The
Growth
Loop
The Growth Loop is a holistic approach to game growth, which merges the monetization and user acquisition sides of the business to create a virtuous cycle of growth. Keep scrolling to learn more about the Growth Loop approach and how following it can turn your game into a booming business.
Step 1:
Acquire new users
The first stage of the Growth Loop is to acquire users, either organically or via paid channels. The goal here is to assess your game’s marketability and test user acquisition.
The best way to assess marketability is to measure the IPM, or installs per one thousand impressions, of your creatives. Is the market interested in the concept of your game?
Don’t forget to optimize your app store page – it’s a key part of the user acquisition funnel. If users are interested in your game and click through your creative to the app store, your page better be ready to convert them.
Step 2:
Monetize with ads and IAPs
Now that you’ve got users trickling in, it’s time to start monetizing them in Stage 2 of the Growth Loop – either via in-app advertising, in-app purchases, or both. Your goal here is to build a monetization strategy that maximizes ARPU, or average revenue per user, while balancing user experience.
If you’re running ads, consider using a mediation platform, which aggregates multiple ad networks, and utilizing in-app bidding instead of the traditional waterfall. Be sure to serve users a diverse mix of ad units, including rewarded video, interstitials, and even offerwalls. The key is integrating ad units into the core loop of your game.
Step 3:
Analyze and optimize monetization
By Stage 3 of the Growth Loop, you’re ready to analyze and optimize the monetization strategy you built in Stage 2. Where can you improve? How can you further maximize ARPU?
Use A/B testing to pinpoint the ideal combination of ad units, waterfall settings, and segments. And measure ad revenue data as granularly as you do in-app purchase data – on the device, network, and ad unit level.
Step 4:
Analyze and optimize UA
Finally, Stage 4 is where we close the Growth Loop. Use everything you’ve learned so far to boost user acquisition to further increase IPM and maximize profit.
How? Improve creatives with in-ad data, implement anti-fraud efforts, and optimize bids. You can even use a bid optimizer to automate the process.
