Nexters is a mobile gaming studio based in Cyprus. Founded in 2010, they’re known for hits like Hero Wars, Throne Rush, and Chibi Island.
Anton Kvashnevskiy, Business Development Manager at Nexters, explains how A/B testing a new exchange rate on their offerwall helped increase the game’s overall eCPM 50% and revenue 40%. Here’s how they did it.
Testing a new exchange rate
“To maximize revenue for Hero Wars, we knew we needed to increase our offerwall exchange rate, which is the ratio between our virtual currency and dollars. But we were concerned that increasing our offerwall rewards and bringing more traffic to apps advertising in Hero Wars might result in higher churn. To make sure it wouldn’t, the ironSource team recommended we try their A/B testing tool.
Trying out A/B testing
“We had just successfully migrated from the ironSource offerwall to the Tapjoy offerwall, giving us access to all to all of Tapjoy’s unique features - including A/B testing. We set up our A/B test on the Tapjoy dashboard and monitored results between our control and test groups. To be safe, we first ran A/B tests in countries with lower in-app purchase rates, like Brazil and Indonesia.
We quickly saw promising results, which encouraged us to try out an even higher exchange rate in the US. Based on our in-app purchase rate, the ironSource team calculated and recommended an optimized exchange rate, and we tested a rate in the middle.
The test revealed that the new exchange rate made all the difference - offerwall CPM tripled and revenue jumped 4.5. Once we saw a clear boost in performance, we ended the test and used the new US exchange rate as our worldwide baseline.”
Adding special promotions to the mix
“Seeing the potential in our offerwall, we wanted to boost offerwall revenue even further - so we participated in special offerwall promotions (also known as currency sales). During holiday weekends throughout the year, we increased our reward multipliers as a way to encourage more players to use our offerwall. Doing so boosted our conversion rate, eCPM, and revenue.
Combining our new exchange rate with the special promotion weekends, our revenue jumped another 80% and eCPM another 90% compared to previous special promotions.
Seeing these positive results challenged our concern that increasing rewards would cannibalize in-app purchase revenue - but in fact, it hasn’t impacted it.
Thanks to the ironSource team and the Tapjoy A/B testing tool, we discovered just how much untapped potential our offerwall had. Not only did we boost our KPIs, we put Hero Wars in the best position to go global. In fact, we plan to run even more A/B tests, by adding geo multipliers in key markets like Germany and Brazil. This way, we can continue to unlock even more revenue potential.”
