Optimizing monetization performance

Now that you’ve laid out your monetization strategy, let’s break down how to optimize it.

Welcome back! In our offerwall course, we’ve covered what an offerwall is, and explored best practices for implementing an offerwall monetization strategy. So, now that you’ve laid out your monetization strategy, let’s break down how to optimize it.

Measuring your success

First order of business – you can’t maximize your success before defining what success means. Here are the KPIs you should be focusing on in your offerwall monetization strategy.

1. The first and most important KPI to measure is engagement rate – the percent of engaged users out of all active users. How many people who see your offerwall traffic drivers actually click on it? And how many who go to your offerwall actually engage with the offers? These are just some of the questions you should be asking yourself and measuring. Engagement rate doesn’t just show you how many people are clicking on your traffic drivers or offerwall, but how many are doing it intentionally. Basically, engagement is the first step to earning revenue – and with offerwalls, it’s a key step.

2. The next KPI to track is conversion rate, or completion rate. In theory, it’s pretty similar to engagement rate – it just shows you one level of engagement. But in this case, it goes a step further and tells you a bigger story… out of all the people who were engaged in your offerwall, how many actually completed the offers in the advertiser’s app? The deeper you dive into your users’ behavior, the deeper you can understand what adjustments to make to maximize the amount of users completing offers – and your revenue.

3. When it comes to revenue, there’s two major KPIs about user activity: average revenue per daily active user (ARPDAU) and average revenue per daily engaged user (ARPDEU). How does ARPU (average revenue per user) compare to ARPDAU? Or ARPDEU? All three tell a similar story, but examining the differences between them will help fill the gaps in your monetization strategy – and show you how to optimize it.

4. Another KPI to note is eCPM, or the ad revenue generated per 1,000 ad impressions. Offerwalls have some of the highest eCPMs in the business – Android eCPMs in the US can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s because offerwalls attract high quality and engaged users, and they have a very unique business model – pay per completion, not per install. This means advertisers only have to pay for users who actually complete tasks – they bid higher for these deep users, which boosts your revenue.

5. Finally, always keep in mind one of the most important offerwall rules: the offerwall should not impact user retention or users’ interest in in-app purchases. The offerwall is here only to boost player engagement, and as a result, your monetization strategy. If it has any negative impact on either, it’s a sign to double check your offerwall strategy, and speak to your offerwall partner if needed.

Now, let’s dive into how to actually optimize your offerwall, starting with the essentials: A/B testing.

A/B testing

To maximize your monetization strategy, there’s a few A/B tests you can run to increase your engagement rate. Let’s explore some of the classics.

1. To boost your offerwall’s engagement, it’s critical to optimize the first step in the offerwall experience: traffic drivers. That starts with location, location, location. In the last episode, we covered the best spots, like the home screen, store, and breaks in gameplay – try some A/B tests with your traffic drivers in each of those different places. Also, take a look where users are spending their game currency most – if they’re likely to run out of coins, it could be a nice place to put a traffic driver.

2. In addition to location, another important A/B test for your traffic drivers is their messaging. To get the most amount of people visiting your offerwall as possible, your traffic drivers need to be explicit and clear – “complete this offer, earn this amount of currency for free.” Try testing different ways to make that message as clear as possible – whether it’s making your traffic driver message longer or shorter, adding more icons, or highlighting the word “free.”

3. Outside of placements, it’s also worth A/B testing your offerwall conversion rate. Like we mentioned last episode, we recommend setting at least the same conversion rate as your shop. If you’re trying to maximize engagement, try setting an even higher conversion rate and seeing how users respond. Like we mentioned last class, conversion rates require a delicate balance – we want to maximize engagement, but not cannibalize your in-app purchases.

This, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg for A/B tests – we’ll suggest other A/B testing ideas later in the episode.

Multiplying offerwall rewards

You can also optimize your offerwall revenue by multiplying the offerwall rewards. This attracts more users to your offerwall, all eager to get extra rewards. To make themselves more competitive, advertisers leverage this increase in traffic and raise their bids. You can actually multiply your rewards in a variety of different ways – let’s dive in.

Special promotions

During holidays and holiday weekends, we’re using our devices much more – so it’s an ideal time for you to double down on that traffic. To do that, use special offerwall promotions. These promotions take place around 20 times throughout the year, offering users anything from 1.5 – 10 times the standard offerwall rewards – but only for a limited time.

With these extra rewards, users get to progress further in the game and get a “taste” of what it’s like to use in-app purchases – boosting long-term retention and in-app purchases as a result.

According to our data, compared to a regular weekend, doubling rewards during special promotions can boost revenue 70% – and tripling them can boost it 110%. Engagement rate jumps up too – 60% for doubling rewards and 65% for tripling them.

To make sure your users know there’s a special promotion coming up, try utilize pop-up ads inside the game and push notifications outside of it. Like offerwall traffic drivers, special promotion notifications should be clear, noticeable, and show up in traffic-heavy areas. In fact, according to our data, special promotion pop-ups can boost your player engagement rate by 190%. And it’s a win-win – it increases engagement with offerwall users, and it’s an ideal way to let non-offerwall users know about these lucrative and free benefits.

To optimize your revenue potential with special promotions, run even more A/B tests. Players are more likely to engage with higher offers, so try testing different reward amounts to see which generates the most revenue. You can also test the messaging in the offerwall pop-up – try adding a noticeable countdown, or using numbers like “2x” in addition to words.

Message to Earn

One strategic opportunity to multiply your rewards is what we call “Message to Earn,” a special feature on our offerwall. Like special promotions, Message to Earn utilizes pop-ups to direct users to the offerwall – but with segmentation, only specific high-potential users will see them.

By segmenting users based on their interactions with ads, Message to Earn helps close important gaps in your monetization strategy. For example, you can segment based on if users have clicked on your offerwall but never converted, or if they’ve never clicked on it at all.

You also can use “Message to Earn” to reach out to the exact users that offerwalls cater to – users who have never spent their money on in-app purchases. It’s an ideal and hands-off approach to broaden your offerwall engagement and boost revenue.

Country multipliers

Another feature on our offerwall, Country multipliers, combine the best of special promotions and Message to Earn – multiplying rewards for country segments. This can be very useful during national holidays, which, like special promotions, helps you double down on the increases in traffic.

To boost your ad revenue even more, you can also use Country Multipliers to strategically increase rewards in countries with traditionally low eCPMs – automatically adjusting to that country’s currency and balancing your economy accordingly.

Conclusion

This episode, we’ve covered the step-by-step for optimizing your offerwall monetization strategy – which KPIs to measure, what A/B tests to run, and which offerwall features you can utilize to maximize your revenue. Stay tuned for the next episode, where we focus on the other stakeholder in the offerwall, advertisers, and explore how to build a killer offerwall UA strategy. See you then!