American developer NimbleBit has been a pioneering force in mobile games since the company’s inception back in 2002.
They’ve kept millions of players’ thumbs busy with a raft of successful titles including Pocket Frogs, Pocket Planes and Disco Zoo, as well as working with global giants such as LEGO.
As if that’s not enough, NimbleBit also publishes and grows third-party games meaning they’re regarded as one of the most established companies in the gaming industry.
But something wasn’t working.
Objective:
Help NimbleBit re-invigorate a loved yet stagnating legacy game portfolio.
With lead title Tiny Tower having amassed such a devoted following, any alterations to the game had to keep fans happy. The first stages of implementation consisted of creating a roadmap of deliverables for the LiveOps team, pinpointing the quick wins and updating analytical SDKs (software development kits) to help assess current metrics within the game.
Implementing new LiveOps while boosting monetization
SuperScale took a deep dive into Tiny Tower, immediately identifying ways to significantly boost revenue with updated monetization. As soon as we ran these changes (see point 1), both ads/DAU and ad conversion drastically improved, tripling ad revenue from the previous baseline.
LiveOps was another area where we made significant updates. After fine-tuning the game’s mechanics and implementing data tracking, we started to deliver custom-built special offers within the game. Result? An increase in long-term IAP revenue (see point 2 below) and a further increase in total revenue.
Longer term we wanted to create an event system whereby individual events can rotate semi-automatically. Below, you can see that in two periods where in-game events came into play, revenue increased by up to 300% at times.
How post-IDFA user acquisition (UA) strategies increased daily revenue by 59%
Before iOS scaling, our teams here at SuperScale worked together on:
- Correct SKAN implementation.
- Data health confirmation.
- Preparation of methods for valid evaluation of iOS UA performance.
- Creation of an optimal profitable UA channel mix.
Once we’d put all this into action, the goal was to begin scaling in tier 1 countries. With SKAN now successfully in place, SuperScale helped Tiny Tower scale profitably on the iOS platform through multiple UA channels.
How ASO improvements improved Google Play Store ranking
SuperScale spent the first month looking at several ASO-related factors including:
- Competitor analysis: Looking at the frequency of ASO updates and A/B tests.
- Keyword research: Short and long descriptions as well as title changes.
- Creative angle research of screenshots, icons and featured graphics.
- Store localization opportunities.
- Rankings across different categories and similar app visibility.
If that sounds complex, it is. Our multi-skilled team rose to the challenge, using this analysis to come up with a number of ways to increase organic traffic on the Google Play Store. We saw strong results from optimizing the app name, screenshots and store listing localization. The biggest impact on traffic came from keyword analysis and optimization, and implementing long and short descriptions. Detailed work but very worth it.
Tiny Tower, huge results
Taking on a challenge as multi-leveled as the iconic game itself, we saw impressive KPI rises across multiple fronts:
- +151% overall revenue growth: $4.5m
- 4x eCPM increase
- +25% rewarded video conversion increase (absolute)
- +30% revenue within the first three months of LiveOps
(not short-term spikes, but a general increase of the revenue) - +32% DAU
- D90 100% ROAS
- +100 positions jump in App Store category rankings
- +706% Google Play Explore traffic
- +24% Google Search traffic
- +0.9% conversion rate (organic)
At SuperScale we always build for long term success. To date, our partnership with Tiny Tower and Nimblebit is still going from strength to strength.
