The number of app downloads was the primary success statistic a few years ago. However, today, app stickiness plays an important role in measuring the growth of an app. 

Since most apps are free to download, user acquisition and stickiness have become crucial. The goal of your app’s stickiness is to capture the user’s attention and hold their interest once you have it. The percentage of users engaging with your app depends on how sticky your app is.

All sticky apps have a few characteristics in common. Continue reading to find out what methods they use to improve app stickiness. 

What is App Stickiness?

App stickiness is a user engagement metric that determines how frequently users engage and interact with your app.

The term “stickiness” in the context of mobile app marketing refers to how engaging and habit-forming an app is for users. This metric has a significant impact on the decisions you make while developing a mobile marketing strategy. It is one of the crucial metrics you should consider regularly measuring to analyze and reduce the user churn rate.

Understanding your users’ behavior and the factors that encourage them to use your app often will help you make it more sticky. Once you know how much time your users spend in your app, you must make sure they convert that time spent into valuable actions.

How is it calculated?

The formula to calculate app stickiness considers both DAUs and MAUs. A significant percentage indicates that more users find your app valuable and come back to engage with it.

App stickiness = Daily active users / Monthly active users X 100

Methods to improve app stickiness and retain your customers

Create a Seamless Onboarding Process

As people say, the first impression is the best. Onboarding is the first interaction a user has with your app after downloading. With a seamless onboarding process, you can make the best impression.

It is one of the most effective tools for setting the long-term relationship between users and the app; it can increase your users’ stickiness and lifetime value. Plus, the users can learn what the product is about, what problem it will solve, and how to use a product effectively with the help of a well-designed onboarding process. 

App onboarding is about educating your users to understand the app’s core functionality. It is important to onboard users and ensure they know what they need to do. This may include providing a tutorial or screen tips explaining the functionality and next steps. The more users are informed, the higher their chance of sticking around and enjoying your app.

For example, Binance – the cryptocurrency trading platform, allows users to view videos on how to buy and sell on the app. The onboarding is designed for new and old people of the app.

Gamify User Experience

Gamification is a great way to make the user experience more engaging. It incorporates non-gaming elements into your mobile app to increase the “stickiness. ”  

The game elements in the mobile app increase user engagement and retention levels. When users find an aspect of a game interesting or fun, they are more likely to share their experience with friends and family. This results in generating new users for your app.

Introducing fun elements in the app will help acquire customers and build a better customer experience. It creates curiosity among the users to get more rewards and increases the competitive spirit to achieve. Features such as badges, spin the wheel, trivia, and leaderboards can be implemented in your mobile app to improve app stickiness.

For example, Duolingo is an American EdTech company that is extremely popular on language-learning platforms. It leveraged gamification, a badge reward system, to create a fun and engaging environment that keeps users engaged and boosts retention rates. 

Segment and Personalize Communication

Personalization is vital to improving the app’s stickiness; it customizes the users’ experience according to their preferences. Many customers usually uninstall the app that does not interest them or is not customized. 

It is a highly advised strategy to boost user interaction with your product and establish a long-term relationship. To personalize their experience, first, you need to understand your users’ choices and preferences by analyzing their touchpoints or by conducting surveys.

Once you have the analysis report, segment the users into categories based on similar attributes. It will become easier to target segmented users as you know their engagement level with the app.

Giving users the option to customize their user experience can strengthen their emotional bond with your app. Customized emails, messages, and notifications are the best ways to personalize your user experience.

For example, suppose your users are people who love adventures and exploring new places. You should personalize their app experience by providing them with nearby tourist attractions.

Leverage Push and In-App Notifications

The best technique to stay on your users’ minds and get them to use your app is through push and in-app notifications. These notifications grab user attention and have the power to create an engagement level.

As a marketer, push notifications are an effective communication channel that can reach app users at any time, whether they are using your app or not. Sending notifications such as reminders, updates, and promotions to customers promptly can push app stickiness further. 

In-app notifications are similar to push notifications; these messages pop up when opening an application and help users navigate an app. It can be used strategically with the right timing to encourage user engagement, retention, and lifetime value.

Notifications should be sent considering frequency and timing and should relate to users’ interests. By being intelligent and intentional in user interactions, apps can leverage this form of engagement to define app stickiness. 

Gather and Analyze Feedback

Reviews can significantly help improve the app and fix bugs from time to time. To increase stickiness, gather and analyze the user feedback to find out what makes them stick with your app. These analyses can assist you in making your app sticky.

Businesses have the chance to enhance customer service using mobile apps, which can help retain current users and attract new ones. App feedback helps to know what impact it has on the customers. It helps us to analyze and take action accordingly.

Brands can use in-app feedback forms and ratings as key strategies to give customers a quick way to complain, obtain insightful feedback on their app, and pinpoint services that need improvement. This way, apps can make the users’ experience more sticky and valuable.

Build Brand Loyalty

Loyalty and reward programs are the best ways to build loyal brand advocates. These programs effectively attract and engage users as they give a reason to return to the app. By utilizing loyalty and reward programs, your users are motivated to interact with the app, thus leading to user stickiness and higher conversion rates.

It is one of the most effective tactics to improve the app’s stickiness. However, brands leverage loyalty and reward programs to engage and retain users.

For example, Starbucks is the major player in one of the major players that has the best loyalty programs. Its loyalty programs allow its users to collect stars as they earn; customers receive free coffee and products.

Conclusion

App stickiness is the combination of user engagement and retention. Here, the objective is to engage and retain users to boost brand loyalty and generate more revenue. 

Talk to our engagement experts to strengthen your app’s stickiness and stay ahead of the competition. Give your users the best experience! 

The Upshot.ai Advantage 

Upshot.ai is an omnichannel, user engagement, and gamification platform that helps digital product owners and marketers improve product adoption and conversions.

With Upshot.ai, ecommerce, finance, edtech, and healthcare firms can enhance their digital experiences with pre-built gamification features. It can provide personalized insights, actionable recommendations, and contextual nudges designed to deepen its relationship with its users. 

Book a demo of the most comprehensive user engagement and gamification platform to achieve your digital product goals. Join our communities for more insights, guides, and best practices that keep you updated with proven strategies and tips to supercharge your campaigns.

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