In mobile gaming, apps are much more than a player’s paradise; they are a business for publishers, developers, and marketers. While most mobile games are free, they still make money in various ways. To understand performance and monetization efforts, one of the most important metrics is ARPU (avenue revenue per user).
To increase ARPU in mobile games, you’ll need to know what it is and how to calculate it. We’ll introduce that next and follow with some takeaways to help you boost it.
What Is ARPU?
ARPU is an important mobile app KPI. Its definition is the average revenue you make from each user during a specific time period. You’ll be calculating all players who downloaded your app and are active.
How to Calculate Average Revenue
To calculate this metric, you’ll divide revenue by the number of users by a specific time period, which could be day, week, or month.
ARPU = Revenue /Users
Why Is ARPU a Critical KPI?
Your mobile game may have a large user base, but that doesn’t mean you’re earning revenue from all of them. Those players that are contributing require special analysis. You can learn a lot from them that can then help you attract and retain similar users.
What You Can Learn
- Do certain events impact revenue?
- Is testing of different ads increasing revenue?
- What days and times of the day do these users engage with your app?
You’ll be able to spot trends, which could be positive or negative. Then you’ll need to respond to those to optimize mobile gaming app monetization efforts. In general, you’ll gather knowledge about how much more your app is generating from its most valuable users.
Industry Studies Show Events Drive High ARPU
Gaming apps collected $100 billion in 2020. In analyzing that number, gaming ARPUs were higher than ever. Why? There were several tactics, which varied by region. They included events, leaderboards, customization, competitive multiplayer, chat, daily and logins, and guilds and clans.
Applying this industry knowledge along with your data can help you accelerate this metric.
Tips to Increase ARPU
Now that you have data around your paying users, it’s time to exploit it to boost ARPU. Creating revenue from apps can occur in several ways:
- In-app ad revenue
- In-app purchases (IAPs)
- Subscription models
- Pricing models
Optimizing user experiences and being as relevant as possible to the user is critical. With your data and guidance from app monetization experts, you can experience lift around ARPU. Here are some ideas to consider.
Experiment with New Ad Formats
What ad formats are you running currently? Do you see a drop-off in engagement? It’s time to do some testing and change up your ad formats. Leveraging a performance-based reward platform offers you a versatile portfolio of options to engage users.
