Top Features That Drive App User Retention and Boost ROI for Businesses

These days, having an application is no less important for business than having a well-optimized website. As the number of mobile users grows further, more and more people choose convenient mobile applications over websites, and as a business, you need to cater to the needs of your clients and prospects to have a competitive advantage.

However, though building and launching your application is not too hard, understanding how to drive downloads and increase app retention can be rather challenging. Yet, these two indicators are the cornerstones of your ROI.

Luckily, you don’t need to do it blindfolded, even if you don’t know how to improve loyalty yet. Continue reading, and we will give you nine actionable tips on how to boost app retention without a hassle.

Ensure Excellent Security and Performance

What is the main reason people instantly abandon an app? In most cases, it’s due to an overall poor performance or a lack of security features. Hence, improving performance and integrating robust security features should be among the first app retention strategies you should implement.

To bring these tactics to life, first, perform all-around testing. Test how well the features of your application work and how quickly it responds to users’ actions, in general. Tools like a website traffic checker can also help monitor app-related traffic patterns that may point to performance issues. Then, implement the improvements needed to boost performance. At the same time, implement in-depth security testing to detect weak spots and integrate additional safety features, such as:

  • Authorization
  • Logging
  • Two-factor authentication
  • Encryption

Doing so will help you give people more confidence in your product, which will increase the likelihood of their retention.

Make App Store Optimization (ASO) a Part of the Plan

These days, there is no need to explain the importance of search engine optimization (SEO) for business visibility and growth. In brief, SEO is the process that helps you get in front of prospects while also improving UX and building trust, and ASO is the equivalent of SEO, just inside your app.

There are a few core reasons why you need to make ASO a part of your strategy. First of all, if you are wondering how to increase users on app, optimization is the answer. Using a reliable keyword research tool, such as one available at Ninja Reports, you can target keywords that your prospects use to find a specific type of application. Then, when (or even after) publishing your product on the App Store and other stores, you will be able to optimize your name and description, thus boosting visibility and growing the number of downloads. But that’s not all.

Apart from boosting visibility and downloads, ASO can also help you enhance app user retention rate in the long run. How? By attracting the right users who are truly interested in what you have to offer and thus, are more likely to stick around.

Welcome Newcomers With Smooth Onboarding

Mobile app onboarding is like the first meeting. It consists of introducing them to the application and helping them get started with it. This process sets the tone for further interaction and defines user experience (UX), so handling it right is crucial for app retention.

In order not to lose your prospects during onboarding (or right after it), you need to implement a holistic approach that involves:

  • Creating the right visual hierarchy—You need to ensure that all interface elements are placed logically and create a clear hierarchy that will guide users’ actions. This is something you need to take care of early on, at the planning stage of app development.
  • Simplifying the first steps—Signing up, starting a free trial, and using all core features should be incredibly easy so that people can get started on their own.
  • Offering informative guidelines—Complete your onboarding process with informative guidelines and tips that explain the basic functionality and help people get started. Opt for informative but short contextual instructions instead of long and overwhelming tutorials.

Add Gamification Elements for Greater Engagement

Depending on your niche, you may not consider gamification as something appropriate in your application. Yet, gamification has been shown to deliver excellent results across various niches, including fitness, eCommerce, learning, and even healthcare or finance. The truth is that gamification elements give people a sense of relatedness, autonomy, and competence and thus, enhance engagement and loyalty.

To use this tactic to your benefit, you need to find gamification elements that align with your niche and the application’s features. Some elements that you can consider to add include:

  • Progressive levels
  • Challenges
  • Points and leaderboards
  • Trophies, badges, and ranks
  • Avatars
  • Social interactions, etc.

Make the Best Use of Push Notifications

Push notifications aren’t a new technology. They’ve been around since 2009 when they were first introduced by Apple, and they still work. These small and snappy messages help you ensure ongoing, real-time communication with your customers. In the long-term perspective, they can improve app retention rate by 39%, but only if you target them accurately.

So, what makes a smart push notification? In order to answer this question, we need to clarify what makes people disable notifications in the first place. Most often, they do this for one or more of the following reasons:

  • There are too many of them.
  • They are not personalized.
  • They are sent at the worst time.
  • They don’t bring any value.

To deliver smart notifications that don’t annoy your customers, you need to do everything the other way around. Make your messages timely and personalized, and limit the number of them you send daily. Also, be sure to add value by speaking the language of benefits and offering incentives, for example, discounts, freebies, etc.

Add Personalization

Modern users value meaningful and personalized experiences geared to their needs. This rule applies everywhere from customer service to in-application interactions and can be leveraged in applications of all types. A recent large trial revealed that implementing personalized game design, in which the complexity of a game is dynamically adjusted based on player behavior, results in better retention and monetization. The same benefits can be received through personalized UX in other kinds of applications, too.

So, if you want to improve mobile app retention and boost your ROI, leverage client insights to offer personalized experiences. For example, you can:

  • Address people by their names.
  • Customize content or feature recommendations based on past activity.
  • Adjust the time of notifications to individual preferences.
  • Personalize product recommendations based on location, etc.

Make User Insights Easily Accessible and Design Clear Dashboards

Access to real-time user insights and well-designed dashboards are among the most crucial elements of your design that can help increase app users and retain them. Both these elements are important to let people have more control over your application. Insights and dashboards can help them track their performance, monitor data trends, and make more data-driven decisions.

Integrate Real-Time Feedback and Support Features

Apart from the relevance and quality of your product, one thing that also affects retention a lot is the connection you build with your prospects. Developing strong and lasting relationships is the key to securing loyalty, and there are two features that matter for it:

  • Feedback—Give your clients a simple way to share their reviews and rate your business and application. Doing so will encourage users to leave feedback, which helps build trust and authority, and will show people that you care about their opinions and experience.
  • Customer support—Allow people to get fast and helpful answers to their questions and help from your team with their issues. This will make their experiences more positive and will contribute to mobile app user retention.

These functionalities are among the top must-have features every application needs for a successful launch and sustainable growth. So don’t hesitate to implement them, too.

Embrace Multi-Platform Experience

At the beginning of this guide, we mentioned that more and more people now prefer applications over websites. While this is true, there are still many people who continue using the web and even desktops.

Here’s a bonus tip to help you boost your business ROI even further: focus on delivering excellent UX across all platforms, including web, app, and desktop. Doing so will help you engage a broader audience and ensure a positive experience for all.

Conclusion

Mastering the art of increasing mobile app retention isn’t very hard, though it takes a holistic approach.

As you now know, it requires a combination of security, performance, ASO, onboarding, gamification, and many other elements to create a UX that will make people want to stay. Use the tips we shared with you in this guide to improve your application now and ensure higher ROI in the long run.