The formula the Zynga Store uses to increase webshop revenue

Social media games like Farmville and Zynga Poker put Zynga on the map in the early 2000s. Since then, they’ve expanded their portfolio into mobile to establish “forever franchises” with household names like Words With Friends, Merge Dragons, and Toon Blast. In 2022, they were acquired by Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar Games and 2K, for $12.7 billion - at that point, the biggest acquisition of a single game company in history. 

A huge part of Zynga’s success is tapping into the motivations of their highest-spending players and driving direct revenue through a D2C webshop, the Zynga Store. Each of their games has a dedicated web store that shares a similar set of offers and features and lets Zynga establish a direct relationship with their players - and sell products without the 30% commission fee of the app stores. Ahead, we’re looking into the Zynga Store for some of the studio’s top hits to explore the formula they’re using when it comes to their offers and features, and the takeaways you can apply to your own game’s D2C experience. 

Rewards for visiting and returning to the Zynga Store

Rewards are an excellent incentive for getting players to visit the Zynga Store - and offering them regularly (e.g. every 24 hours) is a way to encourage them to keep returning. 

Daily reward

The Zynga Store for Words With Friends 2 offers players a free daily mystery gift (like a loot box) - and then players return to the game to see exactly what they earned. It connects the web and in-game experiences so players remain immersed in the game environment, feel more secure about the webshop and its credibility, and encourage higher retention and engagement.

Rewards streak

Taking it a step further, the Zynga Store uses a streak feature across many of its games. What this means is that players need to check in each day to earn a larger payout at the end of a certain duration (e.g. 7 days, 10 days). If they don’t check in, they lose the streak and either miss out on the final reward or need to start from the beginning. Earning small rewards along the way is a good incentive to keep players returning on the path towards the final prize. And the streak feature means players make a habit of returning to the webshop and checking in, leading to higher retention and conversions.

For example, the Zynga Store for Empires and Puzzles has an entire page devoted to the daily rewards feature. Here, players can track their progress towards the final, high-value reward on day 7. And the streak mechanic means players need to check in each day to be able to claim the final reward - if they miss a day, the final reward isn’t available. 

Zynga Poker has a separate page on the Zynga Store for its daily streak rewards, too. And like Empires and Puzzles, players can collect a webshop reward of poker chips every 24 hours for 7 days - if they miss a day, they can’t go back to collect that previous day’s, and they also miss out on the big reward on day 7.

For Wizard of Oz Slots, players can check into the webshop every 24 hours to claim a free reward. As they continue to check in and build a streak, they earn more bonuses - leading up to a special reward on day 10. However, if they miss a day, they lose the streak and need to restart. The mystery of the final reward and the incentive to keep claiming increasingly higher bonuses each day motivate players to keep checking in.

Building webshop value to increase conversions

Once players land on the webshop (e.g. to claim their daily reward), there are a few strategies that Zynga uses on their webshop to build value so that players choose to shop on the Zynga Store, rather than in-game:

First purchase offer

Giving players an incentive to make their first purchase on the webshop is an effective strategy for increasing first-purchase rates. The important part is making sure the offer feels valuable enough to players. On the Zynga Store for Wizard of Oz Slots, the first purchase offer is a chest of Credits, which is the primary currency in the game and arguably the most valuable resource. Including a callout of a 30% bonus and the additional VIP points further enhances the value, and the low pricepoint makes it an accessible entrypoint for players who are just starting to shop on the web.

Bonuses with purchase

Another way that Zynga encourages players to shop on the web, rather than in-game, is by offering bonuses with each purchase. The amount of bonus and type varies with each game - the key is giving players a bonus that feels valuable enough to make it worth it to head out of the game and into the web.

In the Zynga Poker web shop, this looks like a 20% poker chip or gold bonus. Poker chips are the primary currency in the game, and gold is the resource players use to spin the bonus machine and earn even more chips - so in both cases, the poker chip and gold resource bundles are offers that players want to purchase so they can keep playing and winning. 

In Wizard of Oz Slots, credits are the primary currency - they’re the resource players use to keep spinning and playing. Since they’re so critical, the Zynga Store offers bonus credits with each credit purchase to entice players to shift their spend to the web. Players earn 10% more credits with their purchase, along with bonus VIP points (we'll discuss these later). 

For Words With Friends 2, players can use coins to make in-game purchases that give them an edge, like power-ups and boosters. So the Zynga Store gives players 10% more coins with most purchases, like bundles and packs of coins. And for Rewards Passes, players earn a set number of additional coins - like 65 extra coins for purchasing the Ads Free Premium Rewards Pass on the web. 

Purchase stamp card

A stamp card motivates players to keep returning to the webshop and converting, leading to a higher repeat purchase rate. In the Zynga Store for Zynga Poker, for example, players can earn an unspecified amount of chips if they complete 5 eligible purchases (those marked with the VIP stamp) within 14 days. On the web, they can redeem a similar offer: make 5 eligible webshop purchases within 14 days to earn a payout of $120,000,000. It’s a separate incentive from in-game and lets players know exactly what’s at stake so they feel motivated to make the purchases and get the bonus chips.

Liveops bundles

Players are often motivated to make more purchases during livopes events - they’re seeking any advantage they can get. So the Zynga Store includes liveops offers to drive more webshop conversions during these high-intent periods. Empires and Puzzles, for example, maintains an active liveops schedule, with 2, sometimes 3, events happening at once. During one week in March, there were two events running: Tremors of Underwild and Untold Tales. On the webshop and in-game, there were bundles tailored to this event and running for a limited-time to encourage urgency and conversions.

How does the Zynga Store drive more revenue from VIP players?

Zynga Poker was the studio’s first game, launched in 2007 on Facebook. It quickly became the first game in the US to earn significant revenue by selling “virtual goods” (microtransactions to purchase poker chips) in the game: by 2008, the Texas Hold Em Poker game earned $50 million in revenue. Plus, it’s a social casino game, which means the opportunity to monetize “whales”, or high spenders, is huge - it mirrors the casinos of real-life. It was with the success of this first title that Zynga recognized the importance of their VIP players and began creating a deliberate strategy for monetizing them more effectively:

“We've done so much experimenting at Zynga with VIP. We know what's the frequency of contact. We know what call types work. We know what times to call. We know exactly who to call and when. We know who has a higher propensity to be more susceptible to our call." - Gemma Doyle, Vice President of Zynga

And this translated to the Zynga Store, too - here, the studio had an opportunity to shift the spend of their VIP players to the web and start earning direct revenue. And since VIP players make up a significant portion of overall spend, even shifting a portion of this to the web and saving on the 30% commission fees can significantly increase margins.

“When you look at your VIP base and how much they're spending, it's a huge amount of money. Depending on your game, it can be anywhere between 70% and 90% of all revenue coming from your VIP base.” - Gemma Doyle, Vice President of Zynga

There are a few ways the Zynga Store caters to high-spenders across the studio’s different titles:

Web-exclusive, high-value offers

In the Zynga Store for each of the studio’s titles, players can find higher-value offers than in-game. By offering this only on the web, Zynga is giving their most valuable players a compelling reason to shift their spend to the webshop. For example, the Words With Friends 2 webshop lets players purchase high-value bundles and coin packs that don’t exist in the game (e.g. for $149.99). High spenders are willing to pay the higher pricepoint because they’re able to get more of the resource and items they want most, without having to complete multiple transactions.

And the Empires and Puzzles webshop has exclusive, high-value packs that aren’t available in-game. High spenders that want to make a bigger purchase can buy up to 20,000 gems on the web and get an extra 10% as a bonus - a win-win.

VIP program

Games like Wizard of Oz Slots and Zynga Poker have VIP programs in-game that have unique benefits at each level. 

To earn VIP points in these games that let them reach new VIP levels, players can make purchases on the webshop or in-game - but with web-exclusive offers, players get more ways to accumulate points than shopping in-game. This helps build more value on the webshop and encourage players to shop here, rather than in-game. And it’s appealing to the highest spenders who are willing to pay more to climb the VIP tiers and earn exclusive rewards - who are also the target player base for shifting spend to the webshop.

Webshop community content that deepens player engagement

There’s another feature on the Zynga Store worth mentioning that’s not actually a commerce-based offer, like bonus gems or bundles - and that’s community features. Empires and Puzzles, for example, has a forum page on their webshop. Here, players can post and have conversations with others in their community (and the game’s developers) about everything from player guides and alliance recruitment to bug reports and feature requests. 

A feature like this taps into the player motivations of the game, which in this case is both social and strategic: players want to forge strategic alliances and excel in the game against other players. Having access to this forum on the Zynga Store gives players a way to engage more deeply with the game beyond gameplay itself and feel a part of a close-knit player community - and motivates them to head out of the game and onto the web.

How does Zynga drive traffic to their webshop?

To get players over to the Zynga store for each of their games, the studio adopts a few marketing strategies they use across their titles:

Organic social

Social media is a pillar of any webshop marketing strategy, but Zynga utilizes their profiles in unique ways. They publish posts that spotlight their webshop rewards and offers like many other studios, but they use all available real estate to make sure they’re exploiting every available opportunity for highlighting the Zynga Store and its value props. For example, Zynga Poker includes the Zynga Store link and value prop in the Instagram profile bio. And Wizard of Oz Slots calls out the webshop link in their description and creative - along with spotlighting the offer (free credits) in both parts, too.

Links on official game website

Many of Zynga’s top titles have their own dedicated websites separate from the webshop that often let users play the game directly in their browser and explore other pages, like blogs and news. These sites are also opportunities to advertise the Zynga Store. For example, on the Words With Friends 2 website, visitors are met with a notification when they arrive at the home page - the notification advertises a free gift and takes visitors directly to the webshop. Merge Dragons does something similar on their website, using a banner at the top of the homepage to direct players to the web store so they can claim a free gift. Giving players an incentive like a free gift and advertising it clearly on-site helps drive more traffic to the web store.

Email marketing

Since the Zynga Store is a D2C channel, the studio gets access to first-party player data, like emails when users share them to make an account and play Zynga’s games. Zynga can then reach players directly by running email marketing campaigns that lets them know about the Zynga Store - including new offers, abandoned cart emails (when players select an offer but don’t complete the purchase), and general information about the value propositions on the web. They also include a CTA in every email that takes players directly to the webshop, making it as easy as possible for users to visit the store.

Build your own custom webshop

The Zynga Store drives direct revenue and gives players new ways to engage with their favorite games. If you want to take a tip out of their playbook and design your own custom webshop that offers players a better experience than shopping in-game while driving more profit, talk to us at Stash. We’ve helped our developer partners build custom webshops from the ground-up that are fully tailored to their unique players and game - which has translated into higher revenue, engagement, and retention. Let’s talk!