Mobile game – Virality , User Engagement Metrics, Monetisation

Gamasutra states key performance indicators (KPIs) for a game are of three categories: Engagement, Retention, and Monetization. Main aim of this post is to start a thread for people to share their knowledge/experience regarding the same. 

I am nivedita. As a student I launched Spellathon in 2012 which resulted in lots of user learning as well as great understanding of android market. Anybody looking for tips for increasing downloads/Virality in android market without spending any money can have look at my blog post which shares 2.5 years of experience gained by watching android market and developing apps.( Will write a proper post on therodinhoods if people find it useful) – https://niveditaarora.wordpress.com/category/startup/growth-hacking/

Currently I have quit my job to work on a multiplayer word game idea which is not present in the market yet, its more of a creation out the learnings I had from spellathon and talking to my users. I had few questions it would be really great if rodinhooders could help me ! 

1) User engagement metrics – what is the best method to track user interaction with app to gain insights. I used flurry earlier and tracked very basic things like length of each game session. What more could be tracked ? and do they really bring in value. I found talking to users more insightful. More information on – Sessions/DAU, DAU/MAU. what do I do once i know about this? 

2) Monetization – I have used very basic admob banner ads that too introduced late in lifecycle when i realized that I better monetized it as I was seeing good user growth. (i was college student, i was not thinking money at all ever). I have not tried mediation, and which ad network to use in which country. what gets best ecpm etc. insights on that would be really appreciated. Also big game companies like zynga, king  etc measure ARPPU , LTV, eCPI etc for each user. How is all that done? and once I know about that information how is it correctly used to increase revenue. Anyone has example to explain better ? 

Even though I am discussing monetisation and user engagement in this post, still my foremost focus is users. I pretty much live and die for users and increasing user base is my foremost aim. 

Please feel free to add in any information you feel I might be missing or share experiences ! 🙂 Really appreciate any help. Also, contact me if you think I can help you in any way, I am all up for it. 

PS – My first post on  TheRodinhoods!! Hope many more follow.