Ep 119: Unlocking Personalization In Your Game

Yael Yakomi, a mobile gaming expert, dives into the significance of personalization in mobile games. She emphasizes the enhanced gaming experience that personalization can offer and discusses the challenges and innovative solutions in implementing it. Yael also provides insights into future trends, including AI-driven personalization, and highlights how platforms like UserWise are revolutionizing the industry by empowering game creators to personalize content without developer support. 

Creators & Guests

Host

Tom Hammond

Co-founder and CEO UserWise | serial entrepreneur | Inc 500 | angel investor | startup advisor

What is Mastering Retention?

Welcome to the ultimate gaming breakdown with Tom Hammond and Neil Edwards! Tune in every week as we deconstruct today's top games and reveal the secrets behind their success.

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[00:00:43] Tom Hammond: Hi everyone. Uh, welcome to today's episode of the Mastering Retention Podcast. I'm Tom Hammond, co-founder, user wise and your host today. Um, really excited to have Yael ta Comey with us. Um, yes, I, I think, I think I got the Hebrew name, so work, working on that and, and luckily you're not finished and have like a couple silent eyes.

[00:01:10] Those sometimes throw me off. But, uh, we're, we're getting there. I'm, I'm becoming a man of the world through this podcast. It's a lot. Cool. Well, uh, Al, let's see. Before we dive in, um, to all sorts of fun stuff on monetization, especially ad monetization today, um, I always like to ask like, what's your story?

[00:01:31] How'd you get into games? How'd you get to where you are today? Uh,

[00:01:37] Yael Takomi: I think I fell in love in gaming since I was really young. I will say, um, [00:01:43] I'm the oldest in my family, but I have like two brothers that are really close to me. Mm-hmm. And like I have a sister and a brother, and we're three and pretty much in the same age.

[00:01:52] And we used to play a lot. Um, and I think my brother and I used to stay up until late, like playing a lot of PC games, PlayStation, and saying to our parents that yes, we're going to sleep, but. Basically we stay up until late. Uh, and I think the two games that I remember mostly that made me fell in love in gaming as a whole and know to myself in the back of my head, In some point in my life I will be there.

[00:02:20] Like in this industry Will will be Sims. Mm-hmm. And, and crush Dict. Uh, it was like games that I felt very addictive and always wanted to come back and chase after level, after level. Doing like another word, another character.

[00:02:37] Tom Hammond: What games did you find? Yeah. What games did you find most addictive and why?

[00:02:41] Yael Takomi: I think Sims was really addictive [00:02:43] because if I need to.

[00:02:45] Think about there are selfless human beings. It's like you can literally see the energy going above the character. So I think it's very addictive to try and make your, you know, life better, experience better. And I think if you will look at the word today, like most of most of us will speak about wellbeing mindsets.

[00:03:05] Like how can I make my life work life balance better, my life better? Do I need to do yoga, meditation, and et cetera? So I think this game got it in a pretty early. Stage. Uh, I think a lot of games are literally getting that, like what makes players sticks and they're going on that. And I think it's really when a really interesting timing in gaming.

[00:03:25] I think gaming always has been a really interesting sector because you can do literally what you want. Hmm.

[00:03:33] Tom Hammond: Interesting. Okay. Well, please continue your story. Uh,

[00:03:38] Yael Takomi: uh, I think, um, on the way, like I initially started [00:03:43] to learn industrial engineering very far from what I do today. Um, like I did my first role as a tech industry manager did, did like a lot of more of a strategic things and then I got the chance to go into play Tika and be part of the team that.

[00:04:02] Built and structural, the things that call ad monetization. I think then I felt a love in the idea of what can you do when you, when you combine marketing with monetization, with product in, in an, in an idea of how you can monetize your users and players better. And I think then I start to think about three years doing that.

[00:04:25] Like what I want to do next. I want to understand the process of how a player becoming a user. So then I started to work in that area in Facebook and start to think like, okay, how can I grab all the knowledge I am and put it together in something that I can transfer to [00:04:43] multiple people out there that want to make their games better?

[00:04:48] Tom Hammond: Yeah. So how does a player become a user?

[00:04:54] Yael Takomi: It's the $1 million question, I think. I think when we are thinking about like, you know, a lot of us will start to think as gaming company players, players, players, players, but I think we need to first start to ask yourself, okay, what is our story? Who are we aiming to and how we make this.

[00:05:13] Story translate into people that want to become part of our communities, which will be part of our game as users. And I think when you sit down and you think about your game, start to think with yourself as a C E O, as a vp, monetization, as a VP product, whatever, what make you or made you sit down and decide that you are going to do this specific game.

[00:05:39] And when you thought about it, On who you thought about. Like, you know, [00:05:43] when, when Nike is doing a new shoe, they can tell you, okay, this is a running shoe, this is a hip-hop shoe. Like they have, uh, they put you in categories in gaming, you have multiple ways of looking at users. Like different users will have different motivation.

[00:05:59] I can come and play multiple games because I had a bad day, or I just want to, you know, switch my time. Or like, I want, I want to. That's something new. Like I heard this's a, you know, a good game. So you have different mo motivation to go into a game. Just make sure that you know how to translate that into a good story that will touch multiple users.

[00:06:24] Interesting.

[00:06:26] Tom Hammond: So, Do you have any examples of like a, a game and then maybe like what the story is and how that story could or should be communicated to players? Just so I, I'm having trouble kind of putting it all together. So can, like, can you like, take me through [00:06:43] those steps?

[00:06:45] Yael Takomi: I think back in the days Candy Crush did it really good, like telling, telling you that you are part of a world that you literally felt that you can communicate with.

[00:06:57] With the characters and then you wanted to come and you know, chase after a certain thing. I think always when you put characters and worlds into a game, it's really help us as like emotional human beings to feel very connected to what we do, like why I am opening this app right now, or this game specifically.

[00:07:19] It's because. I really love the main character and I want to help her succeed in, in the, in the theme that she's trying to do. Like, it doesn't really matter if it's match three, uh, R p g, a lot of different genres. If I will feel that I am part of the story, then I will come again and again and again because I [00:07:43] want to make this character succeed.

[00:07:44] I want to be part of this building of the role. I want to be there. I. Like, I think Fortnite for example, like built a fortune of making people feel, feel part of something, part of a community, part of something that maybe they couldn't be. When they are in the real world, like now they are this character and they're feeling very strong with it.

[00:08:09] You know what I mean? A

[00:08:11] Tom Hammond: little bit like, I can see how that works for some games, but then for other games I'm like, Well, a lot of people are like super into solitaire or like triple dots, you know, wood KU game or you know, some of these things like, I guess I'm having trouble, like understanding what the story might be for, you know, some of these games, which, you know, are actually quite successful.

[00:08:33] But how, like what would the story be or how would I communicate that?

[00:08:40] Yael Takomi: I think when you find a main, uh, [00:08:43] storyline that you want to take, also, it doesn't supposed to be literally, Around only the game itself, but also like you, for example, in a lot of solitaire games, you can play solitaire as a mechanism, which is the game, but you can build like solitaire, for example.

[00:09:03] You are playing solitaire, but you're also building a farm and you're collecting things and you're doing a lot of things that make you feel important in the game. Like you have different characters and every time you have different characters that owning something and have different features and you know things are going up and down and you feel that you always have something to do in the game.

[00:09:22] And I think this is the key. It's like if you are always feeling that you are progressing and that you are helping. The character of this specific game to go through some kind of evolution or like saving something or building something or cooking something like a lot of bingo games. Even using, um, recipes like you, you need [00:09:43] to collect a lot of, a lot, a lot of materials to, to cook something.

[00:09:47] It's not necessarily, you know, like I'm not a chef now, but I feel like a chef. Because I'm starting to get into, maybe in my real life, I'm starting to get to really into this, this cooking scenery, and then I'm starting to read and then Bingo is doing a lot of themes around cooking. And then you, you be like, you, you become part, like realities becoming part of the game itself.

[00:10:10] And then you feel very connected. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:13] Tom Hammond: Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I definitely, how. I, I think of like Mario, right? Um, those, those characters have made that IP so valuable. Um, and it, so it's really easy to get people back into that same sort of story and stuff. Um hmm. Okay. Um, so I have this kind of belief and, and I could be [00:10:43] off base on it, um, but you talk about cooking.

[00:10:48] So, uh, imagine you go to the store, I don't know what kind of stores they have in Ireland, but let's pretend there's a there. Um, it's just a very basic store. Um, and, and you walk in and you need a new pan. And so you go to the pan aisle and you see a bunch of boxes with some nice looking pans. You pick one out, bring it back home, you pull it out and it's like, So you actually cook with it.

[00:11:17] It's either like not a pan or it just like completely burns your food like immediately or, or something else. Like you're probably gonna be a little upset. You're probably gonna take that back, get your money back, like something was off there. Um, for the most part, I don't think that really happens with pans, but when I think about like mobile games though, and advertising, it's like.

[00:11:39] People think that a 40% day one retention is [00:11:43] like, oh yeah, like you're doing pretty good. But like when I really think about it, okay, how many installs did you have out of a thousand people that saw your ad 10? Maybe like 50 at most. I don't even know what good IPMs are anymore. You probably know offhand.

[00:12:04] Um, but like, I mean, like so better than the genre. Yeah. So I mean like, where are we even at like, okay, of those 10 people that installed it, like they had to see or ad find it so interesting and so engaging and so enticing that they decided to click it. Unless you had one of those hellacious scam ads, but they, they clicked it and went into the, the store and the screenshots and the description and everything confirmed what they thought.

[00:12:37] It seems like it's gonna be really fun. It's gonna be really awesome. And they went through all the [00:12:43] pain of actually clicking download, waiting for it to download, opening that up. Mind you, they probably already had plans stuff going on right now, and they're like taking their time from the day to go through all this stuff.

[00:12:56] And then your game failed them So completely. It so completely failed to live up to the expectation of what they thought that it was in the ad and on the app store screenshot. Like you failed them so completely that they're like, yeah, I'm not coming back to do this again. So like, where is the disconnect in there?

[00:13:14] And I don't think people like think about that enough, but like, you know, could we do a better job of. Truly communicating of like what the game is, what you're gonna get out of it, and just giving like a better end-to-end experience. Right? Like, you know, if you intend to buy a frying pan and you get home and you've got like, I.

[00:13:38] A big, you know, pasta cooking pan or something like, it's probably a disconnect. You're [00:13:43] probably gonna be a little upset and it's gonna be mostly unusable, I would imagine. I dunno,

[00:13:49] Yael Takomi: that's a really good question. And I have to say that I, I'm a true believer in being honest and I be proud of what you produce.

[00:13:58] I mean that, like, if you truly think that you have a good game, so think about, okay, let's say for example, you have five different types of. Players that comes to play your game with different, with different moti motivations to play it. It's like one of them really wants to, to progress really fast. He will come every day.

[00:14:18] One of them, like a few of them will come, you know, in the morning on the way to work, or maybe later before they're going to sleep. Think about when you built the game, like where did you aim them to go? It's like how many level did you aim to do like, and which one, even like if you're building multiple W worlds, like if you have the Caribbean for example, or why, I don't know, like, uh, Thailand, Paris.

[00:14:42] If [00:14:43] you aim them to, if you know from scratch that they will do five levels and then go. So don't expect them to stay after five levels. Like know to target your audience pretty good. And know that you, if you want to tell a story, connect with them in a truth level of that. Like show them what you truly meant them to do.

[00:15:04] Like don't mislead them. If you'll mislead them. Yes. So they will leave you and they will not come back. But if you believe in your product, which you should be, because most, most of gaming companies put a lot of effort in, like thinking about what will be the next thing and how can I put a lot of innovation into a new game, or like hybrid genres, et cetera.

[00:15:28] Like I, I see a lot of different games out there. I truly believe that the industry would going to be like crazier and crazier because you will see a lot of. Like multi genres in one game, and it's going to be super interesting. I'm [00:15:43] super excited about it. Like I truly think that the new games that are going to be out there are going to be crazy and super interesting.

[00:15:49] So when you are trying to tell why you chose that, just make sure that you're telling that right in the 30 seconds of the video that you have.

[00:15:59] Tom Hammond: Yeah, that's great.

[00:16:01] Yael Takomi: Okay. Sofa will go. Eva will go and buy a Volvo. I will want to get the Volvo and not like, you know, a Suzuki, not, not offending anybody, like offending anybody, but if I came to a store and planned to buy a Volvo, just make sure that I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm capable of getting a Volvo.

[00:16:19] It's like, don't show them a level that open only in 100 levels and they'll, it'll take them a week to get there. Show them how it will be like for them to progress in your game. The options like show the options that they have.

[00:16:36] Tom Hammond: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. I wanna rewind just a little bit back to something that you said that I'm, [00:16:43] I want to expand a little bit more on, um, you said kind of the ideal world is marketing with monetization with product.

[00:16:51] So like, what does that actually mean

[00:16:56] Yael Takomi: when you think about a game, how many users do you think actually play or pay, play to in the game?

[00:17:05] Tom Hammond: I mean, I think most people probably don't spend or plan on spending money in the game. Um, you know, typically, um, at some point if it like, becomes their thing, you know, they might be more willing to spend money.

[00:17:23] Like, in some ways I, I think games are a little bit stigmatized. Like I know some people that will go and drop. 10, 15, $20,000 on like a new camera and some like fancy lenses or, you know, drop 10, 20, $30,000 [00:17:43] on all this gear for going out and doing hunting and stuff. And like all these different hobbies I.

[00:17:49] Nobody really caress about that. But like in gaming, if you come in, oh, I spent a hundred dollars last week in this like free to play mobile game that I really love and like that's the thing that I like to do for my hobby of free time. It's like, oh, oh, maybe you shouldn't have done that. Um, so I think there are some players that do have an expectation of wanting to spend because it genuinely makes the thing that they love more fun.

[00:18:15] Um, just like. The photographer buys that, you know, new spiffy lens because it makes the thing that they love more fun. Or the hunter, you know, bought some new gunner or whatever. Um, so I don't think there's anything wrong with spending money, at least in my perspective, but probably most players that come in.

[00:18:34] Aren't coming in just to spend money, they're coming in probably to be entertained to play a game. Right,

[00:18:40] Yael Takomi: exactly. So I think as [00:18:43] games industry, as I see it, is the entertainment industry and it is our job to make sure that you have fun when you're going into games. I think games and like having fun is part of who we are since we are.

[00:18:56] Coming to this world, like people, like what is the first thing that a baby is doing? Learn how to play. So for me, like making a game and building a game is making sure that my game is, is truly fun for the whatever, choose to play my game. And yes, I do believe that sometimes you need, you need to play to have fun, but also it's truly legit if you will not.

[00:19:19] And then, When you think about a really cool way to integrate or monetize, uh, a lot of users into your game that you already brought into your game, I will definitely say that ad monetization is part of that. I'm a true believer and lover in, in the placement. Like in a way that you implement that, that's called Rewarded video.

[00:19:40] Mm-hmm. Because I believe that if [00:19:43] a, if a user is choosing to see an ad, Completely aware of what it's going to do. The product side of things of that, and the monetization side of things of that is like making sure that the product guy or the monetization guy or the ad monetization guys in the studio, each studio or gaming company is doing it differently in the way they set it up.

[00:20:03] Need to sit down and think, okay. When I'm building a feature, a regular feature into my game, I'm thinking about so many things like how to make it fun, how to make it profitable for us as a gaming company, but also for the user to see which gives them, I'm going to give them which currency how many times.

[00:20:21] So when you build a monetization in your game, just make sure that you look at it as the same way as you look at it as different features in the game because it will make you a lot of money. It'll make a lot of fun as well to the players, if you will do it correctly, because my mom, for example, she's playing four games simultaneously.

[00:20:42] Most of [00:20:43] them will be match three. She's waiting to get this ad. Why? Because she just lost the, the session and she don't want to quit the game right now. Mm-hmm. Like, she wants another more try to, to do so, or if she's like in a game that you need to collect stuff and she, she can increase the amount of ingredients that they, that you can have without paying, she will definitely do that.

[00:21:10] Tom Hammond: Okay. So, Let's start with the basics. Let's assume that I have a rewarded video placement in my game and I've got some I A P I wanna make more money from ad monetization. Where should I start? Yale? Yeah, sorry.

[00:21:31] Yael Takomi: I think the first thing that I usually did when I start to think about where to put like a new placement, A new reward even is like going back to basic understand, [00:21:43] okay, I want to make more money, but in the same time I don't want to arm the I A P that I'm already making.

[00:21:50] So what I want to do is try to find a feature or a place in the game that I know I can implement, implemented a placement that will bring me a lot of value. I will control the amount of time that I'm using that in terms of. A user will know we can use it. Sometimes it'll be very beneficial if you will show 'em like a gray area that they can expect that like a add to be load or if you, if you reach your cup, it'll be gray and not disappearing because then it, they will not think it's like a technical issue.

[00:22:25] They will understand that it's there. They will even want to come back to that. So you will gain even more retention. I will start to think about how can I. Implement that in multiple ways. Not only one thing that like motivate them to, like for example, not only [00:22:43] coins, like if you have places in the game that you already want to even switch traffic to and you know that a lot, a lot of users will go there but maybe not spend a lot of time and you can't make money from I a P try to think creatively and say, okay.

[00:23:00] Maybe I have a place that players are getting into like one in 10 levels and they are like for example, cropping something and I can offer another crop for one video. In that video I will make, I don't know, like tons, a lot of players, a lot of money. For me, it's a studio. Do I want to put the time to put their replacement?

[00:23:23] Yeah, for sure. Because, because the rarity of the time that you will see an ad. These ad most probably will be a very expensive one in terms of c p m. Advertisers want to advertise there because it's like a rare user and in the same time, you as a use as a studio will gain that [00:23:43] revenue from ads. Now don't based your ad revenue only on that rare fine.

[00:23:49] Your set of placements need to be like a placement that will be there and will in like will. Maintain a certain amount of ad revenue in terms of multiple watch for a long time period of the day. One placement at least, that will give you a constant of high C P M, meaning that you can show that to the player like two times a day, three times a day, and one that it's really rare to find, and then it can help you about the chase of the game, even I will say.

[00:24:25] It really depend on the genre, but don't try to push a lot, like in terms of, it'll be too much. You will need to do a lot of testers, and it's a, it's really important sentence when you do monetization in your games. It's a long period of time [00:24:43] of testing, like implementing the placement, see the quality of the placement and see if, if users understand what.

[00:24:49] They need to do in terms of if I see, see an ad, do I love the price I'm getting or not? Maybe the economy is not good enough. Maybe if you will change the economy, it'll be better for you because more users will see it. Your economy in the game will not get hurt, so you will gain more as as a studio, maybe I need to show that only once a day.

[00:25:09] Maybe I need to show it like only for specific users, not to all of them. Maybe I want to show them one placement after they already understand. The game itself. Like sometimes, sometimes in a lot of games, you know, we have a lot of boosters, but when you are just getting into the game, you're not necessarily understand which booster can help you do what.

[00:25:30] So you need more time to learn the game. And then after you learn it for a while, you can start teach them the boosters and then show them a way how to use them in a more specific way. Giving them like an ad, showing [00:25:43] them, okay, this is a new booster in our game, have a have a free run on it. You know, like, think, try to be very creativity.

[00:25:50] Create creativity about how you implement that in, in your game in a very fun way. First of all, because we're in a business of fun. Second of all, Look at it like any other feature, how, how the economy works, to which segment I want to show them. And if you choose segments, try to understand how many times and why like sometimes the balance between three ads to four can be a love, a life changing, and sometimes a balance between four to 10 can be like you, you need to build that in a very.

[00:26:25] Test environment way that you'll understand like which placement brought you what and why. Mm-hmm. I will not suggest like implementing all of the placements together, because sometimes it can be really difficult to understand in the test. Like, okay, I implemented free. [00:26:43] Free, yeah, free replacements. What should I do next?

[00:26:45] Like, try to build it in a way that you will see. Quick results, I will call it, but not in a way that you will not know how to measure that if it sounds logic.

[00:26:57] Tom Hammond: Hmm, I see. So almost like, let's say I want to test a single placement for three different segments of players. What I might want to do on the add side of things is actually set up three placements for each of those segments and then send each one to the same basic placement.

[00:27:18] But then I can look back on the platform and see like how did those segments perform against each other kind of a thing.

[00:27:23] Yael Takomi: So yes and no. Like, what I will suggest is like, for example, always have like, you know, ab test, like, uh, a group that, you know, for example, it's a very hard test to do because until now users did, users didn't saw ads, and now you want to bring ads into it.

[00:27:41] So what I will do is [00:27:43] like, let's say, for example, non-paying users that are with us for agents, and we know from our prediction models that they will not pay. So let's take like 20% of that group, show them ads and see what is the difference in the total, in the total, um, of a user for you as a studio.

[00:28:05] Like how much it brought to you, more than. You will never show them ads. Most, probably more, um, like in terms of even if you check retention. So start to check retention. If it's a feature that you built because you think that, uh, like every three hours you're bringing them like a new special thing. For example, if you have a daily bonus and after three hours you allowing them to get more of a daily bonus, one time a day because it's a placement that you want to test.

[00:28:37] So just test if it was worth for you also in a, in economic perspective and a retention perspective, like [00:28:43] try to track everything and try to understand your users really good in terms of to each group you do what? Because it's like you do any other economy in the game. You don't offer to a beginner.

[00:28:58] Something that you offer for somebody that already even paid once or paying every day. It's like, It's like a v i P club. Build it in a way that everybody will feel incentivized to come and see an N. Okay,

[00:29:14] Tom Hammond: here's some, I'm gonna get into some example questions now. Um, what's an example of a placement that maybe you thought would perform well but was just like terrible?

[00:29:29] Yael Takomi: I think in one game I will not use names, but in one game. We really tried, um, to work on a retention perspective. And uh, like we thought that if we will [00:29:43] use a mechanism that we already have a placement in that and didn't work so well in like a promotion, like come have more by like for a special, if we will show that in a way that, you know what, it's free on us, like just c n a or something like this.

[00:30:01] It'll work better. And it was a totally a mess because the users didn't understand what we want from from them. So my learning from this is sometimes you as a game developer really think you got it. Like the message was very clear and it's because we are leaving the games. Like you leave it, you process that, you test that you know the environment that you're living in.

[00:30:25] Like every character for you, it's something, it's like famine. For U for users that most of the time, and I think the industry, it's a well known in the industry that's play multiple games simultaneously. Sometimes for them the message is not clear and we need maybe even to do it like in a [00:30:43] short lyrics, really clear in in terms of UX, ui, like what you want for me to do and why.

[00:30:50] And when you do that, even visually, like if you, you will show them, okay. For example, if it's a booster and you can show them which boosters. An option for them. They will not even read what you read. They will understand what you want. And I think, I think the key here is to think like you're a user. Don't think like a developer.

[00:31:10] Interesting.

[00:31:13] Tom Hammond: Okay. How about on the flip side, what have been some of the best performing placements in terms of like total revenue that you've seen?

[00:31:23] Yael Takomi: One of the best that I saw. Uh, and it was so good. And then we thought about maybe, maybe like we are, you know, won the lottery here, was taking a feature that didn't work well at all in terms of I a p, not in the amount that we thought that, uh, [00:31:43] will gain from that.

[00:31:45] Duplicate the experience that, like for example, if you go to slots machine, uh, games like social casino, you know that users want to come because they want to come and spin something and understand that like they want to spin something because they want to win in something. So we took that, duplicate that into the experience of the placements, show them like, okay, if you won't see an ad, then you will get an opportunity to spin something.

[00:32:10] For example, if we will take the same experience. Then they don't need to pay in order to do, and when they see the options, like they see the wheel turning and they see so many options in getting, if they only see one ad, it's like you're taking a kid and put them in a, in a candy store for them, they're like all, they always wanted to press the button and see like, what is the options that I'm getting right now?

[00:32:34] Can I get like, you know, The big price. Can I get the check bot? Can I get the one sticker that I'm missing in my album? Like, what can I get? Like what [00:32:43] now? So for us, the way to control that is like, make sure that we have high engagement, which we did, and making sure that we, we capping that maybe into only three times a day or four.

[00:32:58] It really depend on the segment because we want them, them to also play the game and not only come and see n n and go. So like if you saw now one ad, that's it. You got what you got most of the time it will give you a chance to play longer in the session or even start the session. Like sometimes it's really expensive to start a level and you really want, like, if you already opened the game, you don't have enough coins.

[00:33:22] Et cetera. So you want to start the session. So I think it's a good solution to give to players like the option to start the session and let them like spend the session there. Even sometimes if they lost in that specific session, when they're really motivated to, to win in, they will go and see a, in order to stay a bit longer.[00:33:43]

[00:33:43] So it's a win-win situation for all of the sites. Like a lot, a lot of my colleagues and friends that open companies will say that sometimes that they felt really not into ad monetization. And now, then when they own owning com companies and understanding that more deeply, they truly understand that if you build it correctly, if you think about it like any other feature, It's a really good feature to use in.

[00:34:11] Yes. It's depend on the genre. Yes, it's dependent on the game itself. It depend on multiple things, but I'm saying that if you already choose to do that, just make sure that you put your user thinking into that and not a developer way of thinking of that. Like you, you put it there also to do a lot of fun to the user and make it worth to him.

[00:34:35] To come and spend like 30 seconds to see an ad to get what he ever wanted to get. But if he will feel that [00:34:43] this 30 seconds will be very beneficial for him, he will come no matter what. And I can put my name on it. Okay.

[00:34:51] Tom Hammond: I have a slew of questions. Um, first question. Um, Ad monetization sounds really great, but I might have a high subset or a probably a small subset of high paying users that want the benefits of ads, but they don't want to pay for them.

[00:35:05] Like should I always have the option of like paying hard currency or something to avoid having to watch that ad, but still getting whatever benefit that ad provides?

[00:35:19] Yael Takomi: I think it's a tricky question because when you have a paying user, you don't want to lose them. It's like when you show them another ad, it's always the risk of them maybe leaving you for another game.

[00:35:32] Mm-hmm. So the way I usually handle this is like testing for a really small group of that users I will not take, I will not take the, [00:35:43] you know, the v i p one, just check if you give them even one at a day with the most. Rewarded price that we have in terms of placements in the game. Like if we have four placements and we think that one of them is good in terms of progression and we can show them like one ad alone and it, in the end of it, it'll make them stay longer in terms of amount of sessions that they will come.

[00:36:10] Mm-hmm. Session length. Maybe it's worth for us to give them only one add to add max per day. Because then they will also pay, but they also see ads, so you will gain twice and it's something that need to be test a lot. I a p like very, i a p heavy clients. Yeah. Well,

[00:36:31] Tom Hammond: I, I was more thinking like, you know, on, on the same, like let's say you have the o option to watch a rewarded ad, but instead of just having to like watch, add to spin the wheel, it'd be like, [00:36:43] You could pay five gems and you can just spin the wheel right now without having to watch the ad.

[00:36:47] Like does it make sense to have the option to like skip the rewarded ad probably paying you more hard currency value than the value you would get for that ad anyway. But like I, as the, you know, user can just kind of bypass that.

[00:37:03] Yael Takomi: I think it's really worth testing because if, like let's say for example, we will take this.

[00:37:09] These users. Users, and we will see that every time they press the, the passing button in the end of it, it left them like leaving the session and not even doing any, any kind of payments again. Mm-hmm. I'm not sure it will. It's will. It's the reaction that you wanted, like when you put this option there.

[00:37:30] Maybe if you will put like only one in a, in a day option to see an ad in order to get to the level again or do whatever we want to do as a developer in terms of, you know, progression. [00:37:43] Maybe in the end of it, it will bring you more money than to put the option there not to do that at all. So I think it's, uh, it's, it need to be test and test really good because when it's I a P players, I will not want to risk that for a currency of an ad.

[00:38:01] Because usually when it's a very heavy paying users, the amount that they will pay will be more beneficial for you, uh, in terms of overall lifetime value than to show them even. Why not? But sometimes no. So it's really depend on how the game is built in which placement you try to do that. So I think it's a, it's a really long test.

[00:38:25] I think most of the time it will be very controversial because you will have people, risky people. It's like the stock market. You'll have people that will say, okay, now it's a really good time to invest. Let's buy everything. You know, we will be rich in three years. And you will have the ones that will say, okay, not now.

[00:38:42] Wait, [00:38:43] like now it's too risky. I don't want to lose my money. So it's really depend on the, I will say D n A. Or the risk level that you want to take in order to test something new and challenge yourself even as a game, because sometimes like games that's running for 12 years already and trying to be creative and trying to be very.

[00:39:06] Innovate and new ways to how can I bring more money and which feature I need to, to do right now in order to gain more money or even to make myself, my, my player stay. Because sometimes, you know, users can, can get bored after a while of playing a game. So sometimes it's worth testing if it's a feature that helps you even, you know, increase retention in a lot of other things, not necessarily in the end of the day.

[00:39:33] The total amount of money that you gain from a specific user, but you're having multiple ways of saying, okay, this user is valuable for me more because you did like longer sessions, [00:39:43] more sessions. Even then it's worth testing. Like I am a big believer in testing. Nobody knows. It's always up to test, like test, test, test until you will find what is good for you as a game, as a company, as a, even, as a, as a project.

[00:39:58] Right now. Maybe it's really good for you right now. In f a year when you will want to rebuild the game, maybe you will feel that displacement is not working anymore for you and you'll need to revert that or like reinvent that.

[00:40:10] Tom Hammond: Yeah. Okay. Um, move on a little bit. Um, so thinking about players and, and you talked a lot about sessions previously, so I wanted to just kind of loop back to this, um, Most players of games, I'm, I'm thinking about, so like when I was playing Clash Royale a lot, um, I would, I don't even know what I had, but it was probably something like eight to 10 sessions a day.

[00:40:37] Right? Yeah. Now a lot of those sessions would be [00:40:43] tied to like logging in to open a chest and to get a new one opening. Uh, 'cause at some point, if you're sitting there and you're not unlocking a chest, you're just kind of like, Wasting, you know, valuable time. Um, and so like, I think in the case of those sessions, I had no intention of playing the game.

[00:41:01] Uh, I just like logged in to like collect my thing and open the next chest. Um, other sessions, like, again, I wasn't planning on playing the game, but I had to log in to do like my clan war battle or like support my clan mates or, or something like that. And then other times, you know, it'd be like later at night or, or wherever, um, you know, I would log in with the intention of actually playing the game, and then I would play the game.

[00:41:28] Do you think that it is worth the effort to go through and try to figure out, um, what are the goals of each of these different types of Sessions? Sessions and then trying to figure out, [00:41:43] can we have a placement that makes that session more valuable? So in the case of. Playing the game, maybe it would be more valuable for me to have the option after I win a game where instead of having to play another game, now this might hurt engagement, so I might not wanna do this, but you know, would it make sense to be like, Hey, you got a really nice chest.

[00:42:06] Would you like to just have two of those chests for watching rewarded ad right now? Or, Hey, you came in and you wanted to unlock a chest right? Now. What if you, uh, watch this ad and now I'll let you unlock two chest at once. Or, um, you're playing one of the live ops event modes and you lost, you know, would you like to have a free entry for, you know, going?

[00:42:28] And so those are maybe, maybe like two or three different. Options of like potential placements or like, does it make sense to try to figure out what is the goal of this session for these players and [00:42:43] match a, a, you know, rewarded ad to it so that ideally I'm getting like one view per session, more or less.

[00:42:49] Yael Takomi: I think if you have the manpower to do that. Yeah, for sure. Because it's like you'll ask me. Like my friends call me Ellie, if you'll ask me, Ellie, do you want more money to buy more houses? And I will say, yeah, for sure. Then just let me know how. You know, it's like when you building a game, your holy grill is like, I want my players to always come into my game.

[00:43:10] It's like, this is your holy grill. And if you know there are coming for eight to nine sessions and each session length are pretty different. Try to stimulate that in a way that, okay, if you coming from a, a session, like if I know to back at a lot of users that their behavior is pretty much the same and they're coming for, like in the fourth session, they're coming only for five minutes because they're having their, the coffee break at work or something.

[00:43:41] So try to bring [00:43:43] them like a reward that will stimulate that, that sanction length. Like for example, if it's five minutes, Don't try to bring them a reward that they will need to, they can use it only in two levels or three levels or something that can make them spend 15 minutes when they choose to, to spend five.

[00:44:00] If you, if you can give them like a reward that will maybe make them stay six minutes instead of five, then they will see the ads and they will stay a bit longer, not longer, like not 15 minutes, but the other, but the other one minutes, maybe make them even pay in the end of it. Because you gave them something free, now they won and now they're having like a hype of feeling that, okay, I won, maybe I want to stay a bit, you know,

[00:44:25] Tom Hammond: it, it's almost like, um, adventure capitalist where I came in to play that game.

[00:44:32] And I'm offered the ability to watch an ad to double the money that I make while I'm playing. So it's almost like if I only have five minutes, watching a 32nd ad is gonna take away [00:44:43] 10% of my time. So it's gotta make. The extra four and a half minutes, so much better than it would've been, you know, to just play without watching that kind of, kind of that deal.

[00:44:54] Yael Takomi: Think about like, um, it's like every time I'm thinking about progression in games or like what I can gain in terms of what I can give, it's like I'm a Gucci a bit like you remember, you spend so many hours along the day. Nourish that animal, which of us choose whatever it is. And then when, when you went to sleep, everything went calm, boom.

[00:45:13] It's like you, you got up and the animal is done. So I think that you need to find a system of how, how I understand my players good enough to being able to offer them what you truly think. Will be valuable for them because in the end of the day, yes, they will come for 10 sessions, not in all the 10 sessions.

[00:45:35] They will come for the same reason and none, none in the, all over the 10 of them. Even if I'm a paying user, I will pay, but if [00:45:43] I, if I will find a way to see n a and pay like this because I felt that this 10 k that you gave me can help me build another resource that I'm trying to build for a long time now, and I got it.

[00:45:56] Specifically right now. So yes, they will spend the time and truly believe that they will stay there.

[00:46:03] Tom Hammond: Cool. Okay, so we're running a little long time here, but, um, I wanted to run through this, uh, idea of like, how do we tie analytics into figuring out like which placement makes the most sense to. Spend time investing in spend.

[00:46:19] Um, and so I've heard this concept before and I'm curious if you kind of agree with it. So how it was kind of laid out to me was, okay, let's pretend that we want to improve ad monetization and Candy Crush. Um, so one potential. View might be to say, Hey, let's add a placement [00:46:43] where after someone loses five lives, they have the option to watch an ad, to get another life and to keep playing.

[00:46:50] Um, I've heard that is actually a bad placement. Why? Well, if we look at the metrics that these are artificial numbers, so I don't know how accurate they are, but let's pretend of the a hundred players that come into Candy Crush. Let's say maybe 70 of them actually play a level of those 70, how many even play five levels?

[00:47:15] Maybe 30. 40. How many of those, you know, 30 or 40 people actually lose all five of their lives? You know, maybe let's be like half of them. So we're now at like 10, maybe 20 people. And how many of those people like to use that? Um, Moment of losing five lives is a, a natural session break to, you know, give it up.

[00:47:37] Let's assume we lose another, like 50% of the people. So at the end of the day, like maybe that [00:47:43] placement would be shown to five people and of the people that get it shown to, like how many are actually gonna choose to engage with it. Like, are we gonna be down to like two or three people actually watching that ad outta the a hundred that came in?

[00:47:55] Um, versus what if we. Figured out what sort of placement could we offer at like the beginning of the journey and to try to get, let's see, 70 people to watch that ad, um, to provide them all value as they're kind of going into it. Um, do you agree with that same sort of like analysis of figuring out like how many people can actually get to this ad to watch it where it'll actually be valuable

[00:48:18] Yael Takomi: to them?

[00:48:20] I totally agree to understand what is the value that you are getting. It's, it's going back to again, like think like you're a user. Like I think people are really don't love to lose. Or if you look at the casino, for example, like people going into the casino, how many people do you see putting a coin into the, to the [00:48:43] machine and losing and then doing it again and again and again and again.

[00:48:47] Pretty much most of them, right? Because if not most of us will be rich right now. Um, So what it's like, I will ask you what is the chance that this specific user will want or this specific person that's sitting inside the, the casino will want to put another coin just to, just for the small shots of him becoming the next millionaire.

[00:49:11] Most probably it. It's a big chance because this is why casinos are still here with us and I think a lot of placements that when you put them. You start to think about, okay, what will be the best moti mo motivation led to death placement? Do I want to go to a, a placement that offers something? Because I feel right now as a user that I lost and I will give, I will be giving the possibility to try again and maybe win.

[00:49:42] Or [00:49:43] do I want to give them more than what I already brought them to? Like for example, double to your daily bonus. Or do I want to give them like, uh, like show them that if they will see an ad, the possibility of them getting a bigger price, it's there. Like they need just it helping them to progress to that level.

[00:50:01] It's really depend as a company. As a team that's sitting usually on that, what do you think will be the best motivation to put the placement on that and the way, usually you look at the placement and understand if it's a good placement or not. It's first of all, engagement rate. Like everything in life you can think it'll be a good feature, but maybe when you put it already to the market or a product then then it doesn't really matter how we will.

[00:50:27] Which genre we were speaking. When you put yourself out into the market, let users tell you what they think about that. Like if you will see high engagement rate, but really low impression rate, then you know, okay, it's a good idea to [00:50:43] go to, but I need to find a place in the game that I will get more impression rate all outta it.

[00:50:50] If you see like, I think the first metric will be okay, it's a shitty placement because engagement rates are pretty low, but I'm getting like thousands of it. I'm not sure that I will say as, as an expertise, the field will say, okay, leave that placement. We can fix it later. It's really depends if, and then you can start to deep dive even longer and say, okay, I am that placement to be on 60% and it's on 45 maybe if I will.

[00:51:18] Improve the economy around it, then users will use it more. So I will leave that placement as it is, but just change the, the economy around it. But if I will see very low engagement, like really low in terms of where I am, that to be like 20 compared to 60. Mm-hmm. I'll understand that. Maybe it's not Worthing, my time and effort in terms of [00:51:43] product analytics, monetization, and.

[00:51:47] Like teams that need to think together on how to implement that, maybe I need to find a different motivation that I want to build my placement on.

[00:51:59] That's

[00:51:59] Tom Hammond: great. Okay. Well, I know we're pretty much out of time here, so I only have one last question for you. Um, go for it. Well, we are on the Master Retention Podcast. Of course. So what's one tip or trick or lesson you've or learned over the years to help improve retention? Like how do you keep your players coming back and, and playing day after day?

[00:52:18] Yael Takomi: I think don't, don't, don't be afraid to challenge yourself on thinking like, I know most of us are like looking, okay, this is what the top players are doing in the industry, but the top players are like, start somewhere. So don't be afraid of trying to invent something that you think will work. It's really okay to, to test and fail.

[00:52:38] Like I think most of us are learning better when we are failing. [00:52:43] Mm-hmm. But also don't try to always do the next big thing trying because sometimes when you complicated too much things, users don't understand what you want. So, Try to be interested, innovative, and fun because I, I want to remind everybody that we're in the entertainment industry, don't try to do it too complicated to understand, like build it in a way that users will, will want to know, like get, get better, want to, uh, be better at it even, and like, don't, don't complicated things basically.

[00:53:19] Tom Hammond: That's awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Um, if folks do have any questions about, you know, the podcast or how they can, you know, make better use of, uh, Facebook, uh, metas type stuff, is there a good way to, to get in contact?

[00:53:36] Yael Takomi: So meta has its own way of how they are like doing things.

[00:53:39] We have a process, so you need, you will need to go into the [00:53:43] process, but if you have questions of my own, you know, understanding of things that we'll always here to help. Awesome.

[00:53:51] Tom Hammond: Cool. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. All right.