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Retention rate how is it calculated? (18)

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Hi everyone,

Most mobile game install offers have condition like:

D1 retention rate >/= 25%, pay the full price.
D1 retention rate 20%-25%, pay 80% of the full price.
D1 retention rate 10-20%, pay 50% of the full price.
D1 retention rate less than 10%, won't be paid at all

I thought D1 means Day 1 so I went to confirm with my AM.

She told me retention rate is calculated network wide at the end of the month. So if the average retention rate is below 10% network wide, we all don't get paid since they won't be paid by advertiser.

I need a confirmation from those who have promoted game offers before .. in case I spend time optimizing a campaign and not get paid.

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I'd never run an app install campaign under these conditions because you have no idea if others are sending bad quality traffic to the offer as well. I find it is odd that the retention rate is network wide, this sounds to me like the offer is brokered. Many app install campaigns I run my AM can tell me how just my traffic is performing, they normally just ask me to pass back something for each traffic source.

Hope this helps

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I dont have this experience either, I was pushing app installs through 3 different networks and none of them actually bothered me with retention rate all that much. My Appflood manager did ask me to do some quality improvements a few times, but it was always related to my own traffic and not network-wise.

On top of that, since I was paid weekly usually, how could they calculate my payout rate at the end of the month?

This sounds a bit weird to me. Truth to be told, Im not running app installs for some time now, so maybe the terms have changed, but as dudeman79x said, I would also never run anything in AM under these conditions.

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@dudeman79x @matuloo

Thanks for both your valuable input. I'll run something else to be safe.

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You're welcome.

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It's a little bizarre to hear this to be honest - holding you accountable for the network retention rate for the network seems more than a little unfair.

I would talk to your AM and see if you can send an identifier for your source so that you can optimize with the advertiser or get feedback on what placements are performing. But as said above, this should be on an individual basis not based on the network performance.

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Please out the network. This is BS.

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I agree. let check them off the list.

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Could you elaborate as to how you'd increase your quality in order to get a better RR?

Thanks

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@goldenjo : e.g. by not using a shitty backbutton script which kinda forces user to install an App he doesn't want to install ;-)

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Yes, this would be one option

Basically, make sure the user knows what they are about to install and dont mislead them too much. You need to learn how to walk on the fine line. Because if you are totaly honest and dont exaggerate a little bit, the CVR will be too low for you to profit. You can also use traffic types that usually deliver better quality - banners VS pops for example. A good tactic is also to mix it. So a bit of misleading angles, then a bit of fair angles so the quality evens up a bit. Same for the traffic sources/types, mix bad ones with really good ones.

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If you want to have a good laugh, look at the new KPI I received today from a network for the 360 offer:

With this kind of KPI, running this offer is more or less equal to agreeing "No prob guys, I have no problem never getting payed full payout".

It's especially a shame when running FB or Adwords, which cost you a LOT more than crappy pops... you pay more for your traffic and you need crazily high RR to get payed what was agreed !!!

Now obviously I'm clearly against shitty workflow (e.g. backbutton scripts to force install, you have virus when you don't have any...etc) and shitty RR, but there is an entire world between a "standard" RR (lots of networks states in the 20-30% as being normal), and a RR which basically translates into "well we have set the RR so high that if for some reason we don't want to pay, we'll just say your RR wasn't above 88% as we know you have close to zero chance of being above this anyway".

Cheers,

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These are unacceptable conditions for sure. No payment with retention rate below 75%??? Gimme a break. Who is this lovely network?

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These are unaccaptable conditions because for the simple reason you shouldn't be held accountable for a job other pubs are doing.
D1 indeed means day 1 and is calculated as: number of people that open the app on day 2 divided by the total number of installs delivered.

Two years ago you could still get away with delivering bad quality installs as advertisers were just looking for installs and didnt care so much about quality OR mostly, because they didnt have the right technology & tools to track post-install metrics, retention rates and user engagement. Those days are (unfortunately) over so every network -and its affiliates- need to focus on delivering high-quality traffic but at the same time not foresaking the volumes from the good old days.

Those retention rate requirements as mentioned by mrneko are pretty standard and are normal, achievable targets. But they should be based on your traffic and your traffic only, NEVER on compiled group of pubs. Your traffic/business has nothing to do with someone's else's traffic. I would suggest to pass on this offer.

Important when working with retention rates, is that you get daily input or at least 2-3 times per week on how you are doing, so that you can calculate your revenues and the margins you are making.
In the example of mrneko, I would suggest to start off slow with the traffic and seey what your D1 RR looks like. If you are above 25% start upscaling and filtering in some lower-quality traffic sources in order to just hit 25%ish so you get full payment + optimal volumes

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Well that's in an ideal world... needless to say that the world isn't ideal and most of the time you'll have to deal with 1 RR check update per week, which is non-sence imho... to reduce the risk I have to split my traffic between networks instead of scaling with one which would do its job and ask for RR check every other day when an Adv. is scaling...

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Hi wiifmdude,

We provide feedback on monday, wednesday and friday to our affiliates about traffic quality so if that can help you upscale your $$$/day further, I'd love to talk about this in more detail of course.

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Interesting discussion with an AM this morning:

Talk about fun with App Installs !!! Only 2 out of 3 guys get payed as agreed! (and I can tell from experience that in that precise case... the lowish RR is due to the App being crap... not really the traffic quality)

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it shouldn't affect the entire network that's why each account has its own ID so ADV can distinguish between the different sources.
if one of the sources didn't meet the ADV KPI than the ADV can decide not to pay (as long as the KPI's are specified).

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