metrics for social games

david king siqi chen

green patch serious business
 metrics are a force multiplier
but you need to have something to multiply!

can’t replace a good product

can’t replace creativity, art, design

can’t replace qualitative metrics

(user sentiment, net promoter score, etc)
the business of social games
(life time value - user acquisition cost) X scale = profit*
* these variables are not independent
user acquisition costs
virality, retention, cross promotion, marketing etc

life time value

retention, quality, flow, mechanics, theme, payments, etc
 3 ‘A’s of metrics
actionable, accessible, auditable
actionable
build a framework for experimentation, not vanity

emphasis on split testing and actionable insights

accessible
on demand experimentation capabilities

timely, transparent and accessible reporting

separate metrics infrastructure as much as possible

auditable
sanity check against other data sources:
db, google analytics, facebook
why companies are metrics focused
simple math: linear improvements yield non-linear results
k = (infection rate) * (conversion rate)
[summed across all channels]
 Visit
Product quality
New user experience Activation Revenue
Social proof (friends)

Key Metric: activation rate

the “viral loop”

Infection
Invite flows Conversion
Retention Copy writing
Call to actions Persuasion psychology
Game mechanics Demographic targeting
Self expresssion
Allocation tuning Key Metric: click through rate

Key Metric: infection rate

virality discounts user acquisition costs
(potentially, down to $0)
user acquisition:

user acquisition cost:

user acquisition cost discount:

infection rate
viral flows, calls to action, product quality, game mechanics, allocation tuning

conversion rate
copy writing, persuasion mechanics/psychology, demographic targeting

viral channels
requests, notifications, feed forms, email, profile box, share link, email, app tab, etc.
brief overview of facebook rpgs
 metrics can help with game flow
this affects retention, virality, and everything else
 metrics can help with revenue
gain actionable insights on virtual goods behavior
that’s it. questions?