This sponsored post is produced by Darren Keyes, Director of Business Intelligence at Fuse Powered.
For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘cohorting’ refers to creating user segments, or technically, a group of people banded together as a group. You can segment a user base in many different ways. Some of the more obvious cohorts in mobile gaming are based on country, device, or app version. It’s relatively simple to segment your data based on these common cohorts. However, one of the keys to making your apps successful is the ability to segment and analyze your users based on player behavior, rather than by simple demographics.
Let’s say you want to know how deep your app is in terms of in-app purchases (IAPs). You could segment your users based on spending behavior. Borrowing from the glitzy world of casinos, most app developers refer to these cohorts as “Whales,” “Dolphins” and “Minnows,” equating to “big,” “medium” and “small” spenders. Analyzing your metrics based on spending cohorts will provide insight on whether spending more increases retention, an indicator relevant to your app’s success. Quite simply, retention means your users are engaged, which means you’re making more money.
Spending cohorts are still fairly common and barely fit the definition of “custom cohort.” At Fuse Powered, when we talk about custom cohorts we’re referring to things like segmenting users based on how many days it took them to make a purchase, or what level of game play they are currently on. These are the metrics that pack a powerful punch. For example, it’s good to examine your big spenders, but it’s far more powerful to be able to identify and message your big spenders who haven’t played in 10 days to re-engage them. Win your users back by using a personalized and targeted notification based on specific behaviors.
Deeper custom cohorts allow you to dive into meaningful data like knowing the average revenue earned from all players who have made it to a specific point in your game. Having this detailed knowledge may help you build a business case for adding new levels, or steepening the difficulty curve for new players.
What if you found out players are getting stuck on a specific level in your game? You could build a cohort for all the players at this level who have played more times than average and send them a hint through a targeted push notification. Or maybe you want to see if players are playing more frequently after making a specific IAP as their first purchase. Having this knowledge could lead you to introduce this IAP earlier in the app experience. The options and power of defining and actioning custom cohorts are endless.
All of these questions can be answered and acted on with the custom cohort tools available from mobile app tool providers, like Fuseboxx. The real question becomes, are you taking advantage of these tools and analyzing your users based on their behavior? If not, you are most likely giving your users a sub-optimal experience, and leaving significant money on the table at the same time.
Fuseboxx Mobile Publishing Platform provides extensive reporting, actionable analytics, and a powerful toolset. Get it free at www.fusepowered.com
Sponsored posts are content that has been produced by a company, which is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. The content of news stories produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact sales@venturebeat.com.