Mobile apps connect with users in ways that websites cannot. Businesses invest in developing their mobile apps to help them reach their target market. In many ways, mobile apps have become an essential part of both new and established businesses.
Developing a mobile app is only one part of ensuring its success. The second part is how your users interact with the app. This is called app engagement. App engagement is the way that users engage with an application. Everything that users do after downloading the app can be measured to determine the value of the app for your business.
All businesses must measure app engagement to ensure that the app is performing. It doesn’t matter if a thousand users downloaded your app. If they don’t open it, or if they delete it almost immediately, your app may not have helped your business at all. This is why measuring app engagement is crucial for any business.
What is app engagement?
App engagement is the totality of how users interact with an app. Several metrics are used to measure app engagement. These include the time spent on the app and the number of active users, among others.
Businesses use app engagement to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the app. This includes how the business attracts the interest of the app’s users. For example, an app may have an attractive user interface but is difficult to navigate. Once you have identified the strong and weak points of the app, you can then strategize on how to improve it to provide a better user experience.
It must be noted that app engagement differs in each business. For instance, an eCommerce app ideally wants its users to purchase a product every time they log in. While a banking app would expect regular user logins with or without transactions. Because app engagement uses several metrics, you should identify which metrics to focus on. This will provide a direction for you to achieve your app engagement goal.
App Engagement Metrics
App Launches
App engagement starts the moment users download and launch the app. This metric shows how many times your users open the app during the day. Using advanced data analytics, you can also measure at what time and day of the week users most often open the app. A high number of launches can easily be achieved by providing special promos or rewards to every user that downloads and opens the app. However, this metric cannot measure the entirety of a user’s interaction with your app.
Active Users
As mentioned, the number of downloads is irrelevant if the app gets deleted almost immediately. Thus, an important app engagement metric is the number of active users. Active users refer to the number of users that regularly interact with the app. If you don’t have active users, you are not engaging your target audience. And if you are not engaging your audience, your app isn’t achieving its business objective.
Having a high number of active users can indicate a well-developed app. This means that users enjoy using the app and find it useful in their daily lives. It is up to you how you will measure the number of active users. It is recommended to measure this number either daily, weekly, or monthly. This will help you see the trend of active users. An increasing trend is a good sign, while a downward trend signifies a need to revisit your app’s functionality.
User Sessions
Once you have a good number of active users, another important metric is how long each user spends on the app. This is referred to as the user session. Each user spends a varying amount of time on the app. It is important to measure the shortest and longest time spent on the app to get the average session duration. This will help determine which features of the app users interact with regularly.
For instance, if you have a special promotion on your app, how long should it take for users to go through the promotion? Say it should take users about three minutes to participate in the promotion. Thus, this should be how long each session lasts. This means that if users spend less than three minutes in each session, the promotion is not engaging your app users.
Retention and Churn Rates
Retention refers to the percentage of active users that continue to use your app. If your app can address the needs of its users, you will likely have a high retention rate. But if your app doesn’t meet user expectations, they will likely abandon or delete the app. Users that abandon the app contribute to your churn rate. This is the percentage of users that stops interacting with your app.
These metrics are measured over a given period. For instance, you want to measure your retention rate for one month. To do this, subtract the number of users you had at the beginning of the month from the number of users at the end of the month. Divide the difference by the number of users at the start of the month. Then, multiply it by 100 to get your percentage. If you have a 40% retention rate, this means that you also have a 60% churn rate within the same period.
Both metrics are important in determining your active users. Once you have determined who your active users are, you can develop and implement marketing strategies that will help retain them. These strategies will also help your business attract new users with the same demographics as your active users.
Final Word
App engagement is important for every business because it can determine the health of your business. It directly impacts the customer experience. If your customers are satisfied with your business, they can potentially become loyal customers. This will then lead to a better brand reputation and a boost in revenues.
Monitoring app engagement can also help you take advantage of opportunities. By determining which parts of the app need to be strengthened, you can engage more users. You can also attract new users to interact with your app once you address customer pain points. All these factors can be identified by analyzing the data gathered from app engagement metrics.
