How To Retarget Your Mobile App Users Effectively?

All strategies for mobile apps have a similar key objective and that is 'focusing on how to make more and more people use the app'. And this is where the concept of app retargeting comes into the picture because it is must easier to turn your already existing customers into your app's loyal users.

Rather than starting the whole process again of gaining new customers and then transforming them into the loyal members of the app. Retargeting helps to overcome the major issues like higher app abandonment rates by targeting the individuals you have downloaded the app through the means of social media platforms.

With these different social media channels, the app users can be promoted to use the app again. This method will contribute in boosting the user engagement rate, here companies and brands are mainly the ones that require retargeting. Let's start by explaining what actually is app retargeting:

What is Mobile App Retargeting?

Mobile App Retargeting is basically a marketing strategy to re-engage the users who have lost their interest from the services that the mobile app is offering. In this retargeting strategy, special personalized advertisements i.e. ads are delivered to the user's mobile devices.

Below are the two of the main reasons for which retargeting for mobile apps is implemented:

1. To motivate the targeted audience to download the app in the first place.
2. To encourage the already existing mobile app users to do regular engagement with the application.

According to the recent reports by AppLift, there has been seen an increase of 48% in the CTR i.e. the click-through rates. Other statistics that the above image shows is that approximately 173% of retargeted app users are more likely to spend again.

How Mobile App Retargeting works?

Initially, to target the respective audience or new users, the ad networks had to utilize the cookies so that they can track the search activity of those users on their mobile browsers. Once, this is done then the retargeting of mobile app users takes place with the help of the browser collected data.

Those app users are sent the mobile ads that are curated as per their interest and data search activity, promoting them to download that particular app for the very first time.

You can also integrate a mobile SDK i.e. Software Development Kit with your mobile app, where the advertisers will be able to identify the existing users' details including the app activity, mobile device ID, topic of interests, and much more.

Now that the advertisers have the required data, they can now forward with their process of retargeting the users with the help of push notifications as well as in-app advertisements to bring the users back to their mobile application.

Mobile App Retargeting Tips

Here are some tips that will surely come in handy in implementing the retargeting methods on mobile app users:

Rethinking the measurement strategy

ROAS that stands for Return on Ad Spend is what the advertisers use to measure the value spent on ads for remarketing or retargeting purposes. To get an appropriate estimation of the amount spent, the advertisers compare their investment with the profit they received from the campaign.

For example, the investment of a campaign is $7,500 and the profit earned from the camohn is $11,000. Then the calculated ROAS will be $3,500. But choosing ROAS might not be the best way specifically in the case of active mobile app users, as the advertiser might give some extra credit to the campaign for actions that were pre-planned.

The right way to measure the above-mentioned metrics is by calculating the revenue lift that is generated by your ad spend. When you separate your target audience into two groups, you can easily keep a track of the active users in your mobile application.

Focusing on Personalization

The next important tip is to minutely focus on the personalization factor because the message which you will be retargeting the app users plays a vital role. Your content can be general as long as you are targeting a wide range of individuals but if you are narrowing down to a specific group of people. Then also ensure that the content that you are directing towards them, should be customized.

Chasing new customers can sometimes be tricky, therefore the procedure of retargeting should be optimized accordingly. Suppose, you served your targeted audience an irrelevant ad then chances of them clicking on that particular ad are very slim.

Using Time-sensitive approach

Following a time-sensitive approach to make your remarketing strategy more effective is a trick that many brands and companies are still not aware about. The main motive here is to attract the user back to your mobile app and not just any users, you should aim for the active users.

Let's take an example, suppose you own a retail application where you want to entice the potential buyers. And some of the time sensitive messages that you can use are:

• Buy one get one free only for this weekend.
• Extra 50% off on all items till midnight.

On both of the above mentioned examples, you set a time restraint for the user so if that user is interested in the deal your app is offering. He/she has to take advantage of that respective order before the time limit of that offer expires.

Aspects of Mobile App Targeting

When planning out a mobile app retargeting strategy, there are various aspects that needs to be considered before finalizing the plan. Personalization itself, is a main attribute that can not be taken out of the image as we have discussed previously. So, now let's move on to the other remaining aspects, which are:

Frequency

The mobile app retargeting campaigns vary in their frequency of advertisements, the campaigns can't be too lenient with their campaign schedule.

For example, if a brand post to often then the user might be frustrated with the constant reminders by the brands. As a result, the user might just discard the idea of using the installation. Whereas, if the campaigns have a significantly large gap in between their schedules, then the user might forget everything about the app and may lose their significance.

That’s why there has to be a perfect balance in terms of impressions, in the frequency of the campaigns.

Creativity

Always remember the visual appeal is one of the most important aspects of a mobile retargeting campaign. That's why brands are going above and beyond with their level of creativity, when it comes to making the creatives.

Only use high quality and rich creatives in the appropriate sizes to provide the users a captivating visual of your brand's campaign. The creatives are also known as the medium between the regression and retargeting sections. Try to avoid creating a false image because if the user found out then he/she might lose their trust which can further tarnish your brand image.

Attribution

Tracking attributions are extremely important, as they tell you the accurate track of the app installs, app retention, and even app revenue. We can also state it as a great user retention strategy that is efficient in observing the retention rate as well. The attribution can be tracked in two ways:

1. Re-attributions: To calculate the number of people who have re-installed.
2. Re-engagements: To calculate the total number of people who have downloaded the app after engaging with a mobile retargeting campaign.

For companies as well as brands, the retargeting practices can prove to be something phenomenal in reaching new heights of user engagement on their mobile applications. With methods for user retargeting, the advertisers are also helping to increase their app’s popularity along with the app revenue.

Hope you will surely implement these efficient insights on mobile app retargeting to increase your user engagement rate. And if you want to read more such useful articles from the world of the mobile app industry, hit that ‘Subscribe’ button.

By Sakshi Kaushik

Content Writer (B2B Editorial)

A passionate writer and tech lover, she strives to share her expertise with mobile app developers and fellow tech enthusiasts. During her moments away from the keyboard, she relishes delving into thriller narratives, immersing herself in diverse realms.