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Exploring different re-engagement channels

13 August 2023

Did you know that more than 142 billion apps and games were downloaded worldwide in 2022? While it may sound impressive, 25% percent of those apps will most likely be used once according to a 2019 survey. This tells you that there is a huge number of wasted opportunities many app developers and marketers miss.

So, what’s the solution to this problem? You need to re-engage your users and encourage them to use your app. But how? You can do this by exploring different re-engagement channels.

In this post, let us learn how to re-engage users and what channels you can use to achieve this.

What is re-engagement in app marketing?

App re-engagement is a marketing solution that aims to encourage inactive or dormant users to engage or use your app once again or more often. Inactive users may refer to users who have downloaded your app but didn’t use it for at least 14 days.

Please understand though that re-engagement is different from re-targeting. Re-engagement aims to encourage users who are not using your app more often. On the other hand, retargeting is done to encourage users who uninstalled your app to install it again.

Why is re-engagement important for app marketing?

Re-engagement is important for various reasons. These are the following:

Sometimes, app downloads can be deceiving. You might get a lot of them, but if your app downloaders don’t use your app more often than they should, it’s not that much of a good thing. That’s why, aside from app downloads, you need to check your retention rate and churn rate.

The retention rate measures how many users go back to your app and use it while the churn rate measures how many users don’t go back to your app. 

Retention rate and churn rate are opposite performance metrics. What you want is to have a higher retention rate and lower churn rate and that’s where re-engagement marketing strategies can help.

Re-engagement encourages your users to utilize your app more often or on a regular basis. Through re-engagement strategies, you remind your users to use your app again by telling them the value of your app and how your app’s features can help them.

With increased app usage and sessions, you’ll have more business opportunities.

It’s no secret that the more engaged and active users are, the more they will be willing to give you high ratings and positive reviews. Re-engagement strategies help satisfy your users. What’s great about this is that having higher ratings would improve the reputation of your app, which leads to more users downloading your app.

Performing re-engagement strategies are more cost-effective than getting new users. You don’t have to run expensive ad campaigns just to increase your app’s visibility. In re-engagement, you already have a list of inactive users. All you have to do is encourage them to use your app once again.

Ultimately, re-engagement leads to increased app revenue, which is obviously what you want to see in your app. The compound effect of having engaged users and improved app ratings and reviews could lead to a higher conversion rate, which would in turn help you earn more from your app.

What are the different re-engagement channels?

Re-engagement channels help you reach as many inactive users as possible. That’s why, it is a must that you are familiar with them. Here are some of the most common and effective channels you should use for your re-engagement.

Push notifications are notifications or messages that you send directly to your users through your app. The best thing about push notifications is that users can receive them even when they don’t actively use your app. It’s the perfect and easy way to get your users' attention.

As a re-engagement channel, you can use push notifications to tell your users about your app, share promotions and updates, and encourage them to perform specific actions.

Of course, remember that you need to ask for the user’s permission for them to receive push notifications. If ever you get their approval, you should send push notifications responsibly. If you don’t, there’s a higher chance that they’ll uninstall your app instead of using it.

In-app messaging allows you to send messages to your users within the app. Your users should actively use your app before they can see your in-app messages.

In-app messages target users who are already somewhat engaged with your app. This means that there’s a good chance that they will pay attention to your in-app messages.

Use in-app messaging to directly communicate with your users and provide them with relevant or helpful details.

Yes, you can use email marketing in re-engaging your users. The best thing about email marketing is it becomes super effective as long as you send the right message.

According to Oberlo’s article, it is estimated that at the end of 2023, there will be 4.37 billion email users worldwide. Depending on various factors, the average conversion rate of email marketing is 4% to 25%. As you can see, there’s a huge re-engagement opportunity that email marketing presents here.

Of course, you need your users’ email addresses for this to work. Build your email list. Once you have done that, you can send your users emails about your app such as updates, exclusive discounts, and other valuable content that would entice your users to use your app.

Another way to send a message to your users via their phone is the use of a Short Message Service or SMS. If you have a list of your users’ phone numbers, you can send them messages about your app.

Usually, you can get phone numbers during an app registration process. You can also obtain phone numbers in person while you offer potential users promos and exclusive deals. Use SMS messages to send personalized offers, reminders, and updates.

While yes, running an ad campaign may cost money, it certainly serves as an effective re-engagement channel. What’s great about ads is that you can specifically configure them to target users who have already downloaded your app but aren’t using it that much.

You can run ads on various platforms such as on search engine return pages, websites, and social media.

There’s a reason why you should ask people to follow you on your social media accounts. When they follow you on social media, you can use these platforms as a way to remind your users about your app.

Use your social media presence to re-engage with your users by sharing content, promotions, and updates about your app. Social media platforms have millions of users and thus, leveraging your social media presence could help you reach a wider audience and reconnect with inactive users.

Wrapping up

As you can see, re-engagement channels hold great potential to help you reach inactive users. When used correctly, re-engagement channels can help you maximize user retention, decrease churn rate, improve app usage, and drive conversion.

Choose the right channels today for your re-engagement campaigns and see how your app can dramatically succeed.

This is a guest post from the ShyftUp, ASO Agency, team, experts in ASO (App Store Optimization), and paid user acquisition.

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