8 Mobile App Retention Strategies For 2020 [With Examples]
This content was originally published on WebEngage.
Getting people to use your app consistently can be a challenge, but extremely critical. After all, what’s the point in developing a mobile app if no one uses it? When users stick around on your mobile app for a long time, that’s called app retention.
If you observe the graph below, the number of new users acquired on Day 1 is projected at 91% and as time passes by the graph only dips at 31% on Day 7. On average, a mobile app can expect to retain only about 7.5% (approximately) of its users beyond the first month.
This is a big problem since it costs so much to acquire new users. According to Statista, the average cost to acquire a mobile app is almost $4.00. Statista’s research also showed this cost continues to climb.
With the cost of acquisition so high, you must make room in your marketing budget for user retention to ensure a healthy ROI.
According to Bain & Co, a 5% increase in customer retention can increase your profitability by 75%.
In this article, we’ll look at eight mobile app retention strategies you can start using today. But before we get to that, let’s talk about mobile app engagement.
What is mobile app engagement?
Mobile app engagement is all about how users interact with mobile applications. Measuring how users interact with your mobile app is vital, as this allows you to determine its success or failure thereof.
You can measure your mobile app engagement with the following metrics:
- Number of downloads: Obviously, the more downloads you have, the better. After all, you can’t retain users you never had.
- Active mobile app users: This is how many people use your mobile app regularly. As such, it’s an essential metric for user retention.
- Session interval: This is the time between two consecutive sessions of your mobile app. It shows how often someone opens and uses your mobile app. This can determine stickiness.
- Session length: Quite simply, this is how long people spend on your mobile app in one sitting. The longer the session, the better.
- Lifetime revenue: This is the total revenue that you earn from a user before they stop using your mobile app. It can be measured through a monthly average of either advertising revenue or purchase value per user.
Measuring user engagement gives you a clearer picture of your ROI. You’ll also develop a closer relationship with your user. It’s best to measure this continuously so you can optimize your mobile app as needed in line with your marketing and business goals.
With that in mind, let’s talk about how you can increase your mobile app retention.
- Track data from the start
- Optimize your mobile app’s onboarding flow
- Personalize user experiences
- Use gamification to increase engagement
- Implement push notifications
- Use in-app messages
- Offer perks to engaged users
- Continually develop and optimize
