How to Increase Mobile App Retention Rates

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Did you know that 80% of app users churn [leave] within 90 days? App retention is a real problem for mobile marketers.  It’s no one-trick pony to increase app retention. There are countless and creative ways to increase app retention. Check out these three tips below.

One thing I must address before I run down the list. The ultimate reason why users leave your app isn’t because they’re greedy or bored. Nor is it because they move to your competitors. Rather, you might lack the right mobile engagement platform.  Without it, you cannot formulate an app retention strategy. Therefore, you can’t automate intelligent app retention activities.  In anycase, here are our top 3 tips.

1. Engage with Mobile Assets

If you have a few apps already installed, it’s more than certain you’ve seen a mobile asset. Even when your phone sits idle without any app opened, a mobile asset could appear. Mobile assets are an engagement tool or notification. Perhaps it is “push message” or maybe a rich image of a promotion.

customer engagement

Sketch of an FMCG rich message

Assets include some of the following, but not limited to: in-app coupons, vouchers, surveys, polls, push messages, rich messages, in-app messages, 3D product spins, videos, loyalty points, games, etc. All assets are natively designed to be displayed on the screen of the mobile device, thus, delivering a very rich app experience to the customer.

push travel

Example of a travel airlines app push notification

2. Personalize Contextual Mobile Campaigns

Taking a step further from mobile assets is personalization and context.  Not only do you as a marketer need to choose the right mobile asset, but you need to personalize it. Let’s do a test to find out why personalization matters.

Which push message resonates better for you?

  1. “20% discount off special flights.”
  2. “Hey Kate, Wanna go to Nice, France? See our holiday sale here! ”

The 2nd message is the clear winner. It’s personalized with Kate’s name.  The next point is the context. Context is the “where, how, how frequent, etc.” aspect. Because of in-app beacons, or tracking devices, the marketer knows that Kate searched for flights to Nice, France inside the app or via web. Kate also spent 30 minutes in total over a span of 6 weeks with 6 sessions in the app looking at flights.

And because of intelligent mobile analytics, you see if Kate read your rich message. Or if she clicked it/ viewed the sale. And ultimately what stage she finished or didn’t finish in the buying funnel. Even through an integration, you see that Kate converted and bought the tickets online from her desktop. But another user, Kayla ignored your rich message.  You see she only buys last minute, or during high-pressure, 24 hours only promotions on airfare. Each customer to his/her own preferences.

3. Build Loyalty with Friendly Follow-up Campaigns

Loyalty is a huge aspect of app retention. Keeping in touch with users takes a lot of effort, but worth every happy, returning customer in return. Nurture your customer relationships by awarding them a special birthday discount via a banner ad.  Or get back in touch! Sometimes users get thrown off guard or distracted. When there’s a pending item in their mobile basket, send a friendly push message about it.

mobileshop

Either way you look at it, you must initiate the engagement. Users aren’t going to open your app unless they truly need something from you.  The exception to the rule is popular social media apps which constantly notify users.

Interested in more Mobile App Retention? Check out our eBook on Mobile Engagement below.

CHECK IT OUT

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Katherine Frangos
MobileBridge
Content marketing manager at mobilebridge

1 COMMENT

  1. I am totally agreed with Katherine, See I am an App developer( IOS+Android). I know how its feel when some one uninstalled the app created by me. I have done some digging regarding this :
    1. Most of the apps are not user friendly
    2. Many apps need huge Ram to run
    3. Need extra space due to large file
    4. Ask too much permissions before run, etc

    We need to focus and eliminate this glitches.

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