What is app engagement rate?
Let’s say you’ve just released a viral mobile app and already attracted a bunch of new users. Initial app downloads are promising, but how do you keep existing users interested in your product? That’s where mobile app engagement rate comes into play. It shows how frequently people use your app, how long their sessions are, and how they interact with specific features.
A high app engagement rate lets you increase profits, improve the reputation of your brand, and make your product more competitive. In short, the more actively your audience uses your app over time, the more successful it will become in the long run.
What makes app engagement important?
Let’s go over some of the key benefits of having a high app engagement rate.
It keeps your app profitable
The main reason why app engagement matters is that it increases revenue. Engaged users are much likelier to buy a paid subscription or watch ads. If your app is monetized properly, then every minute an engaged user spends on your platform can potentially translate into business profits.
It improves user retention
If your app is engaging, then your audience will be more likely to stick around for longer. Having a loyal user base that regularly interacts with your product can be much cheaper than constantly looking for new clients who will use your app once and then quickly move on. In short:
A high retention rate means a more consistent revenue stream.
It helps you build customer loyalty and brand reputation
App engagement can also help you create a strong community around your product, boost your brand’s reputation, and build trust with customers. If the users enjoy interacting with the app, they will talk about it with their friends and colleagues, attracting new customers to your product and promoting the brand.
It provides useful analytics
The more people are interacting with your app on a regular basis, the more analytical data you’ll be able to obtain. You’ll find out exactly how much time users spend on each app screen, which features they engage with the most, and which ones they tend to avoid. This analytical info will let you plan out future updates and marketing campaigns.
Amplitude is one of the best tools for analyzing the behavior patterns of app users. It includes a session replay feature that allows you to recreate the path users take when navigating your app.
10 strategies to increase mobile app engagement
Just in the first quarter of 2024, there were more than 52 billion app downloads on Google Play and Apple App Store combined. That’s impressive, but it only means your competition is huge, and people jump from app to app. For an individual app, working on long-term user engagement is the only way to stay relevant and keep its audience. Let’s dive into the 10 most effective strategies for boosting app engagement.
1. Regular updates
After the initial launch, you’ll need to release regular updates so people don’t get bored with the app. Introduce new features, fix bugs, and refine the app’s visual design. All of this is critical to increasing user engagement. Remember, supporting an app with content updates can be a challenge, so make sure you find a competent development team that can handle this task.
2. Push notifications
Reminding users about your app is essential, and there’s no better way to do it than by sending regular push notifications. Make sure you don’t send them too often, or people will quickly grow tired of them. It’s also important to keep them brief and informative, so it’s better to tie them to specific events. For example, you can send out push notifications about upcoming sales and time-limited offers.
3. Personalized recommendations
In-app recommendations have become even more popular with the rise of AI technology. You can implement dynamic algorithms in your app, which will give people personalized suggestions about products or content they might like. This will make your app more useful, improving user engagement in the long run.
Here’s how you can implement personalized recommendations — take a look at this video streaming platform we’ve developed. The app automatically suggested new content for users to watch, similar to Netflix or Amazon Prime. The final design ended up being really intuitive, and the client was impressed with the results.
We placed recommendations at the top of the home screen. That’s because people will be more likely to engage with the app longer if they see relevant content right from the get-go.
4. Intuitive in-app navigation
When it comes to mobile apps, the user experience should be as smooth as possible, or people will quickly get lost or overwhelmed. To boost app engagement, focus on creating a clean and user-friendly interface. Every key feature should be easily accessible, and the overall navigational flow should be intuitive.
Here’s an example — Voxtox, a music streaming app we designed. The client wanted to modernize the platform’s visual style and make the app accessible to all ages. That’s why we stripped the app interface down to the most essential elements and made simple user flows, which helped us streamline the onboarding process.
For Voxtox, we went for a calm but vibrant color palette that appeals to a wide demographic. To ensure the app is enjoyable to use, we also designed separate light and dark themes.
5. Gamification features
Many app ideas can be improved through gamification. Features like achievements, rewards, leaderboards, and daily tasks work great to boost user engagement, giving people an additional incentive to use the app regularly. The key here is to offer users compelling rewards — these could include discount points for new orders or badges that mark important milestones.
6. Time-limited promotions
Another effective way to increase user engagement is introducing timed promotions, such as flash sales or exclusive 24-hour discounts. They create a sense of urgency, leading to increased user activity on the platform. It’s a good idea to pair timed promotions with personal recommendations. For example, you could suggest different products to each user as part of a seasonal sale.
7. Referral programs
These work great for engaging existing users, as well as attracting new ones. Here’s how referrals work: you ask customers to invite their friends to the app and offer them exclusive rewards in exchange. These rewards can include personal discounts, free subscription trials, and in-app currency payouts.
Implementing a referral program can be very useful for mobile app engagement. We did it with Tunetank, a music streaming app. The client wanted to onboard new customers using referrals, so we created a fully custom system that lets you view detailed statistics.
When working on Tunetank, we also developed a custom indexing mechanism that allowed search engines to show the app in the search results.
8. Social media features
Implementing social features such as likes, shares, and live streams can help you boost app engagement, bringing your product closer to the likes of Facebook and TikTok. Social functionality encourages users to communicate with each other in the app and motivates them to spend more time on your platform.
You can include social features even in e-commerce apps. We did that when working on a livestream shopping app for the European market. In it, users would watch a real-time video showcase of a product and add it to their cart on the same screen. For the live streams to work, we had to integrate them into each product card manually. In the end, we delivered a polished app prototype, and are now working on an MVP version.
Working on the live-streaming functionality was the most challenging part. iOS and Android support different video formats, so we had to get around this limitation to finish the prototype.
9. Exclusive content
Offering your audience something that they can’t find anywhere else is one of the best ways of increasing user engagement. Just look at streaming apps like Netflix that have massive catalogs of their own movies and TV shows. When it comes to exclusive content, there are many options. For example, you could give users early access to upcoming features, provide exclusive tutorials, or offer virtual items.
10. Customizable UI elements
By allowing users to rearrange or change the color of individual UI elements, you can make their experience more personalized. As a result, they can become more attached to the app, and you’ll be able to boost user engagement. You can also offer UI widgets that allow people to get in-app tasks done more efficiently.
How to measure app engagement metrics?
You can find out how many engaged users your app has by looking at the statistics. Measuring engagement metrics will give you insights into user behavior, letting you improve your app in the long term. Here are four ways to do it.
Measure your daily and monthly active users
Some of the most common app engagement metrics are monthly and daily active users (MAU and DAU for short). A DAU rate shows how much people interact with your app on a day-to-day basis, while an MAU gives you a more long-term perspective on user engagement.
Overall, the number of monthly and daily active users reflects how engaged your audience is in your product, so analyzing them is crucial. You can measure these statistics using tools like Google Analytics or Mixpanel.
Look at the user retention rate
Measuring the retention rate will help you find out how many people return to your app after their first visit. This metric is especially useful if you want to analyze long-term user engagement. Here’s the formula for calculating the user retention percentage:
That’s not the only way to measure the retention rate, though. If you need more in-depth statistics, try using the cohort analysis method. First, divide your user base into different categories based on when they installed your app. Then, track how many people from each category return to your app and compare every group side by side. If one user category shows a better retention rate compared to others, try to find out why. Maybe you’ve recently launched a marketing campaign or introduced a new feature.
Use heatmaps
Heatmaps highlight the areas where your audience is the most active, assigning a specific color to each. If an area of your app’s UI is colored red, it means more users interact with it. Heatmaps can give you an idea about the most and least popular features of your product, so analyzing them is very useful.
Hotjar is one of the most popular heat mapping tools. Besides heatmaps, it also offers a lot of additional features, including session recordings, as well as built-in user surveys and interviews.
Collect user feedback
If you want to see how popular an app feature is, getting direct feedback from users is the best way to do it. Their impressions will help you identify bugs and usability issues, as well as pinpoint areas for future improvement. The best ways to gather user feedback include surveys, interviews, and app store reviews.
Challenges of increasing app engagement
Let’s talk about the issues that many companies face today when it comes to user engagement in their apps.
High market competition
It’s no secret that today’s app market is oversaturated, so it’s important to use all the tools at your disposal to attract the users’ attention. Efficient mobile marketing is now more important than ever, and that includes everything from app store optimization to running ad campaigns. Getting app users interested in your product means offering them a seamless user experience and employing a solid mobile app engagement strategy.
Long-term user retention
Retaining app users, in the long run, is another frequent challenge when it comes to mobile app engagement. To do that consistently, it won’t be enough to just run expensive marketing campaigns. You’ll need to offer app users some kind of long-term value: release updates with new features, refine the app’s performance, and focus on interactive functionality.
Popular platforms like Instagram use tons of interactive features to boost user retention, including stories, in-app messaging, live streams, and even built-in notes.
Not addressing user needs
Many companies chase profits instead of trying to provide value to customers. This tunnel vision often leads to a shrinking active user base as the needs of clients are left unfulfilled. So, if you want to increase app retention and boost user engagement, focus on addressing the key pain points of your audience first. For example, if you’ve released a music streaming app, prioritize features that improve the listening experience.
Ad fatigue
Ever downloaded a free app only to see dozens of ad banners on the first screen? Sure, app developers have to earn money somehow, but this is not the right way to do it.
Overusing ads or aggressively monetizing your app can make user retention a lot more challenging. It will harm user acquisition as well, as most people don’t tolerate intrusive advertisements. To retain more active users, think of other ways to earn revenue. It could be premium subscriptions, brand partnerships, or smart in-app purchases.
Best examples of apps boosting user engagement
Next, let’s look at some of the most popular mobile apps to see what makes them so engaging.
TikTok’s “For You” page
Today, TikTok has more than 1.5 billion active users worldwide. But how has the platform managed to keep such a huge audience engaged? The answer lies in TikTok’s “For You” page, a smart video feed that shows you the content that’s tailored to your tastes. The videos on this screen are new every time, ensuring that people never get bored. With this killer feature, TikTok manages to keep user engagement at a very high level.
TikTok is famous for its engaging video feed that dynamically adapts to your interests. Thanks to this feature, the app offers a personalized experience to each member of its massive audience.
Duolingo’s gamification features
The language learning app Duolingo works just like a mobile game, and that’s what makes it so engaging. The platform boosts user interaction through gamification features like simple quizzes, daily streaks, personalized push notifications, and competitive features like player leagues.
Duolingo relies on gamification to encourage users to spend more time in the app. For example, you can earn rewards for finishing each lesson and compete with other people on leaderboards.
Reddit’s social features
When it comes to social networking mobile apps, Reddit is considered one of the best, and the app engagement metrics support that. According to statistics, an average logged-in user spends at least 20 minutes on Reddit each day.
The main reason for the app’s high engagement rate is its diverse social features. These include upvotes/downvotes, customizable user profiles, and an interest-based in-app community system.
Reddit is a universal forum with lots of interactive features, including upvotes/downvotes, customizable avatars, and smart recommendations.
Twitch’s personalized user experience
The rise of live-streaming in the 2010s has forever changed the internet, and Twitch is the platform that popularized it all. To engage users, the app offers them lots of ways to customize their experience, such as live chats with custom emotes, multi-tiered subscriptions, user rewards, and exclusive content.
When it comes to live-streaming, Twitch is still the most prominent platform. The mobile app includes engaging features like chats, built-in donations, and premium subscriptions.
Final thoughts
Retaining an audience can be challenging, but app engagement strategies can help you do that. Engaged users are much more likely to invest their time and money in your product, so it’s important to continuously address their needs with regular updates. To boost user engagement, you can add gamification features such as achievements, run time-limited promotions, or introduce a customizable app interface.
If you have an idea for an app, we can help you make it a reality, from initial research to publishing in app stores. Fill in the form below, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.
