Those who buy are more likely to repurchase, so drive those initial conversions!

Unity Report 2025: “Those who buy are more likely to repurchase, so drive those initial conversions!”
😠 ⚠️ 𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗔 𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗨𝗧𝗘 ⚠️ 😠

This argument has been a subtle pet peeve of mine for years.

⚠️ Disclaimer: I acknowledge that the world faces larger problems than arguments about correlation vs. causation and IAP purchase behavior. 😅

YES, the 2% of people who buy are most likely the type of people who will buy again, vs the 98% of players who don’t spend. 🙄

This is not the same as saying:

“If you can coax Bob into making an initial purchase, this further inclines Bob to make a second purchase.”

𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯.

Except when it is… In this case, the casual relationship here 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 exist. It might even feel intuitive that it should.

👆 But, over the past 4 years we have run hundreds of split tests re: early IAP conversion, and I have yet to see any pattern of evidence to convince me that this claim is meaningfully true.

❓ 𝗛𝗮𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲?

For my part, here’s what I HAVE seen, after working on over 130 mobile F2P games.

60-70% of players who purchase once will never purchase again, so you want to make that first purchase count.

$0.99 is often not the LTV-maximizing first conversion price.

There is a delicate balance between coaxing the first purchase at the right price (often not the lowest) and maximizing LTV.

IMO the right way to run this experiment, say, for a Casual game:

A/B test with 3 legs:
1. D0 welcome offer at $0.99
2. D0 welcome offer at $4.99
3. No D0 welcome offer

See which maximizes d30 ARPU (LTV proxy).

Now, LTV and reconversion aside, there are certainly other benefits to driving early conversion.

First and foremost, providing positive monetization signal 🚥 to UA campaigns. 📈

BUT, I have yet to see any evidence for the ‘if I can make people buy, they become more likely to buy again’ argument…

At least in the context of mobile games.