As you see, it keeps on dipping every other day between 5-10%. One day its 5%, one day its 9 or 10%, etc. However, retention is based on % of people that come back the next day right? So to calculate that, you need to get the amount of unique players join in 1 day, and the next day, count the players who are from that one day.
So, this is my new players and returning user statistics:
As you see, I got 1,7k~ for 2 days then the next day 2k. Taking a look at unique returning users, we see 200+ returning users, 233 then 240 returned users, for 2k players, etc. and it says I have 5% retention that day? If we manually compare retention between returning and new in engagement stats, we see it is ALWAYS 10% and above. The math ain’t mathing.
The only time where it was below 10% were the 2 days we got 1.7k~ players. Those days, we got 8-9% retention
Same thing is happening to my game, could it be that you are currently sponsoring your game? I feel like that has something to do with it. My game steadily increases in the amount of returning users… but the D1 retention is very low, my D7 retention however is somehow great. The only stat I’m seeming to have issues with is my D1 retention.
Also I just realized this, the returning user count is showing how many people who, at any point, have played your game and have returned. This could mean people from 2 days ago, and so on. So it honestly could be accurate.
If you’re already being recommended to players by roblox I don’t think you should advertise. The purpose if advertising is for roblox to start recommending your game to players (free marketing).
Advertising jump-starts your engagement engine, which is true. But this is based on data that Roblox gets of certain demographics that play your game. Right now roblox is recommending me such a small population its not gonna cover my very specific demographic. That’s why my retention is really wonky, because Roblox’s algorithm is doing a/b testing in a very slow time frame to not waste resources, as the algorithm not sure about the potential of the game yet. That’s the reason why im advertising again, to reintroduce new data to Roblox’s algorithm, otherwise it will keep being slow and retention low because they’re showing it to the wrong target audience.
Not to mention, there’s a new advertising system in ads manager that allows you to recommend based on search, which is what im doing, and the search results I set in the parameters are all words that people who would play my game would use. I have a 7% CTR rate in my sponsors now, higher than recommendations. I think this new feature might even be able to make it so CPP (cost per player) negative in a more efficient way than recommendations, at least for starting your engagement engine. Im not so sure about it being a long term solution, since as of now discovery players, word of mouth, and influencers are the top 3, and advertising is a really bad way of maintaining audience. The purpose of me advertising it to give the algorithm more accurate data again.
EDIT:
Advertising stats say I have 10% CTR ratio on the sponsors now, it was 7% before but its jumped up.
What you said was a really big concern I had for a while, and that’s why I didn’t do anything for a couple of weeks after the post because what you said. Im already getting recommended players, but I realized retention is low because it might not be the correct type of target audience required for my game, hence why I want to reintroduce data to the algorithm so they can be more accurate and efficient on my game’s recommendations.
