Saturday, June 14, 2014

Evaluating Promotional Offers

Evaluating Promotional Offers


If you read the forums, or the comments on Facebook (and I suggest that everyone should at least glance at them), you will see a constant clamor for “a promo.” Yet, when one happens, there is grousing about how it’s not a good promo, and within a couple of days the din continues.

Promos are discount sales. If a company is happy with their income, they ignore the clamor, and there are no discounts offered. But when you see them, you can rest assured that the company believes that they will make more money than if they didn’t offer a promo.

EQUIVALENT FP


There is out out there today (12 June 2014). Let’s look at it. The offer claims to be a 320 FP Value Pack, including the following:

  • 2 crate rolls (those would cost 30 FP each if you bought them on the favor page)
  • 500 class coins (there is no price for these, because you can’t buy them). I’m arbitrarily assigning them a value of 60 FP, but you might think they are worth 100 FP. I wouldn’t argue over it.
  • 4 recombinators. In theory, you get 1 of each level (common, uncommon, rare, and epic). It would be great if we could buy recombinators. They are worth 1/3 of an LT, if you think that you can get an LT to level up by adding one. So I’ll give them the arbitrary value of 10 FP each, and call this 4. In truth, if you already have 20 of them and can’t use them, they are worthless to you. But for this exercise, I’m saying 40.
  • 10 FP. Pretty easy to convert THIS one to equivalent FP, no?
  • 1x “Ariel” LT. I like Ariel. At Level 1, I think she adds 5% to your property income. You can get her from a 30FP crate roll (except you might get someone else). I put 30 FP on the LT in the promo, but you could make a case for 40 or 50 since you know which one you’ll get.
  • 5x Income property. I give these a zero value. They never represent much property income, and you can’t buy the 6th, 7th, and so on.
  • 3x Energy Pack. Energy refills are 10 FP each, so this is 30.
  • 3x Stamina Pack. Also 30 FP.
  • 50 Chat tokens. I’ve never bought a chat token. I think you can use them to create a private chat room, and to post your army code in World Chat. I put a value of zero on these. Perhaps you like them more. You can’t possibly like them less.
  • $6.4 million in game money. I also put a zero on money. I know that you can buy money with FP, but I get money with Property and by doing Jobs. At level 500, 10 FP will buy you $1 million, so they might be evaluating it at 60 or 100 FP. I use …. Zero.

When I add those numbers up, I get between 150-200 FP. To get that extra value, you have to buy 125 FP, at a cost of $20 US. You’d get 137 FP or so, because they give you a 10% bonus for FP purchases.

The bottom line on this offer is 300 FP for $20 US. Is that a good deal, or a bad deal? In general, if the “free stuff” is worth less than the stuff you have to pay for, I think it’s a bad promo. In this case, 150 > 125 so it is better than the minimum. But is it good enough? Maybe. Between 100% and 200% you have to think about it. Above 200%, it’s a really nice deal, and I’d put a BUY on it. So, how about this one? Yes or no?

If you are really hurting for CC, it might be great. I can get the CC in 3-4 days of empire games. I can get the cash in a day, but lower level players will need more than a week to get $6.4 million. If you don’t have much property income, Ariel won’t be worth as much to you as if you have a lot.

Remember that you can fuse Ariel up, and that the benefit is even greater if you have a 2* or 3* LT. At 6 stars, she gives a 17% bump to property income – when she’s seated. If she’s not seated, you get … zip. Bupkis. Nada. Rien. Ze-ro. Nothing.

BOTTOM LINE IT FOR ME

If you don’t have a lot of property income, I think this offer is probably not for you. I have a lot of property income (more than $250,000 per hour) and I can live without it.

There are properties that do what Ariel does – they are the Stock Markets that you can buy after you get a Fortress. Admittedly, a Stock Market increases property income by 1% for each Stock Market you get, up to 10 of them – less than Ariel gives if you star her up. But Stock Markets work all the time. Ariel works when she’s seated. If she’s not one of your 5 strongest LT’s, you’ll have to weaken your toon in order to use her. I like to seat her overnight, but sometimes I don’t remember. Truth be told, swapping LT’s is a huge pain in the neck for me. I forget, it takes time, some of my devices time out or take a long time … I get an attitude. But every day that you don’t use Ariel is a day that you get no benefit from the featured LT in this promo. (Someday, they’ll give you a quick way to switch LT sets. That will be a great day. The sun will shine and everyone will say please and thank you. The lamb will lie with the lion. All wars will cease, and hunger will not be found on earth.)

This time I’m passing, but maybe it’s just the promotion you’ve been looking for. I hope this exercise helps you evaluate a promo next time.