Brutally Honest #48 by Matej Lancaric

No 💩​ BS newsletter with useful stuff

Hey hey hey! Happy Monday everyone!

🥃 Drink talk

Back in the non-conference life. Great to be back home, away from 293723293 people trying to grab you & talk to you. On the other hand, started preparations for Istanbul Gaming Summit. See you all there!

🕺🏻 Tip of the week

It would help if you re-evaluated your UA targets & goals every quarter because your game’s performance also changes. Let’s look at this step by step (example):

• Global launch Golden cohort KPIs

  • CPI $2, D30 100% ROAS, D60 150% ROAS, D90 180% ROAS, D180 250% ROAS

• 3-6 months after global launch KPIs

  • CPI $3.2, D30 80% ROAS, D60 100% ROAS, D90 130% ROAS, D180 190% ROAS

• 6-12 months after global launch KPIs

  • CPI $4.5, D30 50% ROAS, D60 60% ROAS, D90 100% ROAS, D180 150% ROAS

• 12+ months after the global launch

  • CPI $5, D30 30% ROAS, D60 40% ROAS, D90 70% ROAS, D180 100% ROAS

The same thing happens with your retention profile. Usually, it starts to change quite rapidly after the global launch. If you aim for a two-year payback period (D720 100% ROAS) based on your golden cohort KPIs, you might be shocked in the end. Suddenly, the numbers don’t add up anymore because your retention after D90 is close to 0. Therefore aiming for two years is a terrible idea.

Check these metrics regularly and adjust the UA goals accordingly, so you don’t waste money.

Numbers can improve when you add new features & content to the game. It’s not all doom and gloom. Re-evaluate these goals after significant game updates as well. It goes both ways.

In an ideal UA world, you have goals per platform, per UA channel, and per campaign optimization (MAI vs. AEO vs. VO) but an ideal UA world doesn’t exist! HA!

💀  Dr. Doom is not amused

One of my industry friends amused me with his direct and honest TL;DRs, so we agreed to share it here too! My friend reminds anonymous as Dr.Doom!

"Because we couldn't do our job properly before and our network was full of dangerous stuff, we figured out that you can pay us to do it now on a monthly subscription (we need more money to burn on VR duh!) And no, we didn't copy Elon's homework, we promise" - Sincerely Dr. Doom (https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-launches-subscription-service-priced-1199-month-2023-02-19/)

"We are great. Look at how we are expanding LiveOps and teams (so much that you can be even remote now and have less experience), UA? who cares about that, we are still swimming in organic, and mobile is getting hard, so we are going into console/PC AAA full steam ahead. We are also giving some of our old toys to our minions. Let's see what happens” -
Sincerely Dr. Doom (https://supercell.com/en/news/next-chapter/)

🎮 two & a half gamers #52

Felix introduced an Admon darkroom gossip & secrets corner. A lot of insights, not only from Admon's side, but some UA benchmarks here & there. Tune in:

🎧 Listen on Spotify

📺 Watch on Youtube

🦄​ Diary of a Dancing Unicorn

Today was a good day.

Hey, look! Let’s start working together. Ideally, you take two of our games for half the usual price you charge other companies.

ehm? That math doesn’t add up.

Don’t worry, and it’s just for the first month, and then we can evaluate what to do next.

…. no, thank you.

Today was a good day.

🤺​ Quote of the week

“I can't believe you work all day and do childcare...that is truly impressive” Jeff, DM slack

Welcome to the darkroom of Admon secrets!

🧞 Level up yourself

I launched a YouTube Channel. I'm putting a ton of energy into creating valuable content I think you'll like. Check out the latest stuff, and give me a like and subscribe.

👾  Nostalgia games

Do you remember this game? What did you play when you were young?

Play here: https://www.retrogames.cz/play_421-DOS.php?language=EN

🥦​ Before you go

Comparison of the Appsflyer vs. Singular benchmarks? Read more here! 

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter!

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Take care, everyone! See you next Monday!

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