A data driven approach to mobile app retention

Introduction

The mobile application space is quite crowded, and retaining users becomes a considerable challenge. Pulkit Jain and Kshitij Hastu from MoEngage talk about how data can be put to good use to enhance mobile app retention. Both of them look at 10 million users from the e-commerce and travel industry regularly and are here to discuss the insights driven from the data. Apps collect a massive amount of data daily. However, the creators of the app are sometimes clueless about what to do with the data. It is essential to use that data to understand customers and then develop strategies to stick to the app.

Kshitij and Pulkit chose India and South-East Asia for this study for several reasons:

1. Declining Smartphone prices
2. Increasing mobile online connectivity
3. India- Highest mobile-first online population
4. India and Indonesia have four times higher mobile audience as compared to the desktop audience
5. India has about 564 million internet users

Impact of COVID-19 on the travel industry

The pandemic has brought about a negative sentiment for traveling in the internet users. A downward spiral in active users has been experienced as there is a sharp decline in travel spends because of low consumer confidence.

The usage of travel apps has also been impacted quite gravely. However, marketers should never forget that the decline is temporary. They should use their time to analyze the numbers and various metrics generated in the pandemic to understand consumer sentiment.

For apps like Traveloka, the positive reviews have increased as they used this time to engage with their consumers and increase reviews on their listings. A rich data source will emerge that will help you with in-app engagement and retention. The app has seen a significant improvement in its app store optimization, etc.

Impact of Covid-19 on Online Shopping

The online shopping domain has emerged victorious during these trying times. There has been a significant increase in the number of active users and spending on e-commerce in India. This has proved to be a substantial opportunity for e-commerce marketers. Tracking meaningful data like user behaviour has become imperative for E-Commerce companies. Marketers should focus on drawing insights and user profiling.

Retention trends for E-Commerce before the pandemic

Some major retention trends were dominating the e-commerce market before the pandemic hit us.  According to research, over 56% of E-commerce app users uninstall the online shopping apps within the first week of every month. This translates to the fact that online shopping companies lose more users than they are acquiring in a week. This is one of the fundamental problems of user onboarding.

The three ways to improve your boarding journeys:

1. Tracking acquisition data (ad campaigns and platforms)
2. Personalizing onboarding and user experience
3. Run campaigns to complete registrations or first purchase.

Tools like Branch, AdJust, AppsFlyer can help you with the activities stated above. You can add a bit of personalization by enhancing the app experience using pop-ups or in-app personalization, or even push notifications.

Retention trends for travel apps before the pandemic

There is an opposite trend in-app retention when it comes to Travel apps. Only 27% of the users uninstall their travel apps in the first week of downloads. A few reasons as to why travel apps fare better than e-commerce apps in terms of retention are:

1. Brand Loyalty
2. Fewer price fluctuations
3. Less intense discounting
4. A high value of the purchase

In travel, the installation is a need-based step, whereas the action is exploratory in E-Commerce.

Mobile app retention across city tiers

Retention is higher in Tier-1 cities in E-Commerce apps, whereas retention is comparatively lower in tier-2 and tier 3 cities. The pillars of engagement and retention will help you understand how the untapped market can be addressed. These pillars are:

1. Hyper-personalisation
2. Localization and Vernacular languages

Bukalapak, an app in Indonesia, saw a 2.5X increase in push notification clicks when it switched from English to Bahasa. Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities respond well to recommendations and timely personalized purchase reminders.

As the number of sessions increases in both travel and E-Commerce apps, the retention rate also increases proportionally.

Key steps to retain users 

There are four primary pillars to increase app sessions and boost engagement:

1. Capturing rich data and event attributes
2. Creating advanced user segments
3. Leveraging communication channels like SMS, emails, push notifications, retargeting ads on social
4. Using machine learning for recommendations

AI and machine learning reduce the legwork of making a manual effort of improving communication and personalization. The uninstalls tend to drop as the number of push notifications increases for E-Commerce apps. The retention increases after two push notifications are sent on the day of install to travel app users.

Use of messaging apps as a new communication channel 

There has been a shift from sending notifications over SMS to messaging apps. The three top messaging apps have around 1 Billion active users, and over a hundred and twenty-three billion messages are being sent on these platforms every day. The messaging apps have now become an excellent opportunity for budding marketers.