If you’re a CRM, then you know that when a new player downloads your game, there is no guarantee that they will become a regular player after their initial session. Plenty of first time players will quit after one session, never becoming daily active users. In fact at Teak, we see that 50+% of first time players never have a second session at all.
This is where your first rewarded messages become crucial. By sending new users an early reward, you welcome them to the game, and give them a reason to play again.
But figuring out exactly how much to give a new user can be tricky. New users have no play history and aren’t payers yet, making it hard to justify free rewards. Today, we’re going to dive into why that first reward is so important and how much it makes sense to give them.
Rewards for New Users Increase the Chance of Building a Daily Play Habit
Consistently at Teak, across all our clients, we see that players who come back for a second session on the day they install are twice as likely to become daily players. Daily players are the key to having a successful game; they spend 75% more than non-daily players and infinitely more than players who bounce. Daily play is crucial to retention and increasing DAU. (DAU is what demonstrates real ongoing play and monetization). We get into that more in our Retention Metrics That Matter guide.
The second session is when players truly commit to the game—a single first session isn’t enough. And giving away in-game rewards is the main way you can ensure someone taps back into your game. So giving coins to new users as you introduce them to the game is crucial to a winning retention strategy.
How Many Coins You Should Give New Players 🤑
Once you’ve established the strategy behind giving new players in-game rewards, you’ll want to establish the amount that is right for your game. The amount needs to be significant enough to be enticing. Since retaining new users is so important, you can be generous.
We recommend giving new players at least enough for a full session. Remember that currency in your game is equal to playtime - a way for players to access or unlock progress in your game. These rewards provide a nudge to start a session, (which we get into in more detail in our guide to Rewards for Free to Play Retention.)
By giving new players enough coins or items for a full session as soon after install as possible, you maximize their chances of returning for that crucial second session. If you can’t give a full session in rewards away, try to get as close as you can. The reward needs to be meaningful – remember that you just spent $10+ to acquire this player, and 50+% won’t come back. You can afford to “spend” more to keep more players around.
Additional Tips for New Players to Layer On Top of the Reward
When planning that first reward, also evaluate notification cadence for new users. Think about creating daily, specialized pushes tailored to new users - not just tutorials or welcomes. Think of it more as, “This is what sets us apart, and this is why you should play our game.” Pairing that with a significant reward will make players feel more enticed to start a second session in your game.
Deep linking is also very important for this player group. Because they are new to the game, they aren’t going to automatically go around looking for things in your game. Put them in places where they will spend the currency you’ve given them - don’t make them look for how to use it. Teak has deep linking support built into our software development kit and notification setup, so it’s easy for you and your team and get deep links set up that you can use over and over.
What Comes Next After the First Reward?
After the rewarded messages on install day, you are going to have two groups of new players: those who responded and those who didn’t.
Let’s say you send that first reward, and a player responds—you’ve secured the coveted second session on install day. Now your goal shifts to building repetition and establishing a daily play habit. But you don’t want to give away too many coins, since you also want them to convert to payers.
But, what if they didn’t respond to the first rewards on install day? What do you do now? This is critical, since getting that second session as quickly as possible is still important.
This is where Teak really comes in to support you. You can use Teak’s reward tiering to offer even larger rewards to players who didn’t come back for a second session on their install day, while players who did come back are offered a smaller reward that starts to drive them towards purchasing sooner. At Teak, our data shows that about 50% of players who are going to convert to payers will do so within the first couple of days of install. That’s why it’s so important to consider how you manage potential payers even at this early stage.
Teak Reward Tiers give you granular control over the reward amount sent to each player.
By using this tiered reward feature, you ensure you’re always sending an appropriate reward amount based on the player’s behavior and your goals. Check out our full guide on reward tiers for more details.
Giving New Players Free Coins is Crucial to Success
With high player acquisition costs, offering strong incentives is worth it to help retain more players. This strategy is about maximizing the value of your player acquisition dollars, and treating the first reward as an investment in a potential paying player or possibly a future VIP.
We understand that it can sometimes be hard to convince your wider teams of this. But, players can’t become payers if they aren’t in the game at all. So, keep them in the game, playing and happy!
We hope this guide gives you the tools to implement this strategy. Teak was built to fight churn and be your partner in this journey. Let us know what we can do to help! We are here to answer any questions you have.
Alex, Erica, and the Teak Team