From 25,000 to 900,000+ daily active users at a $13 CAC
Crypto gaming was heating up and the window to become the category leader was short. The north star was simple: get past 500,000 daily active users, and let everything else follow.
SplinterlandsSr. Director, Growth MarketingOct 2021 – Dec 20243 min read- 25K900K+
- Daily active users
- 3.5M
- Peak DAU on content-drop days
- $13
- Customer acquisition cost
- $170
- Average revenue per user
Context
Splinterlands was a digital trading card game, in the same family as Hearthstone, that used cryptocurrency as its in-game currency. Its core players were video game natives with an affinity for crypto.
When I joined in October 2021, crypto was becoming the next big thing and every month brought new competitors. We had to move fast to establish Splinterlands as the leader. I reported to the CEO and ran marketing and analytics, and later helped run sales too.
We chose one north star: grow daily active users past 500,000. Trade volume, pack sales and everything else in the economy would follow from an engaged player base.
Why retention was so high
Splinterlands was a specialized game. To get in, you had to know about crypto and want to play, because joining meant converting money into the game’s currency first. Players arrived committed, and because they could earn by playing, they had a reason to keep coming back.
That shaped the strategy: rather than chasing the broadest possible audience, we focused on the gamers most likely to make that commitment, and then gave them every reason to stay.
The thesisIn a game economy, players are the product, the market and the marketing. Grow the number of people who play every day, and every other metric follows.
The acquisition mix
| Channel | How it worked | Regions |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming and creators | Creators and streamers playing live, with programs that rewarded them for growing the community | Global |
| Paid social | Worked through Meta’s crypto ad restrictions to get campaigns approved and whitelisted | North America, Southeast Asia |
| Out of home | A 200+ billboard media takeover | Southeast Asia |
| Events and esports | Tournaments, conventions and our own live events | North America |
| In-game loops | Referrals, guilds, tournaments and creator programs | Global |
The mix was built around where our players already spent their time. Streaming and creators did the most work, because a card game is easiest to understand by watching someone play it. Paid social took persistence: crypto-related advertising was heavily restricted on Meta, and we had to work through the approval process to get our ads displayed and whitelisted.
North America and Southeast Asia were the two focus regions. Southeast Asia in particular responded to big, visible moments, which is why it got a dedicated media takeover.
The growth loop
Paid campaigns brought players in, but the loops inside the game are what kept the cost of growth low. A new player who joined a guild, entered tournaments and followed a creator had reasons to come back every day, and reasons to bring friends.
New content was the accelerant. On days when a new set dropped, daily active users peaked at around 3.5 million, and each drop pulled lapsed players back into the loop.
Results
It took one year to grow from 25,000 to 600,000 daily active users, and the climb continued to more than 900,000. At that level, players were playing about 16 million games a day. That is the number the business ran on day to day; the 3.5 million peaks show how much latent demand each new content drop could unlock.
The economics held up as we scaled. A $13 customer acquisition cost against $170 in average revenue per user meant each new player returned roughly thirteen times what it cost to acquire them. Retention was exceptionally strong, at 83% after seven days and 74% after thirty.