Posted by Tamzin Taylor, Partner Development Manager at Google
Play, & Kristina Narusk, Head of Production at Memrise
Getting people to install your app is one thing, getting them to sign up to your
paid offering is quite another. It's important to understand the complete
journey your users take from installing your app to paying for something. Once
you do, you can experiment on the flow to try and increase conversions. Memrise
has found great success in experimenting on their language learning app to
increase the number of paying users.
Four experiments Memrise use to improve conversions
makes languages fun with a number of different learning modes you can play to
help increase your vocabulary in a chosen language. You can download the app for
free and play some of the modes or take advantage of their premium subscription
offering called 'Memrise Pro' which offers new game modes and additional
features like offline learning. Memrise recently ran a number of conversion
experiments with the main objective of increasing the Average Revenue Per Daily
Active User (ARPDAU). These experiments tested multiple user experience and
pricing experiment scenarios.
1. A/B test how messaging different user benefits can impact
conversion
What they did: Memrise wanted to know what motivation and call
to action would convert the most users to buy a Pro subscription from a locked
game mode in the app. To do this, they ran an A/B test with two similar designs,
featuring different reasons for the user to upgrade, and compared the results to
their original upgrade messaging.
 |  |
Test A: Focus on ‘difficult’ words with an orange background. | Test B: Focus on ‘favorite’ words with a pink background. |
Results: Test A performed the best. Conversion to Pro in Test A
was 28% higher than in Test B. Pro mode usage was subsequently 9.7% higher in
Test A compared to Test B too.
Next steps: After seeing how test A won the experiment, Memrise
applied this creative across the board. Subscribers driven by that particular
mode increased as a percentage of all subscriptions in the app by 16%. Memrise
plans to run additional A/B tests at others points of conversion in the app to
see if they can increase the results even further. They'll also try different
text for the call to actions.
2. Test whether adapting to local price points results in sustainable
uplift
In 2015, Google Play launched new minimum local price levels in countries around
the world. To take advantage of the new price points, Memrise tested lowering
localised prices in certain markets to better match purchasing power. Prices
were an average of 6 times lower during this experiment.
Results: After 30 days, Memrise saw the following changes in
conversions to paid users:
🇹🇷 | Turkey | ⇧180% |
🇧🇷 | Brazil | ⇧182% |
🇷🇺 | Russia | ⇧99% |
🇲🇽 | Mexico | ⇧115% |
🇮🇳 | India | ⇩5.1% |
🇮🇩 | Indonesia | ⇧152% |
🇰🇷 | South Korea | ⇧120% |
🇹🇠| Thailand | ⇧70% |
🇲🇾 | Malaysia | ⇧27% |
Next steps: The change in price affected the subscription
dynamics with more users taking advantage of Memrise's in-app discounted offer
in most countries. The offer was for annual subscribers only and has led to a
positive effect on LTV. One insight from the experiment was that Indian users
prefered to have the option to subscribe in weekly or monthly increments and not
just annually. Memrise is still tracking carefully to see whether the discounted
subscription pricing will lead to an increase in conversions.
3. Test when and how often you offer free trials to see if that affects
conversion rate
Memrise occasionally offers users, who aren't Pro subscribers, a free trial of
one of the Pro game modes while cycling through the various free modes. After
the free trial session, users are presented with an offer to subscribe. Memrise
experimented with the offer's timing making it appear more frequently while
users were cycling through normal free sessions Instead of after every 49th
session, users saw the unlocked mode after every 21st session.
 |  |
An example of a free trial of a Pro mode. | After completing a free trial, users see a discounted subscription offer. |
Results: Offering a free trial more frequently paid off. The
conversion rate increased by 50% while all other conversion rates remained the
same.
Next steps: Memrise maintained the more frequent offer cadence
and has seen revenue growth as a result.
4. Test whether seasonal discounts result in more conversions
Memrise launched a 'Back to School' campaign presenting all users with a
discounted annual plan offer for a week in September 2016. The aim was to
convert more users and generate higher value users from annual subscription
plans.
Results: Memrise saw two effects from the seasonal offer. As a
result of only presenting an annual period and removing weekly and monthly, 20%
fewer users per day converted to Pro. However, because more people were taking
an annual subscription than a shorter subscription, the average revenue per day
increased by 32% justifying the change.
Next steps: Memrise plans to test different offers in the
future with a combination of subscription offerings. They'll also focus offers
in countries like Turkey and Mexico, where they saw the biggest increase in
conversions.
Keep experimenting and take advantage of new features to improve the
user experience and increase conversions
At Playtime San Francisco,
announced that introductory pricing for subscriptions would be coming soon
and the feature is now live. By continually testing messaging, pricing, offers,
and free trials or discounted trials, you could increase the conversions in your
app and your ongoing revenue just like Memrise. Learn more about
Play in-app billing subscriptions and
the Playbook for Developers app to stay up-to-date with features and best
practices that will help you grow a successful business on Google Play.
