Phiture's PressPlay Technology

How AI-Driven A/B Testing on Google Play Scaled Avakin Life’s Conversion Rates by 57% in Two Months

110

experiments deployed

+57%

increase in conversion rate

2

months from launch

Ouni Kwon

Senior Marketing Director,
Lockwood Publishing

“Phiture’s PressPlay has been instrumental in scaling our experimentation efforts and deepening our understanding of how to effectively communicate our brand to players. We are seeing successes where we didn’t expect to and have been able to apply the learnings across other areas in our marketing while staying true to our brand identity.”

The Challenge

Avakin Life, a highly successful mobile game with over 100 million downloads, approached Phiture with the challenge of driving app downloads and improving its conversion rate on the app stores.

The primary goal was to increase the speed and scale of testing experiments to enhance performance. However, several bottlenecks hindered this progress:

  • Unique design: A large number of visual assets was required to run A/B tests at scale, each asset had to be created by a 3D artist to closely match Avakin Life’s unique visual style
  • A/B testing automation: The limited number of experiments that could be run manually restricted optimization pace

Solution

PressPlay addressed these challenges by automating the creation, deployment, and analysis of A/B tests on the Google Play Store.

Leveraging GenAI, PressPlay generated hundreds of visual assets for testing without additional localization and creative resources.

The tool integrated seamlessly with the Google Play Console, managing the experiment backlog and setting up rules to schedule, apply, or stop experiments automatically. This allows over 50 concurrent experiments per app to be run at the same time, accelerating time-to-win.

Additionally, the platform continuously collected data from all experiments across portfolio apps, allowing for comprehensive analysis and optimization.

Execution

In the first phase of testing, more than 100 app icons were created by PressPlay. This led to the first wins, materializing in a +19% conversion rate increase within less than the first month. The new icon was so successful that Lockwood decided to deploy it to the main store listing for Avakin Life on Google Play.

Both Phiture and Lockwood wanted to build on top of that first significant win by better matching the generated assets to the unique visual style of the Avakin Life game. Under the hypothesis that following the game’s specific art style would increase conversion even further, Phiture decided to fine-tune a purpose-built generative AI model.

Fine-tuning the AI model to replicate Avakin Life’s distinct visual style and brand identity significantly enhanced the solution’s effectiveness, leading to additional double-digit conversion rate improvements.

“Their fine-tuned AI model is producing results so close to our art style that we’re asking ourselves where else we can leverage this in Avakin Life’s marketing strategy.”

Ouni Kwon — Senior Marketing Director, Lockwood Publishing

You can lean more about how we fine-tuned the model for consistent visual results in our deep-dive here →

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The Results

  • PressPlay ran 110 experiments on Google Play in a 2-month period
  • 19% conversion rate increase in the first month
  • Another 32% conversion rate increase, after fine-tuning the AI model to Avakin Life’s visual style in the second month
  • Total conversion rate uplift: 57% in two months

Conclusions & Future Plans

The fine-tuned AI model’s ability to consistently mimic Avakin Life’s characters and art style has opened new avenues for leveraging such models in the game’s broader marketing strategy. PressPlay’s self-learning system continues to evolve, promising even more efficient and effective ASO A/B testing automation in the future.

This case study illustrates the impactful combination of automation, AI innovation, and strategic application in App Store Optimization, paving the way for future growth and success in the app and mobile gaming industry.

Lockwood Publishing is the award-winning creator of Avakin Life — a 3D social universe enjoyed by more than 200 million registered users.

Client: Lockwood Publishing
Website: https://lockwoodpublishing.com
Services: PressPlay — Automated ASO Testing with GenAI
Project period: 2024

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