MobileBits Case Study: How to grow our app from 0 to 15 million users

2. • How we reached 15 million downloads
• The importance of customer quality
• The basics of paid user acquisition

4. Check out http://mobilebits.de
HoS trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TM99s0p7V4

5. Check out http://mobilebits.de

6. Check out http://mobilebits.de
1
2
NVIDIA
Push
SoulCraft
“Official” Launch
AppStore
SEO
3
4
AppStore
Features 5
Reduced
Filesize

7. 1
• NVIDIA approached us in
December if we would like to
participate in January event
• CES launch event in front of
around 200 journalists gave
the game lots of free publicity
• Special “NVIDIA optimized”
version was featured in NVIDIA
AppStore (downloaded >
500.000 times)
• Big companies have reach!

8. Check out http://mobilebits.de
2
SoulCraft
“Official” Launch
2

9. 2
• We released very early and
iterated often
• Updating the app itself brought
more AppStore visibility (not
anymore!)
• Don’t be afraid of early ratings
(GP: new upload, iOS: new
rating each version)
• Having a great trailer helps
download conversion & virality!
• “Launch” until you find traction

10. Check out http://mobilebits.de
AppStore
SEO
3
3

11. 3
• Similar to SEO, Google ranks your
apps also based on your app
description & title
• 3 times the downloads for free!
• Use keywords people are
searching for in your app
description ( mobileaction.co)
• Also used in ranking are ratings,
previous downlods & usage, iOS
values downloads much more!
• Sometimes changing a text in 30
minutes is worth more than
developing a new feature for 6
months. But can be high risk!

12. 3
AppStore Description
The Action RPG SoulCraft is the best free
Action RPG game for Android.
If you have been a range hunter or
melee demon in enough dungeon
crawlers and slayers, seen all the loot,
blood & glory and wraith, cleared the
crime city, feel like you have been a
warrior for all eternity already fighting
dragons, answer the call, fight for the
torchlight of hope, do your duty and
choose to be a legendary hero (or
heroes of destiny if you will) in the action
role playing game SoulCraft.
Search terms
• Action RPG
• SoulCraft
• Demon Hunter
• Dungeon Crawler
• Blood & Glory
• Crime City
• Torchlight of Hope
• Legendary Hope
• Action Role Playing
• …
 Also use the title: SoulCraft – Action RPG

13. Check out http://mobilebits.de
4
AppStore
Features
4

14. 4
• The key to getting featured is to
personally know the people
deciding it
• You can “help” them by using
new platform features they are
looking to advertise
• There are hundred different
ways to get featured – worth
1000 downloads or 1 million
• Make sure you can handle it!
• Getting featured can bring over
100.000 free downloads / day

15. Check out http://mobilebits.de
5
Reduced
Filesize
5

16. 5
• Focus on technical bugfxing & file-sizes increased daily downloads by
the factor 2
• However file-size decrease had the biggest effect in 2nd and 3rd world
countries like Thailand & Brazil
• Increasing daily average rating increases free downloads

17. • Having a known brand helps to get initial visbility
• Launch early & iterate often
• AppStore SEO cheapest way to get traction
• Have personal relations to AppStore owners
• The product needs to be technically fine

18. • How we reached 15 million downloads
• The importance of customer quality
• The basics of paid user acquisition

20. • Classic A,B,C analysis of
your customers
• Expect 20% of your
customers to make 80%
of revenue
 Make your VIP customers
happy!

21. historical baseline
predicted to be a high value customer
predicted to be low value customer
 prediction important to evaluate paid customer acquisition channels early!

22. rough estimate for CLV is “Revenue / Download”

23. • How we reached 15 million downloads
• The importance of customer quality
• The basics of paid user acquisition

24. Paid User Acquisition Sources:
1. Paid User Acquisition
• Facebook / Google
• AppStore Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing
• Influencer Marketing
• Cross-Media
2. Viral / Referral Marketing
• Cash incentive
• In App credit incentive
• Social reward
3. Existing customer base
• Your own
• Partner with somebody
else
“Free” User Acquisition Sources:
1. Have a great product (!)
2. Explain the product well (trailer)
3. AppStore SEO
4. Getting Featured
5. Press (Print, Online & TV)
1
2
3

25. You can always buy users. The thing you need to figure out is CLV>CAC
Important to bring down “real” CAC (including k-factor, organic users)
• Select the right channel, right audience
• Improve quality of your campaign
• strong trailer / AppStore Page (click to download)
• strong brand
• k-factor
Increasing CLV is as also important:
• Measure analytics & iterate often. Retention really important. If you
have a hole in your bucket there is no point putting water in it.
• Understand customer journey & optimize with A/B testing
• Slicing & Pricing of product
 Both CLV & CAC are equally important to make the app work!
1

26. 1
Potentially good channels are
• Facebook / Google Ad products
• AppStore Marketing (show ads directly in the Google AppStore, …)
• Affiliate Marketing
• Influencer Marketing (Snapchat, Instagram)
• Cross-Media (Out of home, TV, Print, …)
Learnings
• Paid user acquisition is really expensive. Can cost more than developing
the app (1-5 USD / download). Budget for it.
• Strong brands make CAC cheaper
• Every channel is first expensive, then you can optimize, then it will get more
expensive again when you scale it
• You will need a mix of different channels / campaigns.

27. 1
• In gaming scaling apps through
TV ads has worked well for
ProSiebenSat1
• However for my old startup
meinSport.de it worked terribly
• 2 million EUR in media did
not result in more users
• VISA partnership did not
work well
• EDGAR cards did not work
well
 Effectiveness depends on target
group fit and real prices

28. 2
• Give out incentives to
recommend your product to
friends
• Cash incentive
• In App credit incentive
• Social reward
• Worked very well for Paypal,
Car2Go and others
• Facebook reach does not
automatically lead to more
downloads
• Potential reward depends
again on CLV > CAC

29. 3
• Reach out to existing customers
via Push Notifications or email
• You will have low click-rates 1-
10% but its still very cost-
effective
• Best tool: Mailchimp / Mandrill
• Managed to launch SoulCraft 2
with >40.000 Downloads / day
by mailing to 1.5m SoulCraft 1
users
• Use publishers / partners if you
don’t have reach or don’t know
the language (e.g. for Asia)

30. • You can get a lot of users for
“free”
• However your business success
cannot depend on free users.
You need to figure out CLV >
CAC
• There is no magic approach
which works for everybody. You
need to test, measure, iterate &
repeat until CLV > CAC works!
Also please buy my books on
Amazon 
Die Digitale Revolution
von der Volkswirtschaft zur
Volkswohlfahrt mit Hilfe
der 4. Industriellen Revolution
(Wysk 2015)
Game of Life
What if game designers ruled
the world?
(Wysk 2014)

31. Karsten Wysk
- Product Management Lead -
Karsten.Wysk@BCGDV.com
+ 49 - 151 - 114 117 56