Reducing mobile data cost by 99%
Goal Zero app case study
You would think an understanding that Data affordability is key to online engagement in emerging markets means data efficiency is a number one priority when designing mobile web and app experiences for emerging market consumers.
Unfortunately for many websites and apps it would appear their design focus on user experience and functionality often comes at the price of data efficiency.
And it’s only made worse by the inclusion of online advertising which can account for 60% to 80% of data cost incurred by mobile audiences.
How to build an awesome user experience for 99% less data cost?
Seems like a pipe dream, right?
At biNu we think deeply about mobile data efficiency as a first order priority and have created amazing technology to build native smartphone apps with compelling user experiences that reduce data cost by up to 99%, compared with accessing the same content on websites.
We achieve this by focussing on data efficiency as first order priority, from beginning to end. Surprisingly it’s not rocket science or some clever new secret sauce that enables us to do it, rather an absolute focus on data efficiency utilising standard technologies enables us to achieve the goal.
Techniques include Markdown (a lightweight markup language) to present content, compression, caching, automatic image optimisation etc.
The net result is biNu’s #datafree MAX solution to build hyper-efficient smartphone apps using the biNu Publishing Platform.
Goal Zero case study
The Goal Zero app developed is an Android smartphone app providing live soccer scores, commentaries, stats, results, league tables, news etc. across mainstream global football leagues and competitions.
It’s fast, easy to use, #datafree in South Africa and users love it with a 4.6 rating on the Google Play Store.
The app was developed in partnership with global sports media company Perform Group, publishers of Goal.com the largest online football publication in the world.
Goal Zero is building a viral audience of highly engaged users in South Africa. The DAU (Daily Active Users) chart below highlights the app’s growth rate with recent with traffic peaks representing the conclusion of the European football league season last May, the football World Cup in Russia in June & July followed by the start of the new football season in August.
So how much data does Goal Zero use?
By way of comparison, going to the Goal.com website using the Chrome browser on a smartphone to read ten news articles required over 100 MB of mobile data. No doubt over half that data was generated by ads.
Last Saturday 15th September was a busy soccer day with a full program of matches in major European leagues as well as the South African PSL. Not surprisingly it was a big day for Goal Zero (highlighted in the chart above) with users following live scores, commentaries, stats, results as well as regular news updates.
Average engagement metrics for Goal Zero on September 15th, per active user were:
- 103 navigations (page views)
- 28 mins in-app focus time
- 1.1 MB data usage.
Yes, you read that right!
Data usage per active user for the entire day was 1.1 MB.
That same level of activity and user engagement accessing the same content on Goal.com would have meant hundreds of MB of data usage per user, plus response times would have been significantly slower.
The charts below show average engagement metrics per active user, per day for Goal Zero over the past few months:
So how is Goal Zero monetised?
Rather than an app experience littered with data expensive banner and sponsored link ads, the Goal Zero app is monetised with occasional 10 second, vertical video ads, delivered #datafree with ‘swipe-up’ user engagement if required.
Brand oriented mobile video ads have much higher value per view than clickthru performance oriented banner and sponsored link ads.
Given the incredible data efficiency of the Goal Zero app, one vertical video ad view more than comfortably pays the data usage cost for an active daily user, with plenty left over!
