K-Factor

What is K-Factor?

A K-Factor is a measure of how viral an app is in the mobile marketing community. Using the K-Factor metric, you can determine how many current users introduce your app to others, and how many of those new users become users themselves.

What are the chances of your app becoming the next big hit, like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush? The K-Factor can be used to answer this question.

How to Calculate Your App’s K-Factor

To calculate your app’s K-Factor, multiply the number of app invites each of your current users send by the average conversion rate these invites produce. Here’s the formula:

K-Factor = Invites Sent x Average Conversion Rate

Let’s pretend that you’re marketing a hot, new hypercasual game. To help grow your user base, you offer current users extra lives when they invite their friends and family members to download your app. The average user invites two people. After crunching the numbers, you realize that one out of every four invitees goes on to download your game.

If we plug these numbers into the formula, we get a K-Factor of 100% — 4 x 0.25 = 1. (Note: K-Factors are always expressed as a percentage.)

What is a Good K-Factor?

You’re probably wondering, “What’s a good K-Factor?” Every app is different. But, in general, you want your app’s K-Factor to be above one. The higher it is, the better.