acquiring valuable customers - a guild wars 2 case study
DESCRIPTION
The deck I presented at the Game Analytic's conference. This deck covers the optimization of our acquisition marketing programs the team has worked on since launch.TRANSCRIPT
Acquiring Valuable Customers
Privileged & Confidential
Acquiring Valuable Customers
• Launched August 2012
• Metacritic score over 90%
• Faster to 3.5 million copies sold than any other MMORPG in history
• Pre-Sold 1 million copies
Privileged & Confidential
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
Acquiring Valuable Customers
Launch Window Performance
Privileged & Confidential
• We regrouped from Mar 2013 to Aug 2013 building a test plan
• Every spike was associated with a heavy up paid media spend
• Most spikes had a drop in price associated with them
• There seems to be no negative effect on retail when running 1st party sales
• Holiday gift giving still matters at retail
$-
$50,000
$100,000
$150,000
$200,000
$250,000
$300,000
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1000
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7000
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-31
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Daily Activations and Estimated Client Revenue
Retail Sales (NA+EU) Digital Sales (NA+EU) Estimated Rev
Migration Sale
Free Trial only
Sale + Free Trial Sale Only
Humble Bundle Sale
2013 2nd Half Analysis
Volume
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Privileged & Confidential
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$50.00
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1,000
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20
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1st Party Digital Daily Activations
First Party Digital Activations Paid Media Sales Paid Media CPA
C
P
A
• The biggest question is how much it costs to create these spikes and can we predict cost with volume
• The first step is analyzing the relationship between our available paid media sources
• What is the ability of our “acquisition-based” spends (i.e. SEM/DSP) to offset the “impression-based” spends high CPA?
2013 2nd Half Analysis
C
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Privileged & Confidential
Acquiring Valuable Customers
Media Outlet Scorecards (FAKE DATA)
Privileged & Confidential
Acquiring Valuable Customers
April Acquisition Program (Case Study)• April sale objectives
– ESO defense– Feature pack boost– Active player base increase in Living World down time
• Used scorecard learning‘s to determine placement and spend– Heavy up video (from scorecard learning)– Heavy up on LTV positive media sources
• i.e. Curse
– Test Facebook as another acquisition channel
Privileged & Confidential
Acquiring Valuable Customers
April sale results
Un
it S
ales
Pla
yers
• 107% over unit goal
• 36% over our stretch unit goal
• Sale campaign also drove lapsed player reactivations
• Facebook new “Offer Ad” has acquisition performance on par with SEM
• Video ads outperformed flash click through 2 to 1
