There is no denying that active users are at the heart of business growth, especially for an online company. These active users form the foundation of recurring revenue, engagement, and product success. Therefore, with the retention and expansion of your user base, you will start seeing outstanding results.
While acquiring users is a challenging process, keeping them engaged and active is even more difficult. You might have noticed that even though many users have downloaded your app, very few of them continue to use it daily. For this reason, it is important to know how to increase active users, how to calculate them, and the best practices to keep them interested in what you have to offer.
You will find a detailed guide on how to grow active users by understanding everything surrounding daily and monthly active users here.
What Do We Mean When We Talk about Active Users?
You might have already heard the term active users before, so it will be useful to explain what this term refers to. In reality, active users represent the individual users who engage with a product over a specified period. This means that you can measure your active users in different ways. However, the two most common metrics that you should know are Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU).
DAU and MAU: Defining Active Users
What is DAU: DAU refers to the number of unique users who engage with your product on a specified day. With this metric, you can evaluate the day-to-day engagement and track short-term usage. For example, you can discover how many users interact with your app daily.
What is MAU: MAU, on the other hand, represents the number of unique users who engage with your product within 30 days. As you can imagine, it is a broader metric that hints at the overall user engagement of your product. This metric, for example, shows you how many users have made your app a part of their lives.
DAU vs. MAU: Which Matters More?
In the context of your mobile app growth strategy, you might be wondering which one should you track. However, it is crucial to understand that both DAU and MAU are important and can offer you invaluable insights. If you should prioritize one over the other really depends on your business model and goals.
But mostly, you should look at both metrics about one another.
High DAU/MAU Ratio: If you have a high DAU/MAU ratio, it indicates that a big portion of your user base engages daily with your app. This is a clear sign that your efforts keep them interested in your product.
Low DAU/MAU Ratio: If you notice that the DAU/MAU ratio is low, it could be a sign that there is an issue with user retention. In this case, you must invest more in techniques that will attract users back into your app.
Importance for SaaS: Why Track Active Users?
Now that you know what is DAU and what is MAU, you need to realize their importance for your SaaS company. In more detail tracking active users is critical for these reasons:
- Revenue Growth: The more active users you have, the more opportunities to make sales and generate revenue. This is an important metric for companies that have implemented the subscription-based model.
- Product Validation: If you have a high number of daily active users, then you can take it as a clear sign that your product meets customer needs and offers great value to them.
- User Retention: By learning how to increase active users, you optimize your product and foster long-term brand loyalty.
How to Measure Active Users
Another important aspect of active users is their calculation. Now that you have a better understanding of the terms, we are going to show you how to calculate both daily and monthly active users.
How to Calculate Monthly Active Users (MAU)
You can calculate MAU by counting the unique users who engage with your product over a month. The formula for this is rather straightforward and it is this one:
For example, take an app that has 50,000 downloads. After 30 days, only 12,000 of those users are still active on the app. In this case, the MAU would be 12,000.
How to Calculate Daily Active Users (DAU)
As we have already explained, DAU measures how many users engage with your app on a given day. Therefore, the formula is this one:
For instance, take the same app with the 50,000 downloads. This app has 3,000 users who log in and engage with the product on day 12 after launch. This means that the DAU for that day is 3,000.
DAU to MAU Ratio
One of the most important calculations that you need to know for your mobile app growth strategy is the DAU/MAU ratio. If you have already calculated your DAU and MAU, it's very easy to calculate the ratio as well. To do that, you must use this formula:
For example, if your MAU is 10,000 and your DAU is 2,500, then your DAU/MAU ratio will be:
DAU/MAU Ratio = 2,500 ÷ 10,000 = 0.25
A ratio of 0.25 means that 25% of your users engage with your app daily. Depending on your product and your goals, this could be an indication of how engaged your users are.
How to Grow Active Users: Ways to Increase DAU and MAU
Now you are ready to learn how to increase active users for your product. This is a challenging process that requires constant effort and evaluation of your analytics. Nevertheless, some techniques have shown great results. In this section, we are going to show you how to grow active users using some of the most effective strategies.
Ways to Grow Active Users and Increase App Engagement
- Personalized User Experience: Personalization lies at the heart of user satisfaction and engagement. This is the reason why it is one of the most essential strategies to follow, especially in customer success in SaaS. By tailoring experiences based on user behavior, preferences, and past interactions, you can enhance engagement. With EngageLab, you can create personalized communications that will boost your efforts.
- Push Notifications: Timely and relevant push notifications can motivate users to return to your app. Your notifications should offer value to your users, such as updates, reminders, and personalized offers. EngageLab is one of the top push notifications services it allows you to create efficient push notifications in just a few clicks.
- Incentives and Loyalty Programs: Another strategy is to reward users for completing tasks, engaging regularly, or reaching milestones. These incentives can be discounts, points, or rewards. Users will want to return to your app to gain these benefits.
- Gamification: This popular strategy asks you to add game-like elements to your product, such as challenges, leaderboards, and badges. All these elements encourage users to return. The truth is that gamification is based on users' psychological desire for achievement and competition.
- Community Building: Fostering a sense of community within your app is one of the greatest ways to boost engagement. With EngageLab, you can reach out to your users via numerous channels, opening a direct way of communication.
How to Increase Active Users: The Best Tool EngageLab
However, it's no use knowing how to grow active users without having the right tools to employ all of these techniques. This is where EngageLab comes into play. This online platform stands out for its comprehensive set of features that allows you to quickly reach and communicate with your customers via numerous channels.
Get Started For FreeWhy EngageLab?
EngageLab is more than just a user engagement platform but is an invaluable tool designed to help you understand, engage, and retain your customers. What makes it stand out is the combination of advanced features. Indicatively, by signing up for EngageLab, you gain access to:
Real-Time User Insights: EngageLab offers real-time analytics that allows you to evaluate the success of your campaigns as they roll out. This instant visibility reveals how your users are interacting with your product, and if your campaigns are enticing enough to bring them into your app. This way, you can make data-driven decisions to improve engagement.
User Segmentation: With EngageLab, you can easily personalize your users' experience based on certain criteria. You have the ability to create segments of your audience so that you can send targeted campaigns. This ensures that every user receives relevant content, which is a proven strategy for monthly and daily active users.
Multichannel Support: EngageLab supports engagement across multiple channels, such as email, SMS, web push, and push notifications among others. This comprehensive approach ensures that your message will reach your audience users, thus keeping it engaged and active.
High Delivery Rates for Global Users: Your mobile app growth strategy should be able to reach your audience no matter where they are in the world. EngageLab guarantees high delivery rates throughout the world. This way, you can rest assured that your campaigns will be delivered to your audience.
Wrapping Up
Active users are a core metric for any digital business, and for this reason, you need to keep a close eye on it. By learning how to grow active users, you can set your app on a path of success. But before you apply any of these strategies, it is important to learn what the terms DAU and MAU mean, how to calculate them, and which tool to use for your campaigns. EngageLab, with its suite of features, is a powerful platform for monitoring and increasing active users. Try EngageLab for free to discover its capabilities.
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