Marketing

Personalizing A Mobile Experience For App User Aquisition

By Tinuiti Team

The world has never been more “mobile first” than it is now. According to Smartinsights.com, in 2018, mobile users consume more than 2x the number of minutes on a platform than desktop users. With numbers like that and no signs that a mobile-first user mentality is going to decline, it’s understandable that there are a plethora of mobile apps available for consumers to download.

In such a busy landscape, how do marketers break through the noise, engage their ideal customers and get them to download and regularly use their app? Success in all these areas has to do with building a personalized marketing experience for that user that will drive them to engage with your brand and ultimately your app. Today I’d like to share with you three ways you can build great customer engagement that will lead to retained, high-quality app users.

When Planning Marketing, Remember The Difference Between Mobile Web And A Mobile App

Part of personalizing an experience for any user is taking into account where they are in the customer journey. Different places in the customer journey require different marketing strategies. The goal of setting up these campaigns is to make them as fluid as possible, based on what the consumer is doing at that given moment.

For instance, let’s suppose that you have a shopping platform that offers discounts to major retailers. A discount offer push notification via a mobile app may be the path of least resistance and the best way for someone to quickly obtain a discount coupon if they were actually at the mall, shopping in the store at that second.

What if however, that same person was simply on the mobile web, checking out products online with the idea that they were going to go shop at the mall later? In this case, it would be wise to ensure you had a mobile web ready marketing campaign alerting them to what would be available, via the app, when they do decide to go to the mall and shop. Both campaigns serve the same end goal. They are just customized to the journey the customer is taking.

Not only that but ignoring mobile web as part of your app user acquisition strategy will actually hurt you in the long run. A consumers first entry point to many experiences is through mobile web. Mobile web provides value to the consumer and educates them about your core values. Only after they understand these things will they be willing to convert to a registered user by downloading your app.

Market Value To Engage The Customer And Drive More App Downloads

Another very important consideration when designing personalized campaigns to drive app user acquisition is actually beyond your company’s core values. It has to do with the app’s perceived value. Simply running campaigns that say, “Download our app just because you love us” never works. If the end user does not perceive any value in what the app will offer them, they are not going to act. No matter what it is you ask them to do, you have to offer what in their mind is a fair value exchange.

One way to do this is by offering special offers that are only available to app members. For instance, picking up on the shopping example we just discussed, what if downloading an app, signing up for a user account and then entering in details from one of your credit cards would give you special in-store cashback offers from merchants? This is obviously something that could not be orchestrated from a mobile web experience, so it becomes a perfect source of value to drive app user acquisition.

Creative Is A Great Way To Build Consumer Engagement And App Downloads

Creative offers you infinite ways to build consumer engagement that promotes app downloads. In this mobile-first environment, we’re seeing creatives come up with great ways to add click to capture sections to user experiences, such as email, SMS or push notification capture.

A/B Split testing creative is another fantastic way to study what will attract consumers that want to download your product. For instance, what works better with a paid ad? A video, or a static image? Or what if you tested seasonality in your app download page to see if it boosts user engagement and app downloads?

For instance, perhaps you have an app you are promoting and for the holiday season, you want to make a version of your app download page that is holiday themed. You can compare that to your standard app download page to determine what type of creative is most engaged, therefore shaping your future creative efforts.

When split testing creative, the most important actions you want to find are those that are driving your retained users. If you focus on those actions, in the long term you will be driving much more high-quality users to download your app.

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