App reinstalls - Why should you retarget the users who abandoned your app?

by App My Site DIY App Builder

An essential part in the lifecycle of an app is user acquisition. The significance of hard-boiled app marketing techniques to acquire new users is not lost upon anyone, anymore.

Every acquisition campaign is geared towards prospects.

Who are prospects?

Prospects are typically people who’ve never used the app being promoted in a campaign. The professionals trying to acquire prospects as app users select them based on certain qualifying attributes.

Note the phrase ‘never used the app’ here. Marketers are much more likely to target new users. This points to a general blindspot in the user acquisition strategies most marketers adopt.

The proclivity to target new users only leaves marketers blind to another segment of users - the people who uninstall their apps.

Why do people uninstall an app?

The general preference towards new users is not accidental. Marketers tend to assume that the users who installed their apps are lost to them.

Why? The overarching perception as to why users uninstall an app is that they don’t like the app.

This perception is not accurate. Users don’t just uninstall apps because they don’t like them. There are a myriad of reasons why users may uninstall an app that are not related to their ‘liking’ for it.

How many times do you uninstall an app when you’re short on space? Are there times when you download an app for a specific purpose and uninstall it later?

Users leaving an app doesn’t necessarily mean that the app is bad. Users have their own reasons and marketers must take them into account as well.

Here’s a statistic which should make marketers sit up and take notice. A recent report shows that over 42% downloads come from users who uninstalled the app previously. In other words, more than four out of ten app downloads are essentially reinstalls.

This number makes it impossible for marketers to ignore their previous app users. They are effectively the largest cohort marketers can target in a marketing campaign.

Why should marketers retarget previous app users?

The number mentioned in the previous section is alone powerful enough to make marketers target their previous app users. The following sections highlight some more real benefits of reaching out to previous users and growing the user base. The benefits mentioned here may not be comprehensive, but they’re certainly enough for marketers to make app reinstalls an important goal.

#1 - Familiarity with the app

Every app has a learning curve. Users take time to get used to an app, even something as simple as a shopping WooCommerce app.

The problem with a learning curve is that not all users get through it. Some users abandon an app before they familiarize themselves with it. This tends to reduce user retention and spoil many important app KPIs.

Targeting ex-users means reaching out to people who’ve already used the app. This means the learning curve is very small or effectively non-existent. These users don’t have to learn their way around an app.

Thus, the disadvantages of a learning curve go away during reinstall campaigns. The impact on app retention is not as hard. Ex-users are also more likely to perform desired actions inside the app compared to new users. This is because they’re familiar with the app and don’t need to be taken through the traditional marketing funnel.

Targeting reinstalls can thus have a very positive impact on various in-app metrics. This is a great benefit from a user acquisition standpoint and eases the burden on developers to improve retention rates.

#2 - Improvement is user research

Marketers have first-hand information of the ex-users in the form of email-IDs and phone numbers. If they happen to use the social login options during the user onboarding process, they can even view their social media profile.

Generally, app marketing is tedious because professionals have to depend on cohort analysis to evaluate their audience. The info of ex-users however is available to marketers at all times.

Another benefit of targeting ex-users is that marketers are able to create more accurate user personas. Ex-users were users at one point. They are the kind of people a campaign plans on reaching and converting.

Thus, reinstall campaigns help marketers target their audience better with real user data. The other obvious benefit is discovering the reasons behind the user abandoning the app. This is generally beneficial for improving the app.

#3 - Better marketing opportunities

The previous section explains how marketers have direct access to the contact information and social profile of their ex-users.

What difference does this information make? The first benefit of improved user research was discussed in the previous section. The other big advantage is direct marketing opportunities.

Marketers can use this information to directly target ex-users for reinstalls. Let’s say you convert your WordPress site to Android app using a DIY tool to make your own app. A bunch of users download your app and complete the log-in process. A month later some portion of the users leave the app.

You can directly reach the people leaving your app through their email ID. Marketers can roll out targeted email campaigns specifically targeting ex-users. Since these users have already used your app, there is no need to introduce the app again.

Other mechanisms such as remarketing available on various ad platforms help marketers reach their precious users. There are ample marketing opportunities available when it comes to app reinstalls.

Reinstall campaigns tend to have a better conversion rate because the audience knows the app well. Marketers don’t need to explain the features and benefits of the app. The audience in this case already knows the app.

The CTA only needs to hit upon the new changes to the app. These changes could be discounts on in-app purchases and subscription deals or the addition of some new feature.

In conclusion

Reinstalls are one of the major sources of mobile app downloads. Ignoring this segment of downloads is always likely to cost marketers in the end.

This piece provides an insight into app reinstalls and its role in a marketing campaign. There are key stats and reasons cited behind the need to focus of app reinstalls in a typical campaign. The reasons covered here are not exhaustive. Nonetheless, the reasons here are enough to make marketers turn their gaze towards reinstalls.