Increasing Click Through Rates for Your Game

Increasing click through rates: it’s one of those always on goals you need to constantly be tackling as a games CRM. And it’s likely one that you get asked about a lot in your role, a metric the team tracks to ensure strategy and creative are working hand in hand. But increasing CTR is no easy task, and it can take a lot of testing, learning, and adjustment to really nail down. Today, we’re sharing some of our insights from behind the scenes at Teak to help you figure out the best way to increase CTR for your game.

The biggest factor that you need to consider upfront when it comes to increasing CTR is the group of players you are targeting. The group being targeted absolutely affects your CTR and your reporting on it. You wouldn’t expect your highly engaged players to have a higher CTR than your risk players, right? So make sure you separate them out in your reporting. 

Furthermore, the fastest way to tank CTR would be to send too many notifications to unengaged players. It would also be easy to only target players who click and call it a day. But gaming your CTR metrics is not the goal - the goal is to retain players by creating content that entices all players to tap more and more.

So the very first thing you’ll want to do to increase CTR? Narrow your focus and choose audiences you want to improve on. Segment them out and try different strategies for each one, tailoring content and strategy based on the audience and what has worked in the past. Then, continue to closely monitor over time and try to hone in on the best result for a given segment.

An easy way to look at groups of players is the Player Lifecycle, which we have covered in the past in a series where we break down each phase of the lifecycle. Cadence and kinds of notifications will change for each phase, things that of course have impact on CTR. We would recommend checking out that guide as well for tips on those!

Overall, no matter the group, here are some of the top things we have seen increase CTR across the board:

Be explicit about what the player is getting in your pushes.

• Explain to them clearly that by tapping they are receiving X amount of coins or spins. “Tap here and you’ll get 100,000 free coins right away” is direct and to the point, easy to understand when you’re a player with a busy day and lots of notifications being sent to you.

Get personal with your group of players.

• Maybe you’re targeting a group that hasn’t played in a week - use that insight and knowledge and work it into copy, in a simple direct way. No begging so no “we miss you” or “please come back” - think more “it’s been a minute, how about some free coins?”

Increase the amount of coins you are giving away, but always according to the group being targeted.

• Maybe for high value players you’re able to send quite a lot. For players who haven’t played in 30 days, that number could be lower but it still helps to up the amount a bit and see if that entices them to click.

Use rich media in your pushes.

• We just covered the best ways to use Rich Media in a recent article and we’ve seen that rich media can actually increase CTR by up to 20%.

Don’t over think it.

• When CTR starts to drop, it can be easy to panic and try to do too much. But we consistently see that the best performing content is often the simplest - notifications with just one clear CTA and maybe only one other line of text. Teak’s default email template, which is simply a giant button with a couple lines of text, routinely has 20% CTR on it.

Keep it fresh and always always test and learn

• CTRs dropping is often also a result of content becoming dry or stale. You should always be revisiting the content you have scheduled on a regular basis, but more importantly, you should also try new things to see what sticks and works. Testing and learning through Teak’s A/B testing feature is a great way to try something out without totally committing. 

Evaluate the frequency of your messaging

• How often are you sending content and pushes to each group of players? How relevant is the content? Triggered notifications can be important here because they allow you to set different parameters for each group. Maybe one group gets a push 6 hours after last playing, but that might not make as much as sense for all groups. Maybe a less engaged group of players gets one 24 hours after. 

So let’s say you do all this and…it works! CTR starts to go up across the board for your main players, lapsed players, players who haven’t played in two weeks. What then? Well, when CTR starts to increase, your team or marketing managers might get a little too excited and think the best thing to do is start sending more notifications. You, as the CRM, probably already know by now that that won’t help, so what should we do?

• Set expectations: If you are going to send more notifications to the same audience, be clear that it might reduce CTR. If too many notifications pile up on a player’s device, it’s hard to tap them all. The cadence matters here.
• Don’t expect a miracle: If you are taking learnings from one audience to another, don’t assume the results will be the same. A strategy that worked with core players might improve CTR for the lapsed audience, but it won’t be as high as the more engaged audience. That’s okay—an improvement is still progress.
• Have the right goal: It’s fine to do things that might reduce CTR if it helps get more players into the game. Track metrics like Percentage of Daily Active Users from Notifications to see how your performance is holding up even if CTR is taking a hit.

You should be ready to defend your strategy to the marketing team and explain what’s going on. If CTR starts to dip because you are trying to reach lapsed players, now you’ll be able to defend it. 💪 CTR will go up with the right strategy and content, but it can take time, especially when you’re focused on those less engaged player groups.

Lastly, but certainly not least, when you are reporting on CTR remember to keep the audiences separated. We don’t expect the same CTR from audiences with different levels of engagement. Most often what we see is that major concerns about CTR dipping or lowering are often because there was a change in the audience that is targeted. So be sure to check that before you start to panic too much! :) 

We’re here to help you be great at what you do! What other topics would you like us to cover? Any questions about CTR?

Until next time!
Erica + Teak Team