Daily Active Users vs. Monthly Active Users: Retention Metrics That Matter

When it comes to retention metrics, there are a lot of different things you can choose to track. We’ve talked about the ones we think are most important in an article before - “Which KPIs are the Best Indicators of Success?”. But when it comes to retention specifically, and honing in on how to carefully track and analyze if players are coming back again and again, we’d look at the metrics we’ve outlined below. 

These metrics are where we’d focus strategy and planning specifically when it comes to driving retention. All of these indicators will grow and inform both Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU), two crucial metrics to track, but they’ll rely heavily on DAU to inform if the strategy is working. DAU is where your efforts should be focused. 

Daily Active Users vs. Monthly Active Users - Why Differentiate?

Before we get into the specific retention metrics we’d track, let’s quickly recap DAU and MAU, and common uses.

• DAU: Daily Active Users
  How many unique people play each day?
• MAU: Monthly Active Users
  How many unique people played in the last 30 days?

These metrics are frequently reported and readily available. It’s common for teams to measure “stickiness” using these metrics by dividing DAU by MAU. This is a simple metric that can provide a quick overview of how well your game is retaining players day-to-day

• < 20% can mean weak retention
• 20-30% is baseline
• 30%+ can indicate strong retention

As mentioned, we recommend concentrating your efforts on DAU and growing that. MAU can be an important indicator of game trends and growth, especially over the long term. It is less susceptible to weekly seasonality and one-off events such as holidays than DAU. Additionally, MAU can be a leading indicator of a successful user acquisition and growth strategy.

But DAU is what demonstrates real ongoing play and monetization. Both a daily player and someone who plays once a month are a single MAU, but someone who only plays once a month isn’t anywhere near as valuable since they are less likely to make a purchase.

Focusing on DAU will typically increase your MAU and stickiness. It also will help you to see if you’re actually growing and retaining players. MAU can be great for a broader overall look at where the game is headed, and monthly reporting is an important part of a CRM’s job. But overall, a steadily increasing DAU is a better indicator of success in your game than MAU. 

For this reason, the metrics we are about to walk through should be evaluated through DAU and not MAU. Keep this in mind when reading our tips! 

Daily Play is Crucial to Retention

The most important metric that you should be tracking against and constantly evaluating when it comes to DAU is how many of those players are playing multiple days in a week. 

Daily play is of the utmost importance when it comes to retention and monetization.

At Teak, our data shows that:

• Players who play daily spend 75% more than players who play 6 days a week
• Only 2% of players who play 4 or more days per week will churn the following week
• 45% of players who play 3 or fewer days will churn the following week.

As you can see, daily play is vital to the longevity of your game.

As a CRM, the number one thing you can do to maintain and grow DAU is keep your core players core. The second most impactful thing you can do is convert your risk players to core players.

You may remember these classifications from our extensive series on the Player Lifecycle. To quickly recap, Teak’s guidance is that:

• Core players are your players who come back and play at least 5 days a week.
• Risk players are your players who come back and play 1-4 days a week.

Both of these player types will be in your DAU, but your Core players are much more likely to stay engaged with your game. Watching these two categories in your DAU and the number of players in each is important when it comes to monitoring retention. In Teak, you can see changes in Audience size over time to monitor these lifecycle stages.

1) In Teak, use the audience builder to set up an audience for Core Players.

2) The size of any audience can be tracked over time. Stable and trending up is a good sight to see.

Tracking daily players is easy enough, but getting people to play daily is the real challenge! We have a few guides on our blog page to help you craft strategy around that, including Making Your Push Notifications Stand Out and Increasing Click Through Rates for Your Game.

Tracking Clicks from Notifications

Click-through rate is a metric we’ve explored before, but when it comes specifically to using it as a metric for evaluating retention, seeing what percentage of DAU come in through notifications is the best way to evaluate your overall strategy. This matters because players who tap on a push notification or click on an email are 25% more likely to be a daily player. And remember: someone who plays daily spends 75% more than someone who only plays six days a week.

At Teak we use the following benchmarks for the percentage of DAU coming in through notifications:

• < 10% is low.
  Review our cadence suggestions for the player lifecycle and make sure you’re rewarding players for interacting with your messages!
• 10-20% is typical.
  Consider adding rich push to your strategy or using personalized rewards to make your content even more engaging.
• > 20% is high.
  This indicates a very strong strategy and a highly engaged player base.

So, if you’re seeing a large number of DAU are tapping or interacting with your notifications, your strategy is working well and these players are primed to become daily players, increasing retention and monetization across the board.

Retention Metrics are Always On

Tracking retention in a game is a daily always on task that is an important part of a CRM’s day. But with so many metrics that can be tracked and reported, it can be hard to know where to focus efforts. We hope some of the tips above helped you hone in on where your strategy should be emphasized. Click-through, daily play, and core vs risk players are three baseline metrics that will help you increase retention and report MAU more effectively and with more data to back up your strategy. 

Our team is always available to help you dig deeper into these metrics and review your strategy. Reach out or schedule a conversation with us – we’d love to support your retention efforts! 

Alex, Erica, & Teak Team