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The UAE is experiencing exponential growth in the mobile market. But creating an app isn’t enough when it comes to getting, and keeping, users. Companies need to get smart about not just capturing, but keeping users engaged — and that’s where remarketing comes in. Paul Wright, Managing Director UK, FR, ME & Turkey at AppsFlyer explains.
The UAE is experiencing exponential growth in the mobile market, with consumers turning to their phones for everything from socialising and banking to booking restaurants and planning trips. Considering this, it’s no surprise that 91% of UAE businesses are now offering their customers a mobile app[1]. But simply creating an app isn’t enough when it comes to getting, and keeping, users. With the cost of user acquisition campaigns also on the rise, companies need to get smart about not just capturing, but keeping users engaged — and that’s where remarketing comes in.
Brands that are eager to take advantage of this colossal rise in mobile would do well to join the 30% of their counterparts globally that are running remarketing campaigns for their apps — with impressive results.
Remarketing explained
Remarketing — sometimes also called re-engagement — focuses on those who have downloaded your app to their phone, still have it, but aren’t using it. It encourages these individuals to start using your app again instead of deleting it, and it can have a remarkable impact.
In fact, AppsFlyer research indicates remarketing can lead to an impressive 50% more paying users.
When you realise that most apps lose 95% of their users within the first 30 days of install, it’s obvious that solely focusing on new-user campaigns is a false economy. Instead, concentrating on retention and engagement of existing users is far more likely to reap rewards. These users can potentially drive more income, either by engaging with ads or by making in-app purchases.
Running a successful remarketing campaign
Firstly, you need to work out why people have stopped using your app. Is it slow and unintuitive to use, is the onboarding experience poor, or is the content irrelevant? It doesn’t matter if the issues are large or small, they need to be addressed before any effort is put into marketing.
When you’re confident you’ve made the appropriate changes and your app is working well, you have plenty of options for remarketing. Tactics like push notifications, ads, and emails can all be successful. The exact strategy you choose will depend on why people have given up on your app, what type of app you have, and your overall goals. Of course, the approach that’s right for a shopping app might not suit a banking app — and a gaming app will be different again.
To re-engage a user, it’s important to get the right message to them at the right time, through the right channel. You’ve hopefully been able to establish why someone has stopped using your app, which helps you tailor your marketing messages. Audience segmentation is also vital — you want to ensure you’re not trying to re-target a user who’s still happily using your app.
When running a remarketing campaign, don’t forget the importance of deep linking technology when it comes to engaging users. Deep links take users directly to where they want to be in an app and provide a much smoother experience, reducing loss of engagement and boosting profitability.
Why remarketing works
It’s not an easy task to prevent users from giving up on an app, and there are lots of different reasons that people stop using or even delete an app. Among other factors, consumers report too many adverts, poor user experience and price, as reasons for abandoning an app.
Remarketing strategies can help to solve these issues, letting users know if problems have been fixed. It can ensure your app stays relevant, and help you enhance the user experience. It also engages dormant or infrequent users, encourages lapsed users to return, and entices users to interact more frequently.
Remarketing can boost paying users in every vertical. Research shows that lifestyle apps running remarketing campaigns had a 130% higher rate of paying users. And the results were even more impressive when it came to hardcore games apps — those that are generally played for longer and have a more immersive experience — which showed a massive 298% jump in income generated by remarketing.
The privacy concerns
With privacy increasingly at the top of every agenda, and with the new privacy changes introduced by Apple as part of iOS 14.5, it can be trickier for marketers to access user-level data. This makes it harder to know how to measure and run campaigns, bringing new challenges to remarketing. A cross-channel approach is needed, with both in-product and out-of-product channels, such as owned, paid or earned media, or a mix of them all.
With 35% of app conversions resulting from remarketing, driving better retention and keeping users engaged on your app should be a key priority. It’s worth bearing in mind that every single lapsed app user is both lost revenue and a waste of the resources that you’ve spent on getting the user to download the app in the first place. Remarketing can bring these customers back on board, so it should be an integral part of any marketing strategy.
[1] “State of Mobile App Strategies in the Middle East”, conducted by 451 Research, a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, and commissioned by AppsFlyer.
