Turning Gamified Invite Loops into a Compounding Mobile Growth Engine
My World is a gamified mobile engagement platform targeting US smartphone users with streak, badge, and invite-loop mechanics. In a market where 90% of apps lose users within 30 days, retention was the defining challenge. We run paid social acquisition, creative production, and activation optimisation to lower install costs and amplify viral growth.
From Matchplay Entertainment to a Mobile Engagement Platform
My World began life as Matchplay Entertainment Limited, incorporated in London in May 2016 by Cody Hoffman with a focus on gamified mobile experiences. In April 2022 the company rebranded to Joinmyworld UK Limited, pivoting from pure entertainment software toward a broader mobile engagement platform at joinmyworld.com. The product combines gamification mechanics like streaks, badges, and reward systems with social features designed to drive organic viral growth through in-app invite loops.
Bootstrapped without institutional funding, My World competes for attention in a US mobile market where 270 million smartphone users average 4.2 hours of daily app time but 90% of apps fail to retain users beyond 30 days. Incumbents like Braze, Iterable, and Airship command enormous budgets and process billions of events monthly. My World's advantage sits in lightweight gamified engagement that resonates with Gen Z users, who show 40% higher engagement with streak and badge mechanics. The brief was clear: lower install costs, increase D30 retention above category benchmarks, and amplify the viral invite loop that makes the product's growth model work.
Install Budgets Allocated by Retained Users Not Raw Downloads
We manage My World's install budget across Meta and TikTok, allocating spend weekly based on cost per retained installer rather than cost per install. Meta runs Advantage+ App Campaigns with value optimisation against SKAN postback data, targeting broad 18-29 US audiences. TikTok uses App Event Optimisation bidding against invite-sent events, which delivers 2.3x better efficiency than install-optimised bidding. Budget shifts between platforms every Monday based on trailing seven-day cost per D7 retained user, tracked through Adjust as the attribution layer connecting deterministic and SKAN probabilistic signals.
Four Hook Categories Rotating Every 72 Hours Against Fatigue
My World's creative pipeline ships new ad variants every 72 hours to stay ahead of fatigue in the 18-34 demographic where ad recall drops 45% after three exposures. We test across four hook categories: gamification demos showing streak and badge mechanics, social proof clips featuring real invite chains, before-and-after retention comparisons, and UGC screen recordings of first-session experiences. Each variant runs on both Meta Reels and TikTok In-Feed simultaneously, with performance compared at the hook level rather than the platform level. Winners graduate to Advantage+ catalogue creative for scaled delivery.
Measuring Viral Coefficient by Cohort to Multiply Every Paid Install
The invite loop is My World's growth engine, so we treat it as a measurable acquisition channel. We instrument every step from in-app invite prompt to recipient install to first session, piping events through Adjust into a real-time dashboard that calculates viral coefficient by cohort. When the coefficient dips below target, we trigger push notification sequences via the app's native messaging layer to re-engage lapsed inviters. Onboarding flow A/B tests reduced time-to-first-invite from 12 minutes to under 4, directly lifting the 19% invite send improvement that multiplies every paid install.
SKAN Schemas and Event Optimisation That Find Users Who Stay
The core challenge in mobile acquisition post-ATT is that iOS 14.5 reduced advertiser addressability by roughly 30%, making SKAN conversion value schemas the critical optimisation lever. We designed a SKAN schema for My World that maps six conversion value bits to a composite of install-to-registration completion, first invite sent, and D7 session frequency, giving Meta and TikTok's algorithms enough downstream signal to optimise toward high-value installers rather than casual clickers.
On Meta, we run App Install campaigns using Advantage+ App Campaigns with value optimisation enabled, targeting broad US audiences aged 18-29 and letting the algorithm use SKAN postbacks to find users who resemble those completing invite sends. On TikTok, we use App Event Optimisation bidding against the 'invite sent' event, which proved 2.3x more efficient than optimising for installs alone. Creative rotation follows a 72-hour refresh cadence to combat fatigue in the 18-34 demographic. Each platform feeds conversion events through server-side integrations, with Adjust as our MMP providing deterministic attribution where SKAN probabilistic matching falls short.
Invite Data Turned Paid Acquisition into a Self-Reinforcing Loop
The engagement has delivered a 32% reduction in cost per install, a 27% improvement in D30 retention, and a 19% lift in invite send rate, the metric that directly compounds My World's organic acquisition loop. These results stem from a deliberate decision to optimise paid campaigns toward downstream engagement events rather than raw installs, accepting initially higher CPIs in exchange for users who actually stay and invite others.
We innovated by treating the invite mechanic as a paid media signal, feeding invite completion data back into platform algorithms so that acquisition spend naturally gravitates toward users with high viral coefficients. This approach turns paid and organic growth into a single compounding system rather than two separate channels. The forward opportunity sits in three real shifts. Apple's evolving SKAN 4.0 framework will unlock finer-grained conversion value mapping across multiple postback windows. AI-powered personalisation engines, already achieving 25% accuracy gains in churn prediction, enable pre-emptive re-engagement before the critical D7 drop-off. And 5G rollout supports richer in-app experiences including AR loyalty features that boost conversion rates by up to 30%.
