Leveraging User Motivations to Drive Engagement with AppRefinery and GameRefinery
If you’re creating or marketing a mobile app—whether it’s a game, dating app, fitness tracker, finance tool, or shopping platform—understanding what drives user behavior is probably an ongoing challenge. Many apps have millions of users, but what drives them to an app, and which features keep them engaged? AppRefinery, Liftoff’s new app intelligence platform, and GameRefinery, our industry-leading gaming insights platform, are designed to help app developers and marketers understand their audience.
If you’re curious to learn more about what GameRefinery and AppRefinery offer, you’re in luck. Liftoff’s Head of Activations, Christie Crable, GameRefinery’s Chief Analyst, Kalle Heikkinen, and Liftoff’s Associate Manager of Creative Performance, Abi Hargreaves, recently took a deep dive into the platforms’ key features. Here’s a summary of what they said.
Understanding the Motivational Framework and Archetypes
Several years ago, GameRefinery combined extensive survey research with advanced data science and statistical modeling to develop the motivational driver framework. This model organizes mobile players’ motivations into 12 easy-to-understand drivers, each describing a root player motivation. Drivers include competing against others, which refers to fans of multiplayer, and thinking and solving, which resonates with players who enjoy puzzle games like Candy Crush Saga, and more.
GameRefinery built on their framework with player archetypes, eight player categories with distinct sets of motivational drivers. For example, treasure hunters prefer games that offer new areas to explore, kings of the hill crave intense competition, and expressionists love to show off their personalities through gameplay.
Game marketers can identify which features promote and better predict which updates will drive engagement by looking at which archetypes are attracted to their game.
A Motivational Framework and User Archetypes Developed for Consumer Apps
AppRefinery evolves GameRefinery’s Motivational Driver Framework by applying its methodology and understanding of audience motivations to consumer apps. Users across different verticals have diverse motivations for installing an app. AppRefinery’s updated framework pinpoints 14 unique drivers (see below).
To match motivations with user profiles, AppRefinery analysts have also developed a set of user archetypes. They work similarly to player archetypes. The lifelong learner, for example, are users who are always looking to learn new things from their apps. Their biggest motivational drivers are learning and self-improvement and new discoveries. They’re also passionate about achieving milestones, markers that help them keep track of the new things they’ve learned.
Tailoring Ad Creative to Tap Into User Motivations
Advertisers with access to Liftoff Intelligence and the motivational driver frameworks can take advantage the system to level up their ad creative. Motivational drivers into can help you tailor your ad creative to attract high-value users that are more likely to engage consistently with your app or game.
For example, a mobile game that taps into motivations like completing milestones, excitement and thrill, and improving skills might test ad creatives that represent each. A character in danger who needs help generates excitement, while ads that highlight in-game UI and upgrade systems might appeal to users looking for skills improvement. Level selectors in an ad are an easy way to represent completing milestones.
Ads that showcase different options appeal to users who enjoy resource optimization
Similar logic applies to consumer apps. For instance, if your audience enjoys self-expression and customization, test ad creative that showcases users personalizing their profiles or choosing custom UI skins. By matching key motivations with your ad creatives, you’ll improve conversion rates, increase installs, and even impact down-funnel events by attracting high-value users.
As always, the team recommends looking at what your peers are doing on the platform for ideas about improving your app’s performance. Maybe they’ve been more successful with incorporating a more comprehensive range of motivational drivers. Often, there will be themes in their creatives that you could use as inspiration.
An essential part of the ad experience is where and how your ad placement appears on the publisher app. After all, the publisher app is where you find your audience. Check out their app if you know which publishers your installs are coming from. See how the ads look and which ads you encounter. This will give you an idea of which ad placements are ideally placed, what audiences they attract, and how to tailor your ads for the channel.
Developing Engaging Apps With User Motivations as a Guide
A great UA strategy is essential, but it’s just as important to retain and engage your existing users by introducing features that speak to their motivations. Many top apps stay successful by introducing features specifically designed to appeal to user motivations outside their core offering. Here are just two examples.
Instagram recently launched an achievements feature that rewards creators with badges for reaching specific milestones, such as publishing a large number of posts, stories, or reels. Social status and achieving milestones are two of the biggest motivational drivers for social media platforms, with many users seeking to drive as much engagement as possible through comments and likes. This system taps into that by giving creators even more recognition.
By adding badges to collect, Instagram’s developers are appealing to users who are motivated by collecting and gathering. The badges are also kept in a neat visual display similar to a digital album. Through their new feature, the platform has built a system that actively encourages users to keep posting, increasing content creation and driving the app’s overall engagement.
As a match-3 puzzle title, Gardenscapes is traditionally all about single-player gameplay. Still, during their recent limited-time event, team leagues, players are encouraged to band together and compete against opposing teams. At the end of each event, the teams earn rewards based on their performance.
By branching out from Gardenscapes’ core offering, the game has expanded its appeal to target social-focused motivational drivers like competing against others. Of course, to win, players must communicate with their teammates—an attractive experience for users who enjoy working with others.
In addition to the rewards, each team is also given a rank based on their performance during the event. Teams must keep improving their skills and winning matches to attain the best ranks. For users motivated by achieving milestones, this aspect of the event will encourage them to return to the game.
For more information about AppRefinery and its features, check out our Tapping Motivations webinar or schedule a demo with the team here.
