Social Gaming Metrics

Social Games – Metrics that MatterGirl Geek Dinner #ggdphl

23 July 2012

(c) 2012 Sepiida - Proprietary & Confidential

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Today’s Topics

Why is this topic important? Which metrics & how to measure them

(calculations & tools) How do you know what’s good? The two sides of metrics and reporting: for your

investors, and for you How to iteratively improve them The importance of prioritization


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A bit about me

15 years in Internet/E-commerce/Technology Product Management – most of it in San Francisco Led product for several startups

One funded by Benchmark, sold to AT&T/YellowPages.com Another spun out of Microsoft Ventures in social networking

Most recently VP, E-commerce Nutrisystem ($750mil+ in revenue, most of it online)

Search and advertising, B-to-B and B-to-C platforms, telephony, social networks, gaming, online marketing

Currently Founder & CEO of Sepiida Clients include Zynga, Haymarket Media, Coveroo, JumpRamp Games,

Ryzing BA Politics (NYU), MS Computer Science (Stanford)


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Why is this topic important?

People think of gaming as creative - it is! Just like with any interface-enabled product or

technology, there is a business behind it “Nowadays” business is measured through data and

metrics Big social gaming studios like Zynga think of themselves

as analytics companies: http://on.wsj.com/nJsdT9 Great designers have a strong sense of, and respect for,

data and analytics Investors care about the metrics

http://on.wsj.com/nJsdT9

http://on.wsj.com/nJsdT9


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So, what are these metrics?

Game-agnostic Metrics DAU, WAU, MAU D1, D7, D30 Retention (and so on…) DAU/MAU Installs/DAU K-factor ARP/DAU

Game-specific Metrics


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Metrics: DAU, WAU, MAU

DAU = Daily Active User WAU = Weekly Active User MAU = Monthly Active User Active User – someone with a session in a given time

period Many game-hosting platforms (Yahoo, Facebook,

Google, etc.) provide this data publicly! You should reconcile against your own DB

How valuable is a “session”? Does this metric matter?


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Metrics: D1, D7, D30 Retention “D” = Day D0 is the day the user first installs the app D1 is the next day, D7 the 7th day after, and so on Two ways to compute:

On the day (industry standard) Within the period (more helpful for running your biz)

Need to compute this from your DB Use this for cohort analysis as you change features


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Metrics: DAU/MAU

DAU divided by MAU If this value is 1, then all of the people who logged

in over the course of the past 30 days also came every day within that 30 day period highly retentive game

If this value is close to 0, people are not using this anywhere near daily


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Metrics: Installs/DAU

An Install is a new user to your game # of Installs on that day divided by the DAU for that

day This is a measurement of how many new users you

are getting But you don’t want this to be close to 1 (especially

well after launch) This means that people aren’t coming back Unless you can explain it with big acquisition marketing

efforts


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Metrics: K-factor

Measures the virality of your social game Viral channels are: emails, social network

communication channels, other user-shared links/entry points

One standard way to measure: Viral Installs / Total Installs

Metric is beholden to the tempers of the platform you are running on


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Metrics: ARP/DAU

Average Revenue Per DAU Revenue generated per day / DAU for that day In the end, you have to make money!


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Metrics: Game-specific KPIs

After all the standard ones, you should have a list of metrics you are monitoring within your specific game

What makes sense for one game doesn’t for another If you have a social building feature, there are metrics

relevant to that A decorating game would have others

Track a lot, but deeply monitor a few


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Metrics: Tools for tracking

Need to capture the data in your DB Better to do this from the beginning, as you build

each new feature. THINK DATA. Simple DB queries can help, but that gets old soon. Tools like Kontagent are big-ticket resources for

social gaming analytics. We also like RJ Metrics for this. It’s all about database analytics that contain

behavioral and transactional data.


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What’s a good value for a metric?

It depends On the state of the social network platform you’re

running on On the nature of your particular game On where you are in your evolution On what you need to succeed as a business On the state of the industry


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Good values for metrics (cont’d)

Need to look at your own business deeply – connecting one metric with another to draw conclusions

For example, let’s say MAU is growing really nicely. DAU is flattish.

What does that mean? It means you have a lot of churn. Is that bad or good? The answer to that is in the eye of the beholder!


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Good values for metrics (cont’d)

Beware of researching benchmarks You’ll get every possible answer if you read online Older news is old news Talking to people – they usually inflate Figure out WHAT YOU NEED


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Investors!

They want data They are talking to their friends who have data But what data? Typically, what you need to be looking at to actively manage your

business is pretty different than what the investors want to look at

For example, what are you supposed to do with the DAU metric when it’s flat?? Takes much deeper set of analytics to fix it But the investor just wants to see DAU growing

Have an investor dashboard and then have an internal set of analytics/reports Keep them separate!


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Improving your metrics by using data

It starts with capturing the data Go for breadth, go for depth Part of every feature design needs to be data

Don’t debate too much – A/B test lots of things If you’re sophisticated enough, tools like Bees & Pollen can be interesting for

going beyond A/B When you find a top-line metric under-performing, understand its

component parts Go deep on data

Beware of looking at how other games do a particular mechanic or feature Be ready to kill features and/or abandon optimization

Beware of “killer features” Most big metrics improvements we’ve achieved have occurred through low-cost

optimizations rather than high-cost feature development


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Prioritization

With all this data, you can drown Key is PRIORITIZATION! If you’re having trouble with D1 retention, don’t

worry about features that are used by more advanced users Determine which features are used by whom by

looking at data – not based on your opinion You’re not going to make a dent in ARP/DAU if you

can’t get people to come back for a second day!


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Questions?


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Contact Info

Anita Garimella AndrewsFounder & CEO – Sepiida@[email protected]

@websepiidahttp://www.sepiida.com

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.sepiida.com/

Social Gaming Metrics

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