Tabarak Paracha
In honor of Earth Day, we sat down with Yael Takomi, Gaming Director at Dots.eco, to discuss how app developers and publishers can contribute to environmental sustainability.
Join us for a 30-minute conversation to learn how app developers or publishers can leverage Dots.eco to not only make a meaningful impact to the planet, but also boost various metrics and KPIs such as retention, player engagement, monetization, and more.
[Tabarak from Tenjin]: Yael, please introduce yourself and also tell us a bit about Dots.eco?
[Yael Takomi]: I’m Yael, I have been in the gaming industry for 5-6 years already. I’ve been in multiple roles. The beginning of my journey was with Playtika doing mainly product monetization, then I moved on to Meta gaming for a while. Being in Dublin taught me a lot about recycling. I also traveled in Asia as well, which added to my learnings. I don’t eat meat, I am a pescatarian. I have always looked for ways to take my passion for gaming and all the knowledge I have gathered, and combine it with my personal passion – which is to do better for the world.
And that’s when I learned about Dots.eco and met Nadav and Daniel, the co-founders. I found that the mission of the company was very aligned with my passions. It allowed me to bring together the industry that I really fell in love with, which is the gaming industry, and take part in how we can contribute to change the universe.
[Tabarak from Tenjin]: That’s a wonderful sentiment. Let’s dive into the first question I have for you. As a game developer or publisher, how does it benefit me to integrate with Dots.eco?
[Yael Takomi]: Dots.eco is a SaaS platform for making an impact. When you integrate with us you can see how it benefits the game from boosting user engagement and retention to uplifting revenue and even user experience in terms of game flow, etc. It really depends on how you will integrate our offerings into your product or liveops, or even your community goals.
We have multiple ways to integrate in your product and user experience, and usually we work very closely with the teams, brainstorm together about the whole experience, the impact types, how it can integrate really well with the game design as a whole, etc. It can benefit gaming studios in many ways, and usually it will be very dependent on which KPI’s you want to focus on, and based on that we do the integration.
[Tabarak from Tenjin]: It can unlock a whole new user base for your games, as in you attract players who are very conscious of the planet.
[Yael Takomi]: Yes, so we are a technology-based company, so our solution not only offers another user experience in your game, but we also give our partners a special certificate. You can integrate us in your solution, based on a specific milestone such as adding it to a battle pass, or a level completion. So every time a user reaches that milestone, they will get a unique certificate. And the special effect it has is that they can share it on their social media. So users are very connected to this emotionally.
A lot of times, people don’t know how to contribute to the environment, and here they can do it while playing a game. So after they get a certificate, the share rate on social media is very high (over 20%). Once their friends see it, they might want to take part in this initiative themselves, and they click on the CTA that leads them to the app store to download the game. We see a 6-7% download rate, just because people want to take part in this initiative. It can be a really good tool in terms of organic traffic, new installs, and new DAU (Daily Active Users). Holistically, we have so many solutions that can contribute to marketing, retargeting, etc.
We are very strong in gaming, which is our main focus. But we work in multiple industries. In terms of ROI, most of our integrations are very ROI positive. Everytime you integrate us, you will see an uplift in revenue because of the emotional connection to the impact.
[Tabarak from Tenjin]: So as a game publisher, my players are inclined to both play more and invest more because they genuinely empathize with the cause and find a sense of purpose in it. And not only are you saving the planet, but also boosting your business metrics.
[Yael Takomi]: Yes, you will see players play longer even just because they want to take part in the eco initiative. You will see metrics such as session time, etc increase. As a gamer, I love to see this increase. It’s a win-win situation. For the user the win is how they feel about the game, and about the impact itself, and also for companies that constantly think about new and innovative ways to bring content to users, it’s a win because they are able to achieve that.
[Tabarak from Tenjin]: So how does it work? Could you maybe show us what the process looks like?
You can integrate dots.eco in multiple ways. It can start from API to Unity SDK, it really depends on how the code of the game is written. It’s a very easy integration. Our tech team will guide and support you with everything you need. We will do onboarding calls etc, and we are very dynamic.
In terms of impact types, we have eight different eco activities. I love to divide it into land, ocean, air. You can make an impact by planting trees, restoring coral reefs, protecting marine life, etc. We are now also focusing on doing more social-focused projects.
The flow goes like this: Usually, a studio would first choose which impact they want to focus on. So let’s say they chose to protect a baby sea turtle. When a user opens the app, they will know what is going on in the app. So it’s communicated to them that, for example, when they reach level 3, they will be able to protect a baby sea turtle. When they reach level 3, they will then get the option to make the impact.
When it’s initiated, you will get a certificate. As I said, it’s a unique certificate that is sharable and customizable to have the look and feel of the brand. But also, with the unique ID, you can come to our platform and track the impact. You can see at any given time what is going on with the impact, like if it started already on the ground, if so, what is happening next, etc. After you share the certificate, you will see an average of 20% share rate, which will translate to approximately 6-7% download rate from organic traffic. And also, this button can be customized to any call to action you may want. Usually it will be “play now” or “download now.”
[Tabarak from Tenjin]: I think this is one of the things I found super interesting that once you share the impact, you as a player have made on social media, it actually leads a user who sees it and clicks on it to the app store and can lead to more downloads for your game. And I think a 6% download rate is pretty significant.
It’s not only that you are bringing more users to the game, but even those who were already playing the game at some point and stopped can be reminded of the game and come back eventually via your ongoing communications tool. So it’s also super useful to retain users. Can you talk a little about what the rewarded ad looks like inside the game? And how can players be reminded of the impact they have made and come back to the game eventually?
(Answered in the video above)
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In the rest of our talk, we explore how game publishers can use the platform to re-engage players who’ve been away from their game for a while, which publishers are already using the platform, and the positive changes they’ve seen in their stats. Plus, we delve into how companies can integrate with dots.eco.
For more details, check out the full video above.
