Ahoy Games increases purchases by 13% with Remote Config personalization
Introduction
Based in Poland, indie developer
Ahoy Games creates social gaming
experiences designed to bring the excitement back to tabletop
gaming. With an agile team of just 13 people, Ahoy Games has
accumulated over 2.2 million monthly active users, 30 million
downloads, and more than 8 million daily game plays of hits such
as Backgammon Legends,
Rummy Club,
and Okey.
Challenge
Ahoy already relied on a variety of Firebase products to keep
players happy and engaged long-term, like
Test Lab and
Crashlytics to maintain a stable,
high-quality experience and
Cloud Messaging to send targeted,
customized, and recurring messages. They also used
Remote Config and
A/B Testing to run experiments and
dynamically roll out new features to see how players would
respond. But running a lot of tests manually was a drain on their
resources, and the results often came back split. And while the
team knew there were differences between the preference groups,
they didn't know how to segment their user base to run more
specific tests.
Solution
As longtime fans of Remote Config, Ahoy Games was one of the
first teams to try
Remote Config personalization,
a new feature that uses machine learning to help developers
automatically optimize individual user experiences to
maximize the objectives they want. Since personalization is
built on top of Remote Config, setting it up was fast and
easy, saving them time right off the bat.
Once set up, Ahoy used personalization in a number of their
games for various optimizations. In Backgammon Legends, Ahoy
Games used personalization to determine how long the Spin the
Wheel offer should be shown to players, and to tweak the
visuals and copy of their Piggy Bank feature to increase
interaction. Within a week, Spin The Wheel and Piggy Bank
purchases had increased by 13% and 12%, respectively. In
Rummy Club, personalizing their reshuffle feature led to a
2% lift in rewarded video views. And in Okey, Ahoy Games used
personalization to determine the right amount of premium
currency to offer a player for watching a rewarded video ad.
There, they saw a consistent 3-4% increase in conversions
over the baseline, and a 20-25% increase compared to the
default value.
Personalization allowed Ahoy Games to spend less time setting
up variable tests and more time doing what they do best:
developing their product and building new game features.
Ahoy Games now uses personalization throughout their games to
continuously optimize the experience at a much more granular
level, serving the right variant to the right player in order
to maximize their conversion goals with little to no effort
from the team.
Results
12-13% - increase in in-app purchases
20-25% - increase in conversions compared to default value
"We are very impressed with how magical the personalization feature has been. It's so much more than an A/B test, as it continuously optimizes and serves the right variant to the right groups of people to maximize conversion goals. Without Firebase, we would have a harder time succeeding in an arena full of bigger corporations with our humble 13-person team."
- Deniz Piri, CEO, Ahoy Games
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[],[],null,["[*arrow_back*\nExplore other case studies](/case-studies) \n[View more solutions](/solutions) \n\nAhoy Games increases purchases by 13% with Remote Config personalization \n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nIntroduction Based in Poland, indie developer\n[Ahoy Games](https://www.ahoygames.com/) creates social gaming\nexperiences designed to bring the excitement back to tabletop\ngaming. With an agile team of just 13 people, Ahoy Games has\naccumulated over 2.2 million monthly active users, 30 million\ndownloads, and more than 8 million daily game plays of hits such\nas [Backgammon Legends](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ahoygames.backgammon),\n[Rummy Club](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ahoygames.rummy),\nand [Okey](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ahoygames.okey).\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nChallenge Ahoy already relied on a variety of Firebase products to keep\nplayers happy and engaged long-term, like\n[Test Lab](/products/test-lab) and\n[Crashlytics](/products/crashlytics) to maintain a stable,\nhigh-quality experience and\n[Cloud Messaging](/products/cloud-messaging) to send targeted,\ncustomized, and recurring messages. They also used\n[Remote Config](/products/remote-config) and\n[A/B Testing](/products/ab-testing) to run experiments and\ndynamically roll out new features to see how players would\nrespond. But running a lot of tests manually was a drain on their\nresources, and the results often came back split. And while the\nteam knew there were differences between the preference groups,\nthey didn't know how to segment their user base to run more\nspecific tests. \n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nSolution \nAs longtime fans of Remote Config, Ahoy Games was one of the\nfirst teams to try\n[Remote Config personalization](/docs/remote-config/personalization),\na new feature that uses machine learning to help developers\nautomatically optimize individual user experiences to\nmaximize the objectives they want. Since personalization is\nbuilt on top of Remote Config, setting it up was fast and\neasy, saving them time right off the bat.\n\nOnce set up, Ahoy used personalization in a number of their\ngames for various optimizations. In Backgammon Legends, Ahoy\nGames used personalization to determine how long the Spin the\nWheel offer should be shown to players, and to tweak the\nvisuals and copy of their Piggy Bank feature to increase\ninteraction. Within a week, Spin The Wheel and Piggy Bank\npurchases had increased by 13% and 12%, respectively. In\nRummy Club, personalizing their reshuffle feature led to a\n2% lift in rewarded video views. And in Okey, Ahoy Games used\npersonalization to determine the right amount of premium\ncurrency to offer a player for watching a rewarded video ad.\nThere, they saw a consistent 3-4% increase in conversions\nover the baseline, and a 20-25% increase compared to the\ndefault value. \nPersonalization allowed Ahoy Games to spend less time setting\nup variable tests and more time doing what they do best:\ndeveloping their product and building new game features.\nAhoy Games now uses personalization throughout their games to\ncontinuously optimize the experience at a much more granular\nlevel, serving the right variant to the right player in order\nto maximize their conversion goals with little to no effort\nfrom the team.\n\n*** ** * ** ***\n\nResults\n\n12-13% - increase in in-app purchases\n\n20-25% - increase in conversions compared to default value \n\n\"We are very impressed with how magical the personalization feature has been. It's so much more than an A/B test, as it continuously optimizes and serves the right variant to the right groups of people to maximize conversion goals. Without Firebase, we would have a harder time succeeding in an arena full of bigger corporations with our humble 13-person team.\"\n\n\n- Deniz Piri, CEO, Ahoy Games \nTry Firebase today\n\n\nIntegrating it into your app is easy.\n[Get started](https://console.firebase.google.com/) \n\nAll Firebase products \n\nBuild\n\n- [App Check](/products/app-check)\n- [App Hosting](/products/app-hosting)\n- [Authentication](/products/auth)\n- [Cloud Functions](/products/functions)\n- [Cloud Storage](/products/storage)\n- [Data Connect](/products/data-connect)\n- [Extensions](/products/extensions)\n- [Firestore](/products/firestore)\n- [Firebase ML](/products/ml)\n- [Genkit](https://genkit.dev/)\n- [Hosting](/products/hosting)\n- [Realtime Database](/products/realtime-database)\n- [Firebase AI Logic client SDKs](/products/firebase-ai-logic)\n\n[Generative AI](/products/generative-ai) \n\nRun\n\n- [A/B Testing](/products/ab-testing)\n- [App Distribution](/products/app-distribution)\n- [Cloud Messaging](/products/cloud-messaging)\n- [Crashlytics](/products/crashlytics)\n- [Google Analytics](/products/analytics)\n- [In-App Messaging](/products/in-app-messaging)\n- [Performance Monitoring](/products/performance)\n- [Remote Config](/products/remote-config)\n- [Test Lab](/products/test-lab)"]]