作者：Tom Farrell

作为开发者，每天早晨你到办公桌前最先看什么数字？或者更准确地说，当你打开智能手机或者甚至钻出被窝前，你会看什么数字？

我猜不外乎三个选择：DAU（日活跃用户）、新用户和收益。如果你选择的是新用户和收益，那么我多少要恭喜你一下（但后面我还要给你一些警告）。如果你选择的是DAU，那么我有个不幸的消息要告诉你：你所关注的指标在两个方面失败了（也许是唯一重要的两个方面）：

*DAU不一定能够与你项目的成功程度相对应

*DAU很难被直接影响，所以在衡量你的努力结果方面，它只提供了比较差的方法。

*DAU不能决定收益

这就是为什么我开始认为DAU最终只是一种华而不实的指标。确实，它看起来很体面。当与你的同行交流时，你可以飞快地说出体面的数字，让别人对你刮目相看。唯一的问题出现在与你的银行经理或投资商交谈时。因为DAU是不能放在银行里的。

所以我提出抗议：DAU和收益之间没有特别密切的关联。或者也许更准确地说，不一定有特别明显的关联。判断应用是否成功，收益才是唯一重要的指标。无论你选择用什么方法让你的用户基础为你创造收益，那种方法成功了才是最重要的，而不只是首先有那些用户基础。

再考虑其他行为，这个结论也应该是显而易见的。我肯定在电子商务领域，amazon.com和它的同行都会考虑日网页访客人数。但我也同样肯定，这个数字不能主导电子商务世界。也许在营销总监证明他在线下活动的投入是成功的和得出访客有效地转化为消费者的结论时，会提到这个数字。但这个数字本身并不是目标。所以为什么在应用领域的我们，还把它当成目标？我真不明白……

active users(from insidesocialgames)

观察者的指标

但DAU确实是成功的应用的核心指标吗？为了获得大量收益，我们不需要大量用户吗？好吧，首先，我们不需要。有许多明智的开发者靠做小众游戏和应用，从小众用户身上获得大量收益。事实上，所有证据都表明，绝大部分的收益来是由少数用户——有时候被叫作“鲸鱼”的用户贡献的。

但我们暂时撇开这个不谈，假设大量DAU拉动更多收益。那仍然不意味着DAU有那么重要。为什么？真正重要的指标是那些定义商业且你可以施加影响的东西。DAU可没有这些属性。

以下是唯一的三个——或者对大多数应用来说，至少有三个：

*新用户或用户获取

*留存率

*ARPU（每用户平均收入）或每用户终身价值

正如我们看到的，DAU是新用户和留存率的产物。所以虽然通过宣称ARPU和DAU都很重要，我们可以简化算术，但并不能帮助什么。原因是，在施加影响方面，DAU并不是“有用”的指标。如果我想增加新用户，我知道要叫谁和做什么。如果我想提高留存率，我知道要运用什么技术和如何执行。

DAU不适合那个模型。事实上，它正是经典的“观察者的指标”。指标是不可能成为某个人的责任的。如果你有所疑问，那就问问你自己：如果你的应用的DAU增加了，要归功于谁？在大部分情况下，这个问题可不好回答。

你应该关心什么

所以如果DAU是不值得考虑的，那么我们要看什么？答案就是：

新用户可能不总是反映收益情况，它当然可能反映消极的ROI（投资回报率）。但尽管如此，没有用户，我们就不可能获得收益。在这个领域有清楚、容易理解的责任。

类似地，留存率是很重要的。留存率的测量方法有很多种，但最基本的目标就是理解你的用户基础有多少、使用应用的频率是多少。正如前面所说的，DAU只是新用户和留存率的副产品。

最后，转化率或者你更喜欢称之为用户终身价值。考虑到留下来的玩家，有多少被转化成消费者？他们创造了多少收益？

这三个数字才是与你的项目息息相关的指标。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Is DAU The Ultimate Vanity Metric?

by Tom Farrell

What number do you look at when you arrive at your desk in the morning? Or perhaps more accurately – as soon as you can focus on your smartphone and before you’ve even got out of bed.

I’d guess it’s probably a choice between three: Daily Active Users (DAU), new users and revenue. If you picked either new users or revenue, I will offer a partial congratulations (with some caveats that we will come to later on). If you chose DAU, I have some bad news for you: You’re concerning yourself with a metric that fails on two counts (and probably the only two counts that matter):

It doesn’t necessarily correlate with the success of your business

It is difficult to directly influence, so provides a poor way to measure the results of your efforts (in whatever area they happen to be)

You Can’t Lodge DAU With The Bank

That’s why I’ve started thinking of DAU as the ultimate vanity metric. Sure, it feels good. When talking to your peers you can rattle off a suitably impressive number that makes you look good. The only problem arises when in conversation with your bank manager or investors. Because it transpires we can’t put DAU in the bank.

So there’s objection 1: There isn’t a particularly strong correlation between DAU and revenue. Or perhaps more accurately, there isn’t necessarily a particularly strong correlation. The numbers that really matter in terms of the success of an app business are your revenues. In whatever way you choose to monetize your user base, your success in doing that is what counts. Not simply having a user base in the first place.

Consider other industries and that conclusion should be obvious. I am sure that amazon.com and its peers in the ecommerce world take a look at daily web visitors. But I am equally sure it isn’t a number that rules their world. It’s probably mentioned by the marketing director to justify his or her spend on offline campaigns, and plugged into a calculation to determine how well or effectively visitors are converted to customers. But it certainly is not an end in itself. So why have we, in the app industry, decided it is? No idea…

A ‘Watcher’s Metric’

But wait – surely DAU is central to a successful app? Don’t we need a lot of users in order to generate a lot of revenue? Well, firstly – no, we don’t. Plenty of smart developers build niche games and apps that monetize strongly from small groups of users. In fact, all the evidence points to the vast majority of revenues coming from a small number of users – or ‘whales’ as they are sometimes called.

But let’s leave that aside for a moment and accept that a large number of DAU – a ‘hit’ in other words – IS more likely to drive greater revenues. That still doesn’t mean DAU matters much. And here’s why: metrics that matter are those that define the business and that you can change. DAU isn’t one of them.

There are, in fact, only three – or at least only three when it comes to most apps:

New users, or acquisition

Retention (however you choose to define this)

ARPU or lifetime value per user

DAU, as we can see, is a product of new users and retention. So whilst we could simplify our math by claiming that ARPU and DAU are all that matters, this wouldn’t help us as a business. The reason being that DAU isn’t a metric that is ‘useful’ in terms of driving change. If I want to increase new users, I know who to call and what to do. If I want to drive retention, I understand the techniques to apply and I can put them into practice.

DAU doesn’t fit that model. In fact, it is a classic ‘watcher’s metric’. A product rather than a leading indicator and not something for which responsibility can be devolved to one person. If you doubt that – ask yourself this question: if DAU increased in your app, to who would you give credit? In most cases there’s no simple answer to that question.

What You Should Care About

So if DAU is off the table, what should we be looking at? Well, the answer is above.

New users may not always correlate with revenue, and it is of course possible to deliver negative ROI in this area. But nevertheless, with no users, we cannot generate revenue. And there is a clear, easy to understand responsibility in this area.

Similarly, retention matters. Within this broad church I would allow measurement to take many forms – but the bottom line is understanding how much and how often your user base is playing. As already noted, DAU is a by-product of new users and retention.

And lastly – conversion, or if you prefer repeated conversion or LTV. Given our retained players, how many are we converting to purchasers or revenue-generating? And how much revenue do they generate?

Those three numbers are what really drives your business. So now you have something different to think of first thing in the morning…(source:gamasutra)