Using Variables to Deliver More Value To Players Via Live Services
Today’s mobile game players expect an exciting experience personalized to their needs and behavior. They want games to understand them and respond in real-time to what they’re doing within the game — whether it be specific characters they’re chasing or bundles that help them move past difficult levels. This quality of player experience brings more engagement and, ultimately, increased revenue and retention.
Enter: Leanplum variables. Studios can apply variables to a range of use cases to provide players with optimized experiences that drive greater LTV. We spoke with Tilting Point’s Andre Cohen to share where they’ve successfully applied variables to enhance the player experience. Let’s review some of those applications.
Static game elements become dynamic for customization
Changing the code for static elements of your game can be an arduous process without the right tools. But imagine what you’d be able to accomplish with the freedom to change game content without the need for excessive developer involvement.
After your initial technical integration of Leanplum Variables into the key areas of your game, non-technical business users can quickly change your game design for better player engagement. For example, you can create a progress tracker and modify the look and feel for different player events and challenges.
Similarly, using A/B testing, you can tailor variables by player segment to create a more personalized player experience, sending messages, content, and offers that are most relevant and appealing to those players.
You’re also able to test and use the results to learn which aspects of your campaigns resonate with your players — even creating entire holdout groups with variables.
Use Variables to Control 3rd Party SDK’s
Third-party integrations enable your studio to control aspects of your game by turning SDK integrations on or off without requiring developer resources on hand.
Product teams can quickly launch and test new game elements without having to wait for development pipelines or redeploy the game altogether — increasing speed to value/market.
If you use a Game Server or back-end system for configuration, Leanplum can integrate with it to turn events and sales on and off as needed. Synchronize your campaigns with holdback groups and audience segments ready for push and in-app message targeting. This way, you can fully control, adjust, and experiment with your campaigns.
With remote configuration using Leanplum variables, the team at Tilting Point set up customizations they wanted to potentially implement for the future. As an example, when IDFA and SKADNetwork for iOS 14 rolled out, there was no SDK using that technology. However, Tilting Point knew that eventually, many of their ad network partners would adopt it. Using Leanplum variables enabled Tilting Point to gain insights as to who the early adopters were, and the agility to quickly turn the network integration on or off, ultimately driving faster speed to insights and value for the Tilting Point team.
Enhanced personalization for higher LTV
With variables, you can build campaigns, offers, and in-app messages that show different content based on the individual player.
On top of that, you can customize what’s displayed in your storefront by audience segment. For example, you can show different prices for coin bundles or award different point amounts for the same price.
Tilting Point uses this capability to offer fair pricing to game players. For example, players in locations where a dollar buys more may get more points for their purchase than places where a dollar buys less.
Markers for advanced analytics
You can also use variables to add custom markers to players and move that data from Leanplum to your analytics platform.
As another example from Tilting Point, if you want to identify minnows, dolphins, and whales in your game, you can use Leanplum to define and configure the variables to the correct values and segment them. The data can, then, flow to your analytics solution.
An easier way to optimize your game experience
Leanplum variables help you deploy game updates and launch new elements without requiring heavy development resources to edit code or re-release your game.
Variables empower your product team to test and experiment and gain insights that let you enhance your player experience for optimal engagement and increased revenue and monetization.
Interested in learning more? Check out some of our additional resources:
- Watch the full interview with Andre Cohen in our on-demand webinar, LiveOps to Lift ARPU.
- See how you can use Leanplum Variables and Remote Configuration for your LiveOps events in our webinar with MobilityWare, LiveOps on a Shoestring Budget.
- Read about engagement and personalization strategies that impact retention and revenue in our Games Data Science Report.
- Get an inside peek at how to leverage the Leanplum platform to personalize your gaming experiences by taking our Product Tour.
- See Leanplum in action with a complimentary personalized Product Demo.
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For app-first companies, Leanplum is the only solution that helps personalize and optimize all customer touchpoints, both inside and outside the app. Leanplum combines multi-channel Lifecycle Marketing with the ability to A/B test the Product Experience for complete, end-to-end personalization of the mobile journey. Break down organizational silos and eliminate point solutions to enable rapid growth.
