Insightric®

Insightric®

Home

ROI Benchmarks

Player Retention in the UAE iGaming Market

In the UAE, retention decides whether your ROI survives.

In the UAE iGaming market, traffic is expensive and mistakes are unforgiving.

If players leave early, there is no volume cushion to recover the loss.
Retention is not a “nice-to-have metric” here — it decides whether your ROI holds up at all.

Operators who scale sustainably don’t chase more users.
They focus on keeping the right players active from day one.

In the UAE iGaming market, traffic is expensive and mistakes are unforgiving.

If players leave early, there is no volume cushion to recover the loss.
Retention is not a “nice-to-have metric” here — it decides whether your ROI holds up at all.

Operators who scale sustainably don’t chase more users.
They focus on keeping the right players active from day one.

What “Good Retention” Really Means in the UAE

What “Good Retention” Really Means in the UAE

Retention Benchmarks

Retention Benchmarks

Retention Benchmarks

• D1 Retention: 30–36%

• D7 Retention: 10–14%

• D30 Retention: 4–6%

Early retention performance strongly predicts long-term player value and ROI sustainability in the UAE market.

source: appsflyer · gameanalytics · data.ai · internal market aggregation

Value Concentration Effect

Value Concentration Effect

Value Concentration Effect

• Top 15–20% of users generate 60%+ of total revenue

• High-value users churn early when experience expectations are unmet

• Losing a small number of players can break the entire ROI model

Retention in the UAE is less about volume and more about protecting high-intent players.

source: appsflyer · gameanalytics · internal market aggregation

Experience Over Incentives

Experience Over Incentives

Experience Over Incentives

• Well-optimized payment stacks consistently reach 88–94% success rates.

• Payment flow improvements are associated with higher retention stability.

Payment friction is one of the fastest and most underestimated churn drivers in the UAE.

source: data.ai · checkout.com · internal market aggregation

Why Retention Works Differently in the UAE

Why Retention Works Differently in the UAE

Most markets treat retention as a downstream metric —
acquire traffic first, then optimize churn over time.

The UAE does not follow this pattern.

With CPM up to 3× higher than APAC, early user loss immediately erodes ROI.There is limited tolerance for trial-and-error acquisition strategies.

In the UAE, retention must be designed early — not optimized later.
It is a prerequisite for sustainable growth, not a secondary KPI.

How Retention Connects to ARPU and ROI

How Retention Connects to ARPU and ROI

In high-CPM markets, retention determines how much value can be extracted from each acquired user.
Poor retention caps ARPU regardless of traffic quality.

Retention alone does not increase revenue —
but without it, ARPU optimization and ROI scaling become structurally constrained.

This is why retention should be evaluated alongside monetization efficiency and payment performance
when assessing sustainable ROI in the UAE.

Insightric®