How to optimize user consent rates in games with the Didomi CMP

What is consent, why is it important, how do I collect it, and how do I optimise it? Since launching the Didomi CMP on the cross-platform game engine Unity, these are the questions we explored in our 3rd masterclass,”How to optimise consent rates with the Didomi SDK”. You can also carry on reading to find out. Get in contact if you have any more questions you would like us to answer!

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What is consent and why is it important in gaming? 

What is consent? 

In order to dive into how to optimise user consent rates with Didomi’s Unity SDK, it’s important first to re-cap on the definition of consent, and how you can collect it. Before GDPR, consent was assumed unless a user actively opted out. However, under GDPR regulation, consent must be a clear positive action (freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous), and it should be ‘as easy to withdraw as to give consent’. 

Why is consent important in gaming? 

You may not know it, but every time you ask for a user’s email and login, you collect their personal data. And, in the gaming world, it doesn’t stop there. The tracers you install can have tremendous importance. Thanks to them, you are able to know who is connected at a given time, establish your retention rate, and know how much money each player brings you. But, collecting consent is required before processing any personal data. 

From a GDPR standpoint, as an app owner you have to start asking yourself these questions: 

• Have my players consented to the ways in which my app processes their personal data? 
• Are my players always aware of the personal data they share in order to be able to play the game? 
• Do players know their data is being shared with partners for advertising, analytics, and other purposes?
• Is this data stored in their country or in the game studio’s country, and is it well protected? 

In summary, If you don’t want to risk a fine (which can amount to up to $ 20 million, or 4% of your global turnover), you should start prioritizing consent. Feeling overwhelmed? Consider a solution like Didomi that helps you ensure compliance and monetize your content. 

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Want to find out more? Check out the full recording of our webinar here:

Why is your consent rate a key to your revenue? 

First, what is consent rate? We can calculate consent rates by using the number of pages viewed with consent divided by the overall number of pages viewed (with and without consent).

Then, if you want to calculate the average consent rate on a website, we use a method that calculates average consent through weighted averages based on the number of pages visited.

So, why is this calculation so important to revenue? 

1) Advertisers are willing to pay more for inventories that include personal data 

Revenue comes through monetization, and advertisers are willing to pay much more for inventories that include personal data.

If advertisements rely on personal data, advertisers are legally required to ensure that this data has been collected with the consent of the users. Consent allows targeted ads to be deployed instead of non-targeted ads, and targeted ads are worth twice as much (CPM x2). 

Considering most games rely on a freemium model, mainly financed through personalized advertising or data collection and selling, consent really is the key to revenue. Without it, these activities are non-compliant. 

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2) Building user trust will increase revenue 

Moreover, it is important to remember that revenue is also a question of trust. By offering choice to your users, you provide transparency, which is the key to your reputation as a brand.

With this trust, users are more likely to share their data, allowing you and/or your partners to have a better knowledge of their habits and tastes, increasing your games’ advertising revenue with personalized campaigns. 

Find out more about the privacy transition, and the movement from privacy to preference by downloading our whitepaper: From Privacy to Preference: How Data Regulation is changing marketing for the better.

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What is a Consent Management Platform, and how will it affect my consent rate? 

So, let’s move on to how you can collect this highly important consent in a compliant manner. 

A Consent Management Platform (CMP) like Didomi’s is a tool for collecting user consent regarding personal data online. It enables compliance with increasingly tough privacy regulations across the world, whilst also offering more choice and control for your users. 

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How will a CMP affect my consent rate? 

It is worth noting that consent rates may be impacted in volume. If you give users explicit choices, some will undoubtedly opt-out. However, the data you do collect will be of much higher value to you for the reasons mentioned earlier:

1. One, advertisers can legally use this data

2. Userconsent is a symbol of trust. They have actively chosen to share their data with you. 

Few actors in the ecosystem have offered gaming publishers technologically adapted solutions to collect, store, manage, and share users’ consent on their preferred environments. This is not only dangerous regarding data compliance but also risky for user retention, as it can lead disappointed players to lose trust in the game and its applications.

Want to find out more about how the Didomi CMP allows you to ensure compliance and user trust, whilst continuing to optimize monetization in gaming? Schedule a demo with us. 

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How can Didomi help you optimize your consent rate? 

The Didomi solution is live on over 160k websites and apps. By doing consent rate aggregation, we have specialist knowledge in the practices that help you to have a higher consent rate, and in those that can cause consent rates to lower. 

Here is a summary of 3 key things to bear in mind to help you optimize your consent rate:  

1) Pick the right style of banner

This might seem minor, but different banner types can strongly affect consent rates. For example, Didomi customers using a CMP with a “pop-in” format usually collect between 90-95% consent rate (not bad, right?!).

In comparison, the banner format collects around 75-90%. In the “in-app” format we can see that the “pop-in” format collects between 80-90% consent rates, and the banner collects between 75-80%. This 5-10% makes all the difference, and Didomi is here to advise you on what would work best for you. 

2) Pay attention to detail 

The devil’s in the detail! Other smaller considerations, like blurring the webpage behind the consent banner will allow for higher consent rates, as the user focuses more on the banner. 

Also, feel free to get creative. Remember, the consent banner will most likely be the first thing the user sees on your app. Try to inject some of your unique brand identity into the banner, and the user will be more likely to consent. Check out the Didomi consent banner on our website to see how we created a bespoke banner to fit our brand. 

The Didomi consent banner 

Want to see what a compliant versus a non-compliant video game banner looks like? Check out our article on this topic here. 

3) AB Test to see what works best for your app 

Through AB testing, you can try out different formats and structures for your consent notice. An AB testing allows you to compare consent rates of two groups of user population, the control group and the test group.

For instance, your control group will see a pop-in format banner on your website, whereas your test group will see a bottom banner. The Didomi SDK allows you to run AB tests, look at the results, and implement the UX that suits you. This will allow you to optimize consent to the highest degree. 

We are experts in the field of consent and preference management, and our aim is to create solutions that work for your gaming apps and your users. Don’t forget to check out our series of  Unity masterclasses, and schedule a demo with us if you’d like to see how we can help you collect consent for compliant monetization with the Didomi SDK! 

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