How to Reduce Churn on Your Mobile App

How do you measure the success of a mobile app? User retention seems like the obvious metric to focus on, as well as the download rate. However, if you only focus on the number of new users downloading your app, you’re essentially viewing its success at a surface level without doing an actual deep dive. User retention can’t truly be measured without also looking at user churn.

No matter how your app is structured or what it offers, you will experience some level of churn. It’s a given for mobile publishers. However, churn can derail your mobile app’s growth and profitability if you don’t monitor and take steps to minimise it. 

Let’s take a closer look at why churn can be a problem for app owners, why it happens and how you can work to reduce your churn rate.

What is churn and why does it matter?

According to Statista, only 32% of new users will use an app 11 times or more after initially downloading it. That leaves around 68% of new app users engaging with an app fewer than 11 times before deleting it or logging out! On top of this, it’s been found that approximately 25% of new users completely abandon an app after engaging with it only once! 

User churn refers to the users who engage and then disengage with your app, either logging out or deleting it. Your churn rate refers to the number of users who stop using your app over a period of time. Monitoring your churn rate is essential because it allows you to see how many users you’re losing compared to how many new users you win. 

Simply put, if you’re losing more users than you’re bringing in - you’re losing revenue whether it’s through lost paid users or fewer in-app purchases or in-app advertising opportunities. So why do users churn? Understanding the reasons for churn can help highlight areas where you need to improve your app.

Why your users are churning

Users can churn for one reason or a variety of reasons. Some potential causes include:

• Your app’s onboarding process is confusing or overly complicated.
• You either send out too many or not enough push notifications.
• Your internal communications aren’t providing any value to the user.
• The app’s user experience is not meeting expectations in some way (such as slow loading time, payment problems, etc).
• There are too many problems and/or crashes within your app’s workflow.
• There have been no changes, updates or improvements made to the app in a while and users are no longer interested.

It’s important to realise that your users could be churning for these reasons, or other reasons entirely. This makes analysing your churn rate even more vital to assess where your app isn’t meeting user expectations. 

How to reduce churn

Be clear about your app’s purpose and benefits

Before your users even download your app, you could already be setting yourself up to lose them - simply because the wrong users are downloading your app. If users don’t clearly understand the value your app offers and how it can benefit them, they’re simply going to uninstall it once they realise it’s not what they’re looking for. 

Make sure your app listing and description clearly and succinctly communicate your app’s primary purpose, features and benefits. If you’re not sure which benefits you should be highlighting, employing a bit of A/B testing and monitoring the results can help you decide. 

Identify and segment your user base

Treating your user base as one, extended audience will leave them with a less-than-outstanding experience using your app. You should be segmenting your users and targeting each group with tailored communications, updates and recommendations. The more personalised the experience is for the user, the more they will enjoy interacting with your app, and the less likely they are to churn. 

Improve your app’s user experience

User expectations are high when it comes to app navigation and usability, so make sure your app isn’t falling short in key areas like loading and response time, and keep metrics like crash time as low as possible. 

The easier and more intuitive your app is to use, the more users will want to engage with it. This includes introducing newer, better features and making necessary updates to meet evolving trends and user requests. Take feedback from your users into account when making changes and updates.

Reduce your churn rate and improve in-app engagement

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Fighting churn is a consistent battle as an app owner, one that requires constant analysis, evaluation and the right set of analytics tools to leverage these insights. While it’s important, it’s also time-consuming and can be overwhelming if you’re unfamiliar with how to measure and assess churn datasets. 

At Appic, we specialise in helping app founders and owners optimise their app’s performance in key ways, from engagement enhancement to churn analysis and reduction. We have the tools, experience and insight you need to implement considered churn reduction strategies that take your app’s entire workflow into account. 

Let us handle the data and strategy heavy lifting so you can focus on your app’s core processes and revenue scaling. Chat to us about your unique requirements and we’ll show you how we can help.