Improving Hexicon's In-App Shop

In building Hexicon, we’ve always wanted to avoid unpredictable full screen ads that completely interrupt the user experience. As a result, we’ve leaned heavily into the concept of rewarded ads, in-app purchases (IAPs), and a potential remove-ads-forever option.

Rewarded ads only work if there are valuable rewards that users want, so we created the Hexicoin system, which offers users double or triple their coin rewards for watching an ad. The last piece of this puzzle is making the Hexicoins valuable to the user so that they want to watch ads for rewards, which is where the shop comes in.

Currently, we have a variety of different cosmetic items available for Hexicoin purchase in the shop. We’ve integrated IAPs into this system by making bulk amounts of Hexicoins available for purchase with real money. For now, we only sell cosmetic items in the shop, but we’re considering ideas for items that affect solo gameplay. We created some fun cosmetics, threw them in a shop, and launched our Hexicoin system with some success and some room for improvement. Most importantly, we began getting data and are using that info to improve the Hexicoin experience.

Our most important finding so far is that, at this point, only 33.6% of all active users have entered the shop ever. In other words, 64% of our users have never even seen what’s in the shop, so why would they care about Hexicoins? We’ve tested (and are still testing) a few solutions to this issue:

1.  New Store Location
   Hexicon has always used tabs in a bottom navigation bar. We decided to deprioritize the “User” tab to make room for the store. Our numbers suggest that slightly more users are likely to stumble upon the shop as they “explore” the app upon download. Additionally, we now have the ability to use badges on the tab icon when introducing new items.
2.  Small, relevant popup notification
   We now alert users when they have enough Hexicoins to make a purchase with a message like, “You have enough Hexicoins to buy something in the shop!” This is a clear call to action given at the right time to help user make their first purchase. This prompt also highlights the shop’s location within the app
3.  Rotating Featured Items
   Currently, we offer 4 different types of cosmetic items in the shop, and we’re still working out the best way to showcase that variety in the 1–2 seconds a user spends checkout out the shop tab. In our latest update, we’ve started featuring 4 items at a slight discount (TBD how frequently those will rotate). We hypothesize that this redesign will let us show off the variety of items we sell to new users as well as highlight fresh cosmetics to seasoned players.
4.  Thematic, Limited-Time Items
   Since we started getting this data near the end of November, our first themed items are cute holiday icons, each available as featured items. We hope to encourage more frequent spending with limited-time and relevant cosmetics. Eventually, we’d love to work with sponsors to create custom cosmetics for popular movies, characters, colors — you name it!

These are all active tests, so we’ll continue to iterate as we gather more data points for each solution. Most importantly, we’re tracking user behavior and gathering feedback about Hexicoins, ads, IAPs, and our items. If you have any suggestions for cosmetics in Hexicon, let us know!