Brief:
- Women have a 79% higher install-to-in-app purchase rate for mobile games than men, according to a report from mobile app marketing company Liftoff shared with Mobile Marketer. Women's install-to-in-app purchase rate for mobile games is 16.7%.
- Even though it's more expensive to acquire a gamer on iOS ($11.08) than on Android ($6.37), the in-app purchase conversion rate for iOS gamers is 21%, compared to the 10.8% rate of Android gamers. The firm analyzed 47 billion mobile ad impressions and 15 million app installs between June 2017 to May 2018 from 350 gaming apps.
- The post-holiday season is the best time for gaming app marketers to get results, Liftoff found. The cost to acquire a user who makes an in-app purchase in January costs $18.13, while engagement rates reach a yearly high of 22.4%.
Insight:
Liftoff's study of gamer habits highlights important differences in the ways men and women spend on mobile games, indicating that game developers should consider a variety of pricing strategies based on the audiences they reach. Games that are popular among women may realize a higher customer lifetime value with in-app purchases after engaging audiences with freemium teasers, for example.
Consumer spending on mobile games is forecast to rise nearly 26% to $70.3 billion globally this year, driving all video game spending to rise 13% to $137.9 billion, according to a Newzoo study. U.S. gamers who make in-app purchases are a valuable audience for developers, spending on average $20 in-app by day seven after installing the game and much as $49.33 by day 90, per AppsFlyer and Facebook research cited by VentureBeat.
A separate AppsFlyer study found that while revenue from app marketing has jumped 80% since 2016, developers still face challenges in boosting user loyalty, retention and profitability. Apps need to overcome monetization challenges by maximizing revenue from purchases, subscriptions, in-app purchases (IAP) and in-app advertising (IAA).
