Keynote speech at GDC China 2012, by Leo Cui, founder & CEO, TalkingData

1. How  to  Define  Just  Right  KPIs  for  Game 
Operation 



TalkingData  Leo  Cui 


2. TalkingData  Product  Line 
TalkingData  TalkingData  TalkingData 
Analytics  Campaign  Insight 
• Third-party  mobile  app  • Mobile  app  campaign  • Personalized 
statistical  analysis  tools  monitoring  and  recommendation  engine/
assessment  platform  data  mining  service 
• Professional  mobile  app 
data  analysis/consulting  • iOS  monitoring  tool  • Forecast  model  and 
service  released  in  Jun,  2012 
emulation  service 
• Specialized  product  and  • Currently  tracking  about 
1  million  valid  app  • User  attributes  tagging 
methodology  for  mobile 
games  activations  per  day  in  and  preferences  mining 
App  Store  service 
 “TalkingData  is  a  professional  data  service  platform  for  mobile  applications,  serving  2,500+
 active  apps  presently，with  almost  1,000  apps  are  mobile  games” 

3. • TalkingData  Analytics  is  the  fastest  growing  mobile  data 
analysis  platform,  already  covering  over  5  millions  devices  6 
months  after  the  official  release.  Monthly  growth  rate  holds  at 
above  100% 
TalkingData  analytics  official 
release  published  in  May,  2012, 
the  right  timing  to  witness  the 
30M  high  growth  of  mobile  Internet 
in  China. 
14M 
7M 
1M  3M 
2012.5  2012.6  2012.7  2012.8  2012.9 

4. Game  developers 
Mobile  game  developers  facing  "data  dilemma"  need  continuous  data 
analysis  to  enhance 
products 
Operation  based  on 
 data  through  out  the Most  developers  don't 
 whole  game  life  cycle
 have  professional 
knowledge  to  analyze 
data  systematically,  and 
in  the  mean  time,  facing 
Whale  users  Game  balance 
Mobile  game the  pressure  of  tight 
 developer  schedule,  high  costs  of 

Paying  player man  power  and 
 conversion  Virtual Game  release  hardware 
  Economy 
Props  purchase  stats 
 ...   How  many  registrations? 
Player  conversion/retention  Data
  How  about  DAU、MAU  ? 
 Platform  ……. 
Campaign  result  tracking  
Joint  operation
/release  Game  improvement 
App  store  tracking 
Player  levels/progresses 
Marketing  campaign  players  classified  by  their 
 activeness 

5. Game  vendors'  favorite  game  types  are  changing 
Casual  games  are  gradually  falling  out  of  favor  evidenced  by  the  number 
of  games,  while  strategy  and  RPG  games  are  becoming  hotter  since  they 
are  more  suitable  for  revenue  generating  through  IAP 
Data  source:  “Mobile  App  Data  Analysis  Q3  Report  2012  ",  joint  released  by  TalkingData  and  NetEase 
100%
75%
50%
25%
0%
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Casual
RPG
Strategy

6. New  player  day  10  retention  of  different  types  of  games 
Desktop  games  excelling  at  retention,  with  more  well  polished 
products;  more  rough  ones  in  other  types  of  games,  especially  RPG, 
dragging  down  the  whole  average  rate. 
Data  source:  “Mobile  App  Data  Analysis  Q3  Report  2012  ",  joint  released  by  TalkingData  and  NetEase 
100.0%
75.0%
50.0%
25.0%
0.0%
New
+1
+2
+3
+4
+5
+6
+7
+8
+9
+10
players
Strategy
AcEon
RPG
Casual
Puzzle
Desktop

7. Life  time  distribution  of  diff.  types  of  games 
Hard  core  players  usually  have  shorter  life  time,  therefore  need  to  be  motivated  by 
continuous  flow  of  new  contents.  Desktop  games  have  more  well  defined  playing  routes, 
but  with  lots  of  variations,  and  have  higher  player  stickiness. 
Data  source:  “Mobile  App  Data  Analysis  Q3  Report  2012  ",  joint  released  by  TalkingData  and  NetEase 
60.00% 
50.00% 
40.00% 
Strategy 
30.00%  Action 
RPG 
20.00% 
Casual 
10.00%  Puzzle 
Desktop 
0.00% 

8. User  preferences  aggregation  distribution  research  – 
hard  core  player 
Data  source:  TalkingData  data  mining  research  team 
40.00% 
35.00% 
战略 
休闲 
30.00% 
射击 
体育 
25.00% 
动作 
益智 
20.00% 
角色扮演 
冒险 
15.00% 
棋牌 
养成 
10.00% 
经营 
模拟器 
5.00% 
网游 
0.00% 
角色扮演  射击游戏  动作游戏  战略游戏 

9. KPI！=Superficial  metrics 
• Superficial  metrics 
– Cannot  be  changed 
– Non-executable  Fine  Superficial 
– Lack  of  benchmark  operation  metric 
• KPI  Downloads 
– Focusing  on  commercial  Cost/
purpose  Revenue  Registration 
– Approved  by 
Conversion 
management  rate  DAU 
– Executable 
– Benchmark  available 

10. CAC
VS
LTV？
• Free
• Virally
• campaign
Mone%za%on
(LTV)
Customer
Acquisi%on
cost
(CAC)

11. KPI   needs  standardized  metrics  definition 
Acquisition  Activation  Retention 
ACQ = F(Campaign,channel, ACT = F(First time Experience， RET = F(User guide，
Users，CAC, Conv%) Usage,Design/UX) operation，task，alert)
• Install
/
Sign-­‐ups
• DAU
• DAU/MAU
By
campaign/channel
• MAU
• RetenEon
CAC（Channel）
• Next
Day
AcEviEes
1
day/
Conversion
（Channel）
• Usage
7day
• Organic
Users
Login
Emes
30day
• MarkeEng
Users
Login
length
• Engagement
• Click
-­‐to-­‐
Install
-­‐to-­‐
Sync
• Monthly
AcEve
Days
Monthly
Logins
per
User
• Fake
Users
LifeEme
sessions
• New
User
PercepEon
1～10-­‐day
acEvity
aer
PercepEon
by
Channel
Install
• User
lifeEme

12. KPI  for  AARRR 
Revenue  Refer 
REV = F(Charge trap,whale, REF = F(Excitation,UX)
Conv%)
• ARPU（Monthly）
• K-­‐factor
• Invites
• ARPPU（Avg.
Revenue
per
Paying
User
Per
DAU
• LTV
（lifeEme
value）
Per
who
send
invite
• Virtual currency purchased/spent
• Invite
accept（%）
By
level/By
date
• Times
By
type
By
types
purchased
Massages
• Paying
users（%）
E-­‐mail
• New
paying
users
• Cohort
by
invitee
• Time/level
of
first
charge
Revenue
• Whale
ARPU

13. KPI  Model-  needs  professional  methodology 
• Ads/Campaigns 
• Social  Networks  • Publisher 
• PR/Forum/Download  sites 
• Apps  Store(New/update)  • Traffic  exchange 
• SEO/SEM 
• Lowest  price  promotion, 
Limited  Free  • EDM 
ACQUISITION 
• Excitation 
• Viral 
Emails  &  Guide  、  first 
Alerts  time 
 experience 
n tion
Rete
• User  guide 
• Task  Ads、IAP、
Freemium 
Degree  of 
difficulty,  time, 
interests 

14. Red
Infinity
was
established
in
2010
and
has
rich
experience
in
product
development
and
publishing.
The
company
has
become
one
of
the
industry
Make money？
leaders
in
just
one
year.
Metrics-driven design
SNS,，SLG，Poker，Puzzle
MAU 4,000,000

15. Versions
IniEal
release：Sep
14,
2012
Current
version：Nov
1,
2012
Descrip%on
★
TouchArcade.com
HOT
NEW
GAME
★
Puzzle
+
BaCle
+
Collec%on
+
EDU

16. 
Test
in
App
store，Without
MarkeEng.

17. KPI How
to
op%mize?
Dashboards and Alerts – Why did it Happen? – Advantage - Dashboards
n DAU
n Day 1 retention
n Day 7 retention
n Virtual income
n Marketing Users 

18. The most Important Metric between Initial release.
n The first experience 
n WHY？ It’s been relatively Low 
Day 1 Retention Alert
Avg. 18.2%

19. Bad Day 1 retention，but kind of okay after day 2. Cause: new players 
Why？

20. Sign up
Connect
Loading

21. Bad Connetion
Abruptly  lost 
introduction 

22. What can I do？
n Move to more reliable data center
n Consider domestic and overseas server distribution
n Simplify introduction, less steps
n Embellish introduction
Advantage
n Polish pet UI to make it more attractive 

23. Difficulty？ Operation.
n Daily awards 
n Know players progress 
n Pay attention to degree of difficulty of early levels 

24. n Daily task
n Login bonus
n Scheduled copy
n Bonus pet
n Friends aid
Only 9 %，WHY？

25. Difficulty？

26. Make more money.
n A/B test 
n Drill down 
n Whale 

28. What’s your
opinions?
Extra
gems?
Bonus
pets?

29. Is  it  possible  to  let 
more  players  make 
purchase  earlier? 
Compared  to  revenue 
graph,  purchase  is 
distributed  more  balanced 
and  forwarding 

30. Talkingdata  Game  Analytics 
Standardized  metrics 
Alarm  monitoring 
Immense  visual  appeal  –  
Premade  PowerPoint  Templates 

31. 数据运营之路依然漫长！ 
TalkingData  Game  Analytics 
Data  mining 
•  Statistics  (regression  analysis,  association 
analysis) 
•  Forecast  model  (revenue/active  users) 
Data  analysis
 •  Pattern  recognition  (Probability  of  loss, 
probability  of  paying) 
•  user  segmentation  (specific  user  group  analysis) 
•  multi-dimensional  analysis  (multiple  dimensions  combo  analysis) 
•  cohort  analysis  (time  slice  analysis) 
Data  statistics

•  A/B  Test  (functional  analysis) 
•  Standard  reports  (something  wrong  with  the  game?) 
•  Custom  reports  (find  problem:  when?  where?  who?) 
•  Metrics  monitoring  (need  any  action?) 

32. Sina  micro-blog:  Leo_Cui 
 Web:  www.talkingdata.net 
Thank  You