By Andrew French, Global Trading Director at mobile marketers Somo

The year 2012, it’s fair to say, was a bit of a roller coaster ride for many app developers, particularly in the gaming space. We saw huge IPOs, massive rounds of venture funding and more volatility than a New Years Eve party at Silvio Berlusconis’!

Much of this was driven by investors starting to ask ‘how do we make money out of these users?’ This, in my opinion marked a new era for gaming companies and an increased focus on sustainable and scalable business models.

With this in mind, what can developers looking to build a valuable mobile business learn from the ups and downs experienced last year?

Here are six things to consider:

1. Consider the context

Thinking about when a consumer will play your game. Will they be at home in front of the TV, connected to Wi-Fi? Or out and about with 3G or no connectivity at all? It could be that the consumer will play the game in both contexts and so the user experience should reflect this. The game must be as good to play offline as online to really maximise game play and monetisation opportunities.

2. Build a monetisation model

Advertising is definitely one way to monetise an app. Try to think beyond standard banners and more about video and full page ads, particularly ads that will be triggered by a specific event or action. Serving a full page ad, for example, when a user has run out of lives will have a much higher CTR and CPM than an ad delivered right in the middle of a level when you are just about to complete it.

Beyond advertising you should consider in-app purchase. Offering enough game-play to get the user excited and enjoying the game. Some of the best examples I have seen enable the game to progress faster by purchasing extra lives or levels. In this way the user has a choice over whether to wait or pay – they’re not being forced and are therefore more likely to cough up to continue.

3. Use Big Data

To succeed you need to have enough data to draw real insights. Even the best games will have ‘pinch points’ – parts of the game where users seem to stop playing. Having great analytics and data will enable you to see user journey trends and improve the app. Let the data tell the story and don’t rely on instinct. It really shouldn’t be under-estimated how important this is  – you can make much more money when you know what’s going on.

The data should also show how much money you make from each user. This will be a combination of advertising revenue and, if available in-app purchases. Again, the more granularity the better here to deliver real insights. What is the average dwell time per user? How many purchases does the average user make over what time period? What is the delay between downloading the app and making the first purchase?

4. Track user acquisition

Once you know what a user is worth, you will know how much you can afford to pay per user. The key is to track user acquisition properly back to source and then segment the value of a user by source. Also, don’t forget to factor in the impact that advertising has on organic installs -the users that saw your ad and then downloaded later or found you rising up the app store charts. There are hundreds of places to advertise and so finding a partner that can help with this in a trusted way is really important.

5. Think about re-targeting and CRM

Once you have acquired a user, keep them. Make sure that you use push-notifications sympathetically and serve in-app messages to users at the right time. You may also want to encourage users to register, either via the Facebook API or email. This way you can send targeted, event-driven notifications to the users that you have spent money to acquire.

6. Think beyond iOS

One of the biggest success stories in mobile last year was the Amazon Kindle. The value and quality of users was good and as they rolled out the product internationally the addressable audience grew large enough to attract developers.

The other area to consider is Android. Most developers would say that users don’t monetise as well as on iOS but, when you combine lower acquisition cost, growing numbers and continued growth it is hard to continue to ignore this platform. It is very likely that this will further improve with direct-to-bill payments in 2013. Also, with Google being more open than Apple, the ability to gather real data insights can lead to some clever marketing techniques.

So, some food for thought as we move further into 2013. What’s certain is that consumers will continue to play games and those developers who get it right and monetise their users will succeed. Those that focus on user acquisition at any cost will increasingly struggle in a mobile world that starts to move from the vanity of loss-making growth to the sanity of growth with ROI.