1 Game 2 Game 3

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Spurious?

Organics

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Digitalmarketing

Discovery

Word-of-mouth

Social media

Search

BrandPress

WOM

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Digitalmarketing

Discovery

Word-of-mouth

Social media

Search

BrandPress

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“Word-of-mouth is the world’s most effective,

yet least understood marketing strategy.”

- Ivan Misner

• 75% face-to-face, 15% phone, 10% online

• Drivers of WOM: customer satisfaction, trust and brand commitment

• Nielsen: Most trusted source of consumer information, most likely to be acted upon

•WOM customers add more value, create more WOM in turn

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WOM facts

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Onmobile?

Survey

Quantitative analysis

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Digitalmarketing

Discovery

Word-of-mouth

Social media

Search

BrandPress

Survey

Survey based Survey and tracking based

How did you find us? (Ad traffic excluded)

Survey based Survey and tracking based

How did you find us? (Ad traffic excluded)

Why was the game recommended to you?

Response position bias

Survey results

WOM >> WOM

People recommend casual games mainly for fun

Mobile AdsApp Store

ChartsWord of Mouth

Day 7 Retention 100 95 120

Rounds until day 7 100 100 110

WOM users over-index onretention and engagement

Source: Wikipedia

Granger causality test41

Quantitative analysis

Causality tests

CAUSING ORGANICS NOT CAUSING ORGANICS

• DRU

• Engagement

• New users

• Marketing volume

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People play – people talk?

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CAUSING ORGANICS NOT CAUSING ORGANICS

•Marketing volume

•DRU in some large countries with limited marketing activity

•Engagement

Causality tests

Roundsper 2.5x xplayer

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• Substantially lower WOM

• Not consistently caused by a loyal

customer base and its engagement

• Even though engagement is very high

• Marketing activity partly causal45

Pearl’s Perilvs.

Jelly Splash

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?

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Game/app design

Product marketing

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Market conditions

Timing/saturation Innovativeness

Competitors

Organics

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Paid marketing WOM

Appeal of gameplayProduct marketingMarket conditions

Loyal,satisfied customer

base

•KPIs: Organics per Paid Organics per kDRU

•Consider WOM in game/app design (e.g. giving players things to talk about broadly, social features)

•Think about WOM in product marketing (game name –Best Fiends, IP – Pokemon Go)

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Business impact so far

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People play – People talk !

(Give them an audience.)

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Very different for different apps.

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Broad audience

Niche audience

eCPI << CPI LTV > CPI

- Survey & time series analysis

julian.runge@wooga.com