Setting up an automated global in-app purchase price optimization with Mage consists of four easy steps:
As soon as you are done and you pushed your app update through the app stores, Mage collects purchase data and predicts enhanced prices. Once a recommendation is available, you can confirm or deny a new price for a product. This way, you always stay in control.
To set up your app in the Mage configuration portal, you need to complete three easy steps:
Let us know the details about your app, like Bundle-ID, Name, Categories and shipped Platforms.
Figure 1:Â Adding an app to Mage
Define a product group to group your products with similar features in a collection.
Figure 2:Â Adding a product group to Mage
Finally, add your products with your product details like the in-app purchase type, special subscription details (only relevant for subscriptions) as well as the price range in which Mage should operate.
Regarding the operational window for Mage you will define a default price and a minimum price. Mage will use your default price as the starting point for its optimization.
See our guide on Mage Portal Setup for more information and best practices.
Figure 3:Â Adding a product to Mage
As soon as you added your products, Mage will generate a set of In-App Purchase (IAP) objects as a reasonable price range for your products. To make them available for the Mage SDK, you need to add those IAPs to your app in iTunes Connect and/or Google Play Console.
You just need to add those IAPs once, and then Mage can distribute these prices according to our analysis. See App Store Setup for how to configure your in-app purchases and what to watch for.
Figure 4:Â Overview of In-App Purchase objects
Now it’s time to integrate the Mage SDK. Currently, Mage SDKs are available in Objective-C, React Native and Java. They only require three easy calls. Read the full documentation in our open source libraries on GitHub:
To better predict subscription lifetime values and identify refunded purchases, Mage provides a simple Web API to enable notifications for status updates. Suppose your backend or third party service for your subscription tracking gets notified regarding a status update. In that case, you need to inform the Mage Web API for subscription renewals, users switching subscriptions, users refunding or rebuying in-app purchases. More detail about this method can be found in our guide on IAPÂ State Tracking.
Once you are all set, Mage starts with analyzing your sales in all countries. To ensure 100% control, we implemented a confirmation process, which lets you have the final say. You have the choice if new prices will take effect. As soon as the first learnings can be drawn, the Mage optimization engine will generate recommendations for your in-app products. You will be notified, once new recommendations are waiting for your confirmation.
To see and take actions on your new recommendations, simply login into the Mage configuration portal. The “Recommendation” overview shows you all new recommendations, which were never denied or accepted. You can find more info about how our recommendations work in our Recommendations Management guide.