User Acquisition: Key Strategies & Tools to Grow Your App

To compete in a highly competitive and growing industry like mobile apps, you need to be familiar with mobile app user acquisition tips and strategies. So, let's go through all the key user acquisition strategies in detail to help you capture your share of the competitive mobile app market.

Part 1: What is User Acquisition?

User acquisition (also shortened as UA) is the process of acquiring new users for your service or product, like a mobile app, via different marketing strategies. The term is typically used in the software industry instead of customer acquisition because not every app user is a paying customer.

Whether your app is available for free or has a subscription model, acquiring more users is vital for its growth. The primary goal of mobile app user acquisition is to grow the number of users and turn them into active users and potential paid customers. It also enhances your chances of making money via ads or in-app purchases.

Source:https://a.storyblok.com/

Channels of User Acquisition

The following are the key channels used for user acquisition:

• Paid Ads: Running paid ads on social media platforms like Facebook, search engines like Google Ads, and other such websites that allow ads.
• Influencer Marketing: Partnering up with influencers to promote your mobile app and build trust with the audience of an already established social media personality.
• Content Marketing: Acquire new users by publishing high-quality content relevant to your target audience.
• Referral Programs: A strong word-of-mouth can do wonders for your business, including a mobile app. You can consider incentivizing your current user base and encouraging them to refer the app to their friends and family.

Source：https://www.saasquatch.com/

• Email Marketing: If you already have an email list from another app or some marketing campaign, you can utilize it to promote your app and get more users.

• Social Media: Social media marketing, both paid and organic, is a powerful channel to acquire new users. You should generate engaging content regularly to promote your app. Sometimes, even a short video or post can go viral and get you hundreds of users quickly.

Importance of Mobile App User Acquisition

Being familiar with what user acquisition is and focusing on such strategies is important due to a variety of reasons:

Part 2: Challenges in Mobile App User Acquisition

While mobile user acquisition is an important task, it does not mean that it is an easy one, and anyone can do it. Even some of the most well-established apps face certain challenges when it comes to acquiring new customers.

1. High Competition

So many apps are released on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store daily. Hence, high competition remains the most common challenge in user acquisition across the board.

Even some of the best mobile apps might not get the attention they truly deserve without an effective user acquisition strategy because it is likely to be competing with giants with massive marketing budgets.

2. High Cost to Acquire Users

User acquisition is expensive. Whether it's running ads on social media platforms or even spending money on organic content marketing, the cost to acquire new users can be quite high. And even after you get a new user, there is always a chance of them deleting your app within a few days.

Reports suggest that the fintech industry and mobile games have extremely high costs in acquiring new users. Multiplayer games like PUBG often tend to partner up with influencers and brands for promotion to minimize their acquisition cost.

The following graph summarizes the average user acquisition cost or cost per install across different app categories:

Source:https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/

3. Poor Retention

Getting your target audience to download an app is one thing. However, keeping the users engaged and hooked to the app for a long time is a whole other game. Businesses have to implement a retention marketing strategy, along with user acquisition, to ensure they don't lose their new users.

Having a simple onboarding process, an engaging interface, and reliable app performance are a few things businesses can do to overcome this challenge.

Snapchat is perhaps the most popular example that fits this challenge. The app suffered from a brief lull period due to the rise of its competitors like Instagram and TikTok. However, the platform introduced new features like Stories monetization that have made it “cool” again.

The following graph of Snapchat active users proves this point, as there was a dip in 2018 and 2019, but its usage has been increasing since 2020.

4. Low CTR

Users have a lot of apps on their smartphones, and almost all of them bombard them with ads. This leads to ad fatigue and low click-through rate (CTR). In other words, many users nowadays simply ignore the ads, which means businesses and apps dependent on such ads are not able to meet their marketing criteria.

5. Changing App Algorithm

App stores are continuously evolving with new algorithms and ranking criteria. Businesses that have their apps on the app stores must keep up with the changing algorithm and any such relevant updates to ensure they are following the latest guidelines and maximizing their chances of ranking at the top.

However, it is much easier said than done as companies have to look after many different things in an effective user acquisition strategy. Hence, keeping up with the algorithm changes is not always an easy task.

Specific websites and tools are made to help users track such changes.

Part 3: Core Strategies for Mobile App User Acquisition

The exact steps for mobile app user acquisition can vary based on your specific app and niche, but the core strategies remain the same:

Strategy # 1: Focus on App Store Optimization (ASO)

Just like search engine optimization (SEO) is vital to get your website ranked in the search engines, app store optimization (ASO) is key to getting your app noticed on the mobile app. stores It can boost your app's visibility on the App Store and Play Store, leading to a higher number of downloads and organic user acquisition.

Some of the key ASO best practices are:

Here's an example of different types of apps in the app store with HD visuals and proper keywords:

Source:https://a.storyblok.com/

Strategy # 2: Invest in Ads and Social Media Marketing

While ASO helps in organic ranking and user acquisition, you also have to allocate a certain budget towards running paid ads. Paid acquisition campaigns should go along with running marketing campaigns across social media platforms.

Platforms like Facebook, Google, and TikTok are great sources for acquiring new users for most types of apps.Too maximize your advertising and marketing efforts, you need to:

• Analyze your target audience to choose the right platform.

• Experiment with different ad copies and visuals to see what converts best.

• Run retargeting ads.

Source:https://cdn.prod.website-files.com

Strategy # 3: Start a Referral Program

More users are likely to use your app when they are referred to by their friends and family. It is possible through a strong referral program that can generate excellent word-of-mouth. Such a program can also lower your acquisition cost, which we've already discussed as one of the core challenges of mobile app user acquisition.

A few referral strategies you can think about implementing are:

• Offer exclusive discounts to the customers for successful referrals.
• Integrate an easy share button.
• Track and monitor the referral conversion rates to provide rewards.

Strategy # 4: Email Marketing to Boost App Downloads

Email marketing can also be a useful way of acquiring users, especially if you already have a subscriber list or email list of potential customers. An email's format allows you to strategically highlight your app's features with HD visuals and impress potential users.

The best way to use email marketing for user acquisition involves:

• Target existing customers by sending them personalized emails.
• Include deep links to ensure users can easily go from your emails to the app store.
• Highlight the unique features and benefits of your app.
• Send retargeted emails.

Strategy # 5: Use SMS Marketing for Instant Results

SMS has an open rate of 98%. Moreover, SMS's fast speed makes this mode of marketing one of the most effective ways of reaching potential users. When you are implementing a mobile app user acquisition strategy, you should incorporate SMS marketing and utilize it in the following ways:

• Send direct app download links via SMS
• Provide time-sensitive offers to encourage users to download the app quickly.
• Send follow-up SMS.
• Combine SMS and email marketing for more effective results.

Part 4: Measuring and Optimizing User Acquisition

By now, if you have followed the tips and strategies discussed above, you would have an excellent mobile app user acquisition strategy. However, implementing just a strategy is not enough without proper monitoring to ensure you are moving towards your goals.

So, let's look at some of the key metrics you need to track, along with some optimization tips and the best analytics tools available for this purpose.

Key Metrics to Track & Optimize Mobile App User Acquisition

The following table summarizes the key metrics you need to track for mobile app user acquisition, along with the relevant optimization tips:

Tools to Track User Acquisition Metrics

There is a massive variety of analytics apps available, but you don't have to go through any extensive list. Here are our top 3 picks:

1. Firebase Analytics

Firebase Analytics is one of the most popular solutions for real-time app reporting and analytics. It is a free, cross-platform software by Google. You can easily integrate Firebase Analytics with other services like Google Ads for unified monitoring.

Source:https://firebase.google.com

One key thing to note is that Firebase Analytics is more targeted towards developers and technical individuals who want to monitor their app's growth. Marketers, however, should opt for another analytics solution.

2. Mixpanel

Mixpanel is another highly popular third-party tracking solution. Its specialty is in event-based tracking to offer comprehensive insights about user behavior and marketing funnels.

Source:https://cdn.mxpnl.com

If you are interested in making data-driven decisions based on user engagement, you will find Mixpanel to be a reliable solution.

Both of these tools offer robust analytics capabilities. However, these tools are limited to monitoring.

What if there were a platform that combined marketing and analytics capabilities? Well, there is! Keep reading to learn all about it.

Part 5: Achieving User Acquisition Success with EngageLab

EngageLab stands out as the most effective solution for mobile app user acquisition and monitoring key metrics. It combines detailed user tracking with the omnichannel marketing needed to acquire and retain users.

Whether you are trying to get new users via SMS or email marketing or trying to retain users via push notifications, you can do all of it with EngageLab.

Other than running campaigns manually, you can also use the latest EngageLab Marketing Automation solution to enjoy accelerated app growth through omnichannel marketing automation. It is a complete AI-powered solution that ensures strategy optimization and also provides smart insights to achieve your goals quickly and efficiently.

Smart Data Analytics with EngageLab

With EngageLab's analytics, you get a complete view of your audience's behavior. Such understanding is helpful to track engagement, segment users, and optimize messaging in real time.

Moreover, you can use the comprehensive analytics to easily fine-tune your campaigns and boost user acquisition—all from a single dashboard. Overall, you can enjoy higher delivery rates, quick integration, and better conversions with automated messaging with EngageLab.

Conclusion

User acquisition is the combination of multiple strategies and best practices, such as ASO, targeted content marketing, SMS marketing, effective ad campaigns, and email marketing to reach a wider audience. Once implemented, you need to track key metrics using reliable tools like EngageLab.

Success in user acquisition is dependent on a business's ability to stay ahead of trends and keep up with shifting user behaviour. EngageLab is one such reliable tool that can help organizations stay ahead of the curve!

Whether you're in retail, ecommerce, finance, news & media, travel, or gaming, EngageLab's features ensure you can reach your target audience via personalized strategies.

Even if you are looking for a complete custom solution, contact EngageLab's customer support team to discuss your specific needs and get the perfect solution.