How NetEase Games boosted revenue 6x by optimizing its Tapjoy offerwall strategy

NetEase Games is a leading international video game developer and publisher, known for hits like Marvel Rivals, Once Human, Knives Out, and Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. When the NetEase Games team was looking to boost its revenue from Octopath Traveler, its partners at Unity suggested optimizing their Tapjoy offerwall.

Yusha Guo, Monetization Manager at NetEase Games, explains how enhancing their offerwall promotions - adding pop-ups and increasing their exchange rate - multiplied revenue by over 6x.

Exploring new currency sale strategies

NetEase Games had a promising monetization strategy - the team utilized Tapjoy offerwall, participating in currency sales (time-limited holiday promotions) throughout the year. But when NetEase Games was looking for more ways to monetize its Octopath Traveler players, the Unity team suggested two main ways to optimize currency sales: pop-up notifications and a higher exchange rate.

While NetEase Games was on board with these optimizations, it had concerns about cannibalizing its in-app purchase strategy. To address these concerns, the Tapjoy from Unity team explained the value of adding pop-up notifications and increasing its offerwall exchange rates, showing how they can both lead to higher engagement and completion rates. The Unity team also produced a comparison of currency sale strategies with and without these optimizations, in order to present the monetization potential.

“To make sure we felt confident optimizing our currency sale strategy, the Unity team took time to demonstrate their unique benefits” - Yusha Guo, Monetization Manager at NetEase Games

Once the NetEase Games team was on board for making the optimizations, it prepared for the next currency sale set for Thanksgiving.

Implementing currency sale optimizations

Supported by the Unity team, NetEase Games was able to implement the optimizations very quickly - just in time for the upcoming promotion. To help NetEase Games design a pop-up, the Unity team showed them successful pop-ups for reference, suggesting their pop-ups have a relevant festive Thanksgiving theme.

Additionally, in order to maximize conversions, the Unity team suggested the pop-ups include two key elements: extending the duration of the currency sale, and adding a countdown feature to draw attention to the end of the sale. And to help players reach the offerwall with maximum ease, they recommended the pop-ups link directly to the offerwall page.

“Once we started changing our currency sale setup, the Unity team walked us through every step of the process” - Yusha Guo, Monetization Manager at NetEase Games

NetEase Games used an exchange rate multiplier of 1.5x. The Unity team suggested going a bit higher with 2x, so they quickly made the change on the Tapjoy offerwall dashboard. To set the promotion up for maximum success, the Unity team also let top advertisers know to increase their bids and keep an eye out for Octopath Traveler on the offerwall.

Enjoying a significant revenue boost

After implementing these optimizations for the Thanksgiving currency sale, the NetEase Games team saw immediate results. Compared to its most recent currency sale during Halloween, revenue and ARPDAU skyrocketed - jumping 6x during Thanksgiving - with no impact on their in-app purchase revenue.

Thanks to the pop-ups and higher exchange rate, user engagement with the offerwall skyrocketed - there was a 4x jump in daily active users. In fact, once Octopath Traveler players had become used to the offerwall pop-ups, NetEase Games saw even higher revenue during the Christmas period.

Thanks to their collaboration and trust in the Tapjoy from Unity team, the NetEase Games team found new and improved ways to increase revenue, raising its confidence in the ability to monetize with offerwall. This newfound confidence allows the team to explore new ways to grow. In fact, it plans to make the same adjustments to its currency sales in different geos.

“We look forward to our continued partnership with the Tapjoy from Unity team, and exploring new ways to reach new growth milestones” - Yusha Guo, Monetization Manager at NetEase Games