Flurry retention rates: very important and very incomprehensible
Flurry has already become a master for those mobile developers who understand the importance of analyzing user behavior. However, those Flurry metrics that relate to user retention are not so easy to navigate: here the return rate, and rolling retention, and static retention ... well, as popular wisdom says, you cannot understand without a hundred grams. Let's correct - to not understand without this article which we in Alconost found and transferred especially for Habr. And to understand what's what in terms of user retention is vital: otherwise you risk losing both users, and money to attract them, and bright prospects for the development of your application or game.
User retention is the most important indicator on which all other elements of a well-functioning freemium business model rely.
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Do not believe me? Check with Eric Seufert's Excellent Minimum Performance Indicators to navigate the topic.
As Eric explains, retaining users allows the other three pillars of the freemium model — engagement, virality and monetization — to work in principle, at least theoretically. Consequently, without proper retention rates, the entire structure falls apart.
User retention is the most important indicator for developers and publishers when launching a freemium game or application. It is studied in the smallest detail with a “soft launch” of the game in a particular country.
In a thorough manner, user retention is exploring the guidelines for developers and publishers of freemium games, as well as venture investors and product managers. This is a very important indicator for shareware.
In simple terms, the user retention rate, in which the industry is so interested, is defined as "the percentage of users who return to your game on the N-th day after the first use of the application" and is also known as "retention on the N-th day”.
Analyzing the indicators, they usually take 1, 7 and 30 day values ​​as the basis for calculating the duration of use of the application and as a result of user income, if you add monetization to the equation.
In the world of freemium games for mobile phones and tablets, minimum user retention rates are expected at these levels:
At the same time, most of the industry is not aware that Flurry does not reflect the retention of users in this sense. Instead, Flurry shows something called “rolling retention” .
Flurry defines “sliding hold” as the proportion of users who returned to your application on the Nth day or any day following the Nth day after the first use of the application.
At first glance, the difference is not obvious and insignificant, but it is worth digging a little deeper - and it turns out that it is critical.
Simply put, “grip hold” has nothing to do with our previous definition of hold. In fact, the rolling retention metric shows the reciprocal of the outflow of users (one hundred percent rolling retention = your churn).
Churn is defined as the number of users who left your game "forever."
Usually, though not always, the developers and publishers of mobile games call Flurry “sliding hold” indicators “N-day hold”, which they are not. And then these indicators become especially problematic for them for several reasons:
In short, Flurry's “sliding hold” does not give the observer any valuable information. However, this indicator can really come in handy when attracting investments - for demonstration to informed venture investors in a number of secondary indicators like “total downloads”, for example.
How do you work with user retention?
About the translator
The article is translated in Alconost.
Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 60 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.
We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.
Read more: https://alconost.com
The devil is in the details
User retention is the most important indicator on which all other elements of a well-functioning freemium business model rely.
')
Do not believe me? Check with Eric Seufert's Excellent Minimum Performance Indicators to navigate the topic.
As Eric explains, retaining users allows the other three pillars of the freemium model — engagement, virality and monetization — to work in principle, at least theoretically. Consequently, without proper retention rates, the entire structure falls apart.
User retention is the most important indicator for developers and publishers when launching a freemium game or application. It is studied in the smallest detail with a “soft launch” of the game in a particular country.
In a thorough manner, user retention is exploring the guidelines for developers and publishers of freemium games, as well as venture investors and product managers. This is a very important indicator for shareware.
In simple terms, the user retention rate, in which the industry is so interested, is defined as "the percentage of users who return to your game on the N-th day after the first use of the application" and is also known as "retention on the N-th day”.
Analyzing the indicators, they usually take 1, 7 and 30 day values ​​as the basis for calculating the duration of use of the application and as a result of user income, if you add monetization to the equation.
In the world of freemium games for mobile phones and tablets, minimum user retention rates are expected at these levels:
- Day 1: at least 30% (preferably 40%) of users who downloaded the game on day 0 are returned to the game.
- Day 7: at least 15% (preferably 20%) of users who downloaded the game on day 0 are returned to the game.
- Day 30: at least 8% (preferably 10%) of users who downloaded the game on day 0 are returned to the game.
At the same time, most of the industry is not aware that Flurry does not reflect the retention of users in this sense. Instead, Flurry shows something called “rolling retention” .
Flurry defines “sliding hold” as the proportion of users who returned to your application on the Nth day or any day following the Nth day after the first use of the application.
At first glance, the difference is not obvious and insignificant, but it is worth digging a little deeper - and it turns out that it is critical.
Simply put, “grip hold” has nothing to do with our previous definition of hold. In fact, the rolling retention metric shows the reciprocal of the outflow of users (one hundred percent rolling retention = your churn).
The essence of the problem
Churn is defined as the number of users who left your game "forever."
Usually, though not always, the developers and publishers of mobile games call Flurry “sliding hold” indicators “N-day hold”, which they are not. And then these indicators become especially problematic for them for several reasons:
- These indicators will always be higher for the game (or the corresponding application), which has been on the market for a long time.
- The longer the application is installed on the user device, the greater the likelihood that the user will launch it again. When this happens, such a user is counted as being retained for the entire period of time — I have seen not-so-old applications for which “sliding hold” Flurry displays a 90% hold for 30 days. Oh, if ...
- These indicators provide very limited information about the true nature of the quality or user base of a game or application.
- Indie developers do not understand the real meaning of the “rolling hold” indicators and make incompetent decisions based on them. Or they spend additional time in development cycles to implement other analytical tools, because they realize that Flurry does not show them what they need.
- Venture investors and product managers do not understand the real meaning of “rolling hold” indicators and make incompetent decisions about investing them based on them. (Gentlemen investors, please note!)
- From time to time, publishers are shown excellent retention rates from applications and games submitted by developers, which are absolutely useless for making informed decisions.
In short, Flurry's “sliding hold” does not give the observer any valuable information. However, this indicator can really come in handy when attracting investments - for demonstration to informed venture investors in a number of secondary indicators like “total downloads”, for example.
How do you work with user retention?
About the translator
The article is translated in Alconost.
Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 60 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.
We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.
Read more: https://alconost.com
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/248295/
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