How Do You Drive Engagement on Apps? — 9 Marketing Tips

Alfred Winston
6 min readJan 24, 2023

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The “Golden Quartet” of efficient app marketing, which also comprises user acquisition, app discovery, and monetization, may incorporate app user engagement. Any mobile app marketing company will tell you that concentrating on mobile app user engagement methods is akin to giving long-term success the attention it requires.

Why the Heart of App Marketing Is Mobile App User Engagement?

It’s never enough (or wise), as it is with any firm, to just depend on attracting new clients. It’s safe to argue that this principle also holds true for mobile app metrics. Loyal customers are an effective gauge for growth and higher revenue.

Smart app marketers make adjustments to their mobile app user engagement strategy virtually annually since they are aware of the effects it might have, including the following:

* Retaining more users results in a more desirable decrease in the uninstallation rate.

* Increasing customer loyalty and brand exposure, which inevitably results in additional advantages like increased word-of-mouth marketing and a larger user base.
* Gathering vital information that may be essential for enhancing user experience.
* Obtaining much-needed feedback that creates possibilities for increasing * Openness and addressing critical app issues.
* Increasing app revenue by two or threefold or even more.

Naturally, a higher mobile app retention rate informs the app store algorithm that your software is dominating the market. It will then receive compensation in the form of a higher rank in search results.

Additionally, it’s difficult to ignore these app engagement data if you’re an app marketer:

* Within the first month after downloading, apps are removed 1:2 times.

* Regardless of the category, the average app retention rate is over 25% beyond the first day. By day 30, this decreases to a little less than 6%.

* Choosing a good user interface can increase app conversation rates by up to 200%.

Metrics of App User Engagement You Should Pay Attention To

You should have a strong idea of the metrics you need to consider before even learning how to boost mobile app user engagement. They essentially shape the mobile app user engagement methods you must implement, ensuring that you maintain focus as your campaign develops.

Retention Rate

Shows how many people are using your app again in comparison to how many are doing the exact opposite (i.e. not launching or uninstalling altogether). This takes into account the total number of users who have opened the program in a certain amount of time after installation.

Apps in the News category continue to enjoy the highest retention rate at 11.3% in the third quarter of 2022.

Active Users

Usually refers to the total number of users who interact with an app during a particular period of time. This can be further divided into Daily Active People and Monthly Active Users, which demonstrate the number of users who actively used your app over the course of a 24- or 30-day period, respectively.

Churn Rate

You can find out the precise number of people who uninstall your app or cancel a paid membership using the churn rate. It may highlight significant issues like bad UX, glitches within the software, or poor overall performance.

Did you know that churn rates continue to be highest at 24% and 25%, respectively, in the retail and financial/credit industries?

Session Length

How much time does the typical user spend on your app? It is frequently measured by keeping track of the precise time a user used an app from the moment they opened it until the moment they closed it.

According to a 2020 study, hyper-casual gaming applications’ sessions are the longest of all the other genres, lasting an average of 18.78 minutes.

Session Frequency

How frequently do users interact with your app, as shown by the length of each session? This period of time can be measured in weeks or months and will show you how frequently (or infrequently) consumers utilize your app.

Screen Views

Reveals the precise content in your app that is seen most and least. This significantly enhances navigation.

Time Spent In-App

Reveals how long a user spends using the software. Of course, spending more time demonstrates greater engagement (i.e. the user sees value in what the app offers). This can be further broken down into several sub-metrics like the amount of time spent during each session or a version of the same measure that takes into account a particular time period.

For many years now, and with good reason, these indicators have been a crucial component of mobile app market research. The majority of time is still spent in social and communication applications, which account for 70% of all time spent in-app.

Conversion Rate

This is unavoidably the main objective of an app store optimization company because it shows the number of users who, depending on your app and its target market, convert into subscribers or paying customers.

You must use this measure if you want to properly monetize your app. The average conversion rates of apps in the App Store (31%) and Play Store (33%) only differ by 2%, which is positive.

It’s time to delve into the actual mobile app user engagement strategies you should be developing and implementing moving ahead now that we are aware of mobile app engagement metrics.

But how do you increase app engagement based on these metrics? Find out by continuing to read!

Strategies for Increasing App User Engagement

Concentrate on a Perfect User Experience

UX is linked to first impressions and how users will engage with your software; you simply cannot accept “just okay” in this area. This includes things like how quickly your app loads, how it delivers its functionality, a seamless onboarding process from beginning to end, and crucial graphical elements that have a significant impact on user engagement.

Prioritize Personalization

Personalization has consistently been a part of in-app purchase strategy, along with innovation and scheduling push notifications. Since the two are related, the role it plays in user engagement also cannot be disregarded.

It entails giving users the features they genuinely want. Make sure to adjust your in-app messages, pop-ups, dialogue boxes, and push notifications in accordance with their settings.

Offer discounts based on them as well, and don’t forget to integrate location-based personalization, too.

Accept Personalized App Permissions

Users want to be in a position to have considerable control over the personal information they disclose. The main idea is to only request the absolute minimum that is required.

They won’t likely depart until you tell them how much information you will be receiving.

Follow and Get Inspiring Ideas from the Most Recent Trends

Consider the impact that chatbot integration and AR-based visualization have had on apps for customer care, retail, travel, e-commerce, and education, among other industries.

Profit from app gamification

How do you make the majority of app users today more engaged? By using badges, points, and awards, make it fun!

You can also incorporate mini-games and competitive activities that make consumers feel good merely for taking part in them and/or succeeding.

Create entertaining social interactions

Giving apps a social component satisfies users’ intrinsic need to be a part of a community. These are easily accomplished by merely including challenges or by creating a specific forum for your app.

Send (High-Value) Emails

Send welcome emails outlining your app’s most important and underutilized features. While you’re at it, explain to them the future plans for your app.

Assuming you are already aware of the precise problem, reassure those users who are about to abandon your program that you will fix it.

Make frequent updates

One of your main long-term objectives should be to accomplish this so that your app can continue to succeed. Continuous optimization merely protects it from potential roadblocks.

Practice Retargeting

Simply because it has succeeded in turning around campaigns, this has been an ongoing component of managing mobile app ad campaign management. Retargeting means remaining persistent and reaffirming your commitment to offering much better solutions and a more user-centric strategy.

Conclusion

Of course, knowing how to keep users on the app is never sufficient. You must actually put things into action and maintain a constant, committed attitude. Evidently, many of these tactics stress how crucial it is to stay current with data, avoid becoming static, and—most importantly—know your target audience better.

Such a mindset is an essential ingredient, especially if we take a closer look at the essence of the do’s & don’ts of mobile app marketing.

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Alfred Winston

Tech lover, photographer, a guy who loves Social Media.