In the mobile app world, focusing on ANYTHING too much is already a growth killer. You know why? Because there are a dozen things to take care of and if you invest too much energy into one thing only, you might end up losing the others. The same applies to focusing too much on user acquisition. Of course, it’s tempting to invest money into acquiring new users especially if you are just starting but there are other growth factors you should consider too such as engagement and retention.
Let’s start with understanding what user acquisition is and how it can help you.
What is mobile user acquisition?
Basically, mobile user acquisition equals to getting people to download your mobile app.
User acquisition is sometimes rather costly but you cannot overlook it because let’s face it, you need people to learn about your app and to download it to understand what a treasure it is.
There are tons of acquisition strategies you can use. You can start with the following:
- You can build a landing page with links to your app in Google Play and App Store. You can use AdWords and social media ads to boost this page and get more traffic coming.
- You can invest in ASO that is App Store Optimization. Since app stores are too crowded, you should do a few ASO tricks to get your app ranking higher. For example, you can think about optimizing your app description or app screenshots or adding a video in the app video section.
The strategies are many and you will have to invest at least some money into them to make your app more visible and thus boost user acquisition.
What happens after user acquisition?
Let’s imagine, you have done your homework right and you have got 1000 new downloads. What’s next? Should you continue investing in user acquisition only? If you do so, you might lose app users as quickly as you got them. This is where it’s time to make a little pause and look back at the things retrospectively.
First thing first, user acquisition is just the first stage in the pyramid. If you want your app to succeed, you need to take into account user engagement as well. User retention is another key factor here. Only with the right balance of these three (acquisition, engagement, and retention), you will be able to receive revenue.
Engagement is about getting people to take the required actions e.g. click a button, travel through a set of screens, make a purchase, refer a friend etc. Retention is getting users to come back to your app and most importantly NOT uninstall it.
So, here is a rhetorical question – Why should you put all your efforts into user acquisition if there is a chance that many of your users might abandon your app anytime soon? The statistics show that nearly 1 in 4 people abandon mobile apps after only one use.
So, it’s not only important to attract new app users but also to keep them engaged. How can you do it? That’s a whole lot of work. First, you need to start with measuring engagement. There are a bunch of tools that you can use. Inapptics is a great tool to use to measure mobile app engagement through tracking user behavior. It’s an in-app analytics that you can integrate into your app in just 2 minutes and visually analyze real-time user data.
So, here you go! Just like anything in life, your app marketing efforts should be balanced, too. First, you put some money into user acquisition, then you might need to invest some energy into user engagement and retention. And then back to user acquisition. Note that satisfied and engaged users are going to become brand ambassadors for you. So, if you do your job of engaging them well, then you might not have to invest too many resources into the acquisition.