Ways to Retain Apps - Top 3 Retargeting Hacks

There is a huge problem that the subscription companies seem to face. It is app customer retention. They willfully cut down on the prices only to get more and more people at the door. But, it is ultimately a loss as per the bigger picture can take these companies months in order to breakeven on every individual customer, since only a tiny fraction of their costs come as individual monthly fee.

More than often it is seen that people do get themselves registered on a mobile app or a desktop application but, they do not take too long to leave. They leave as fast as they subscribe. Well, that is the scene of the app retention rate. So, to be in the game, companies have to employ app retention strategies so that customers do not funnel down the negative cash flow when the apps fail to keep people around. So, there isn’t any other way than to become a get-at in finding quick and effective solutions to this problem.

The general tendency is that conversion rates of marketing campaigns actually go down as people get bored and eventually start ignoring them. But, in case of retargeting products, the scenario is different. The number of conversions actually improves. The retentions numbers fall each day. For instance, what starts off as a 21% retention rate on day one turns out to be only 1.89 by the end of 3rd month.

Here is where the concept of retargeting comes in. It is indeed one of the best and effective ways to solve the app retention issue. People, today are hugely overwhelmed by the daily ad announcement that they keep getting. Studies say that people block ads. Have you ever though why is it so? They hate them simply because they are irrelevant.

However, to this rule, retargeting and remarketing advertisements can be considered as exception. Well, most of it rounds off to the ‘rule of seven’ which indicates that people first interact several times with the brand before being ready for purchase. Well, retargeting can do that really well if companies use Adwords retargeting campaigns. There are new fun stuffs that you can dabble with using AdWords which surely will increase the App retention.

Hack 1: IF Functions and RLSA hearings

Take it for a fact that nothing can ever get closer to Google’s search network ads in terms of the best conversion channels. If you’re wondering why, ads can be targeted on the basis of intent! You can replicate the words that someone types in, in exactitude. Search network ads can be easily retargeted by using Google’s RLSA audiences.

This enables companies to keep a tap on the audiences’ latest interaction with your brand. For people who had signed up and installed the app but then ignored to further explore it, RLSA audiences are simply gold for them. But, hang on, things don’t end there, it gets better! Taking personalization one step ahead, Google introduced the IF functions for AdWords last year.

The IF functions enables you to make an ad template that can swap words according to an individual’s condition. For instance, you can determine whether the customer is working on a mobile device or a desktop. So, accordingly you can have the text changed from “download now” to “get our mobile app”. Based on your prior interactions you can further customize these details. Plus, you don’t need to create hundreds of ad versions. A few variations are required on which the IF function can automate the customization.

Chances are that anybody who is interacting more often than others will automatically convert. So you can pull back a little since you are anyways boosting your app retention.

Hack 2: Mobile and YouTube remarketing

The key to the improving customer retention rate is to keep filling up the top of the funnel i.e. constantly encouraging newer people or prospects to interact with your brand. These strategies of remarketing via adwords only become truly worthwhile when you can get enough people. Well don’t blow off your budget in a rush. The best way to build retargeting audiences is by using video views.

Want to know how? Just go back to the “audience manager”, and then explore a wide range of targeting criteria by looking up the YouTube option. YouTube is the second largest search engine but you can also gain the SDK analytics, meaning that based on their mobile interactions and mobile videos you can unlock new audiences. Multiple trigger like these can help to determine someone’s position in your funnel at any point in time. But, you must be sure of which as to place to make them stick around.

Hack 3: Customer match remarketing

This is called keeping the best tactic for the last. Up until now, the motive was to get more audiences into the app and also retain them for the primary few days. But, that surely isn’t enough when you are set to improve your app retention by retargeting through Google Adwords. Subscription economics do not rise when users bounce out by the end of the first month. Rather, you need users to stick on for months after another in order to breakeven orelse, all the money spent will go down the pit. So, here’s introducing Google customer match targeting. This tactic create audiences from your intimate circle i.e. people with whom you have a purchase history.

The point is to have a full-proof and detailed customer data that will further help in retargeting them and enhance customer engagement. When you have their email id, you can keep them around by combine messaging in various channels. Make sure that you don’t give your customers the cold feet and push them into a competitor’s website to look for cheaper prices. You want to keep following them to help them realize that they’ve taken the correct call. Such ‘email match’ features are widely available across Facebook, Twitter and other social ad platforms. But, the email match rate of Google exceeds all.

So, whether it is their email address or mobile numbers that you work around to improve your retargeting audiences, it is numbers that ultimately count in marketing. You have to master the hard part: customer segmentation according to their interactions with the app. Serving the right ad in front of the right people at the right time then becomes a cake walk.