23% of users abandon app after just a single use, which is bad news for apps which depend on ad views of premium features to turn a profit.
Even with the risk of single-use users, many enterprise apps and mobile startups are pursuing ad-driven and freemium models. According to Distimo’s report How the Most Successful Apps Monetize Their User Base, 76 percent of all revenue in the Apple app store in the US and over 90 percent in the Asian markets came from freemium apps or in-app purchases.
If you’re curious for a reason why, look no further than Snapchat. Snapchat, a completely free app, was offered a tremendous $3 billion-dollar buyout by Facebook thanks to its unparalleled engagement numbers, coming in at 400 million photos shared every day.
How is your app measuring up? What makes a successful app in the first place? Take a look at these metrics:
Downloads.
Downloading your app is the first step in using your app, and as such is also the first step for owners assess their app’s success. For paid apps, every download means more revnue. For freemium or ad-based apps, every download means a higher probability of ad views or of converting free users to paid users.
The key to understanding downloads is to put them in the context of active users. How many users download the app and never use it? How many users download the app and use it only once? How many users download the app and use it on a regular basis?
These ratios can be invaluable in identifying how well your app is doing over time, and in determining the success of a particular marketing campaign.
Engagement.
The key to Snapchat’s success is its colossal user engagement. Its users are deeply engaged, accessing the app and uploading content several times daily. This is what you want your app to emulate, driving your users to make your app a part of their every day lives. Have your app’s goals in mind when looking at the numbers – does successful usage depend on frequency of app opens? on duration of app opens? number of screens accessed? conversions to other events? Having a clear user story, central to Echo’s process, is essential to making sense of the information your metrics provide.
Retention.
Inspiring user loyalty is essential for maintaining their engagement and keeping your app popular. One important way to keep people happily coming back is through issuing app updates – from small bug fixes to major enhancements, maintaining your connection to the app will help your users maintain their connection as well. Updates also give you an excellent metric for assessing user retention – more updates downloaded means more user retention, plain and simple.
To find out more about how you can make a popular app, drop us a line!
