After launching your mobile game, you've cleared the first major hurdle, but the next phase — post-soft launch — presents a new set of challenges. Monitoring your game’s performance and analysing player behaviour at every stage requires detailed data tracking and transforming that information into actionable insights.

While no single metric can tell you exactly what to improve, it’s essential to evaluate a range of metrics to test your assumptions before making changes. Basic metrics like DAU, installs, and playtime are fairly straightforward, but more advanced ones — such as Ad LTV, Source/Sink Ratio, and Failure Rate—require deeper analysis.

To help you focus, we’ve grouped key metrics into four categories: Generic, Event-Based, Resources, and Monetisation. Each category highlights metrics that measure different aspects of player engagement, resource usage, monetisation performance, and in-game events.

Let's take a look.

‍

1. Generic metrics

This first set of metrics comprises of high-level game performance to get a feel of the overall player engagement.

Installs - Total number of installs

Abandonment Rate aka Churn Rate - Percentage of users who dropped off the game level

Retention Rate - Percentage of users who retained in the game/level

Play Time - Total play time per level

Level Start - Number of players who started the level 

Completion Rate - Number of players who completed the level 

Level Fail - Total number of fails per level

Failure Rate - Failure Rate (%) at level X = Level Fail Users at level X / Level Start Users at level X

‍

2. Event-based metrics

Get critical insights with events-based metrics to gather detailed data about player interactions and behaviors for you to improve gameplay, user engagement, and monetisation strategies.

‍

Event Count - Total number of times an event is triggered

Event Conversion - Number of unique users that triggered an event‍

Event Conversion Rate - Total number of unique users that triggered event / Number of installs X 100%

Accumulated Event Count - Total number of an event triggered within a Cohort (based on country, test version, etc)

‍

Use parameters to further segment your event-based metrics for more accurate analysis. For example Level Start > Play Mode, Level End > Reason, Ad Revenue SDK > Ad Format.

‍

3. Resources metrics

Track sources and sinks to balance in-game economy to prevent the game from becoming too easy (too many sources, not enough sinks) or too difficult (too many sinks, not enough sources).

‍

Users with source/sink - Breakdown of users who gained or spent resources per level

Resource balance per level - Total amount of resources after source (earning) or sink (spending)

Booster usage per level - Number of boosters used by all players per level

Booster usage - Breakdown of booster types used by all players per level

Total Source/Sink Ratio per level - No. of resource source (earning) vs sink (spending) per level

‍

4. Monetisation metrics

Understand how in-app advertisements translate into revenue based on user behaviour on game level and get insights into how well ad placements are performing. Effective optimisation of ad frequency and placement can avoid frustrating players while maximising ad revenue.

‍

ARPU aka Ad Revenue Per User - Total ad revenue from a user 

Ad LTV - Ad Lifetime Value by game level (breakdown based on ad formats)*

(Ad format) Impression per user - Total number of times a user saw the ad format per level

(Ad format) Impressions - Total number of impressions by ad format 

(Ad format) Revenue per user - Breakdown of revenue by ad format per user, per level

(Ad format) Engaged User - Total number of users who engaged in an ad format (e.g. click on an ad)

(Ad format) RPM aka Revenue per Mille - Total revenue per 1,000 video views (Ad Revenue X 1000 ) / Impressions

‍

*Group data using ad location or ad network to identify high-performing ad placements to optimise In-App Advertising strategy.

‍

‍