There’s an app for nearly any purpose you can imagine nowadays—gaming, shopping, entertainment, travel, fitness, business, news, healthcare and many more. In fact, the Apple app store alone contained approximately 2.1 million apps by early 2018. The rise of mobile app usage presents marketers with new opportunities and challenges in terms of mobile user acquisition.
On one hand, as more mobile users integrate apps into their daily lives, the sea of potential app users grows. There’s also more opportunity for data-driven marketing campaigns. However, more apps being available to install also means there’s more competition within the marketplace. Earning an install—let alone a quality one—requires showing the right people the right advertising content at the right time.
What factors affect mobile app user acquisition success? Here are four to carefully consider as you’re optimizing your campaigns.
App Store Optimization
First things first… People can only download your app if they can find it. And in an increasingly crowded app store, it’s safe to assume you’ll face plenty of competition from other developers hoping mobile users will choose their product over yours. According to a survey from Forrester, Android and iPhone users alike cite “general browsing” on Google Play or the App Store as “their most oft used method of discovering new apps (i.e. apps that they subsequently downloaded and now use on their phone).”
This is where app store optimization (ASO) makes a difference in increasing visibility so people will notice your app. Here are the basic elements of ASO:
- Title: Contains the keyword with the highest search volume pertaining to your app.
- Keywords: Optimized to match what mobile users within your target audience actually search.
- Total Number of Downloads: Although you cannot control this, having more downloads does positively affect ASO.
- Reviews and Ratings: Displaying ratings and reviews establishes social proof, which aids in building trust with potential new users.
Target Audience
Successful mobile app user acquisition depends on attracting quality users. At first glance, it might seem worthwhile to target anyone with a mobile device in the hopes they’ll find value in your app after installing it. But this strategy only serves to hike ad spend without maximizing post-install engagement. Monetizing your app depends on attracting users who will actually convert.
Use data to identify your target audience, then optimize your acquisition campaign by serving ads to mobile users with similar demographic characteristics and mobile usage behaviors, also known as your target lookalike audience.
Personalized Messaging
“Dynamic” is more than an adjective to describe an ideal mobile app user acquisition campaign. Rather, these ads utilize machine learning to programmatically assemble their creative elements in real time. As Search Engine Land writes, “With dynamic advertising, you can create customized, personalized ads that are dynamically generated based on audience data you’ve collected.”
This enables marketers to target users within their lookalike audience with ads appealing to their lifestyles and mobile devices. Here’s an example: A 40-year-old female iPhone user in New York City would see a different ad for a dating app than a 21-year-old male Android user in Seattle. Unsurprisingly, dynamic advertisements tend to drive meaningful installs better than generic ones.
App Functionality
Let’s say you’ve earned an install. Now what? Do your app force users to create an account by entering their personal information right away? If so, you may be alienating new users. Any snags in usability will push users away. The only way to “seal the deal” on acquisition is to offer a seamless and convenient user experience.
These factors affect mobile app user acquisition success, so be sure to optimize your campaigns from start to finish for best results.
