If you want to be successful as a brand, getting enough attention from your audience is key. Many businesses are launching apps to get this eyeball time, but lots of them are also failing at keeping consumers engaged. Why? Because they are either not tracking their mobile app churn rate or aren’t trying to solve the issues that cause mobile app churn.

 

Churn rate

Churn rate, also known as the rate of attrition, is the percentage of users who stop using an app within a given period.

A churned user is a user who has stopped using an app. There are two kinds of actions a user takes related to churn: either lapsing in use (which means no more sessions being recorded) or uninstalling the app from the device itself. But essentially, churn rate is the number of users that leave your app in a given period of time.

 

Why churn rate matters

 

Churn rate tells you how many users leave and never come back to your game. In other words, it measures how many of them uninstalled your game. More precisely, churn rate is the percentage of users that quit playing a game over a certain time period. 

Companies are always going to have churn. Some users will not like an app or simply have no reason to return. By analyzing the rate of churn, app developers can figure out if changes need to be made, such as improving UX, optimizing feature requirements or adjusting prices.

If this reminds you of another important mobile game metric, you’re on the right track. Churn rate is the opposite of the retention rate.

 

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The churn vs. retention comparison

Some mobile marketers consider churn and retention to be two sides of the same coin, so the users who uninstall determines your churn rate, and the remaining users are the ones you retain. This makes sense if your users don’t need or use the app on a regular basis, for instance, a fashion marketplace specifically for sunglasses.

Others draw a clear distinction between the two. For instance, if you have an app that is used on almost a daily basis, you’d want to monitor return visits more closely than uninstalls. So that becomes your retention. Some examples of this would be social media apps, Spotify, Medium, etc.

For the sake of simplicity, I’ll be using “retention” for users who didn’t churn, and “return visits” or “engagement” for users who return to your app on a periodic basis.  Often, when we're tasked with reducing churn, we jump right into ideas. That approach of trying to solve the problem without fully understanding it is terribly inefficient. Rather than mindlessly throwing money at the problem and hoping that something works, take a step back and start with diagnosing its root cause.

 

What causes churn

Every lost user has a different reason for uninstalling your app: not enough device space, got frustrated with bugs or a confusing UI, or they just lost interest in your app.

Find out the main reasons leading your users to uninstall by asking for user feedback and using mobile analytics features like funnels and flows to understand how users navigate your app and where the friction points lie. Uninstall tracking is another must-have analytics tool that will help you understand why people delete your app — and even predict user churn.

 

 

Your mobile app doesn’t answer the user’s need

For a user to continue using your app, it must do what he expects out of it. So in the case of our e-scooter provider, if the user for example can’t easily locate the available e-scooters near him, he might stop using your app and services altogether.

 

Mobile users are impatient

According to research performed by Clutch in 2017, 33% of app users get highly frustrated when the onboarding – the process of setting up an app for the first time after downloading it – takes them longer than 2 minutes. And with this frustration, the chances of abandoning skyrocket. In other words: you have a 120 seconds window to onboard your mobile users or lose them.

Different generations have different expectations in terms of user experience

People of different age groups spend their time on mobile phones and in mobile apps differently. Reaching the number of 2.5 billion in 2019, Generation Z has now become the biggest demographic group. And while they may not have the most spending power (yet), it is imperative for brands to try and engage these users.

 

How to calculate churn rate

 

You can calculate churn a few different ways, depending on what you need to know.

In some cases, you may want to find your monthly rates to get a closer look at monthly growth and retention. Other times, you may want to calculate your annual rates to see how growth is evolving year over year.

Let’s look at a couple of monthly and annual calculations in action.

 

Decrease app churn

When it comes to keeping people engaged, you have to capture their attention and motivate them. That’s exactly what you can achieve with app gamification.

 

Optimize onboarding

If your onboarding process doesn’t immediately showcase your app’s core value, users will churn. Keep the onboarding process focused on benefits. Strip down complexity, limit the number of steps, and get users to experience your app’s aha moment as fast as possible.

 

Leverage push notifications

 

Send triggered push notifications to a user’s home screen to encourage repeat visits, engagement, and purchases. With a personalized approach, these notifications can reactivate users who are at risk of churning.

 

Personalize

 

With personalized interactions and relevant messaging, users feel like you’re actually speaking to them. You can’t take a one-size-fits all approach to engagement campaigns. Take advantage of behavioral data like search and purchase history, device type and location, and user preferences to customize interactions.

 

Consider deep linking

 

Mobile apps operate on URIs instead of URLs. That means deep links (or direct links) can take users right to a particular screen inside your app. These links can launch an app from exactly where a user left off, or take them to a specific product page. It’s a simple way to majorly enhance the user experience.

 

Take advantage of in-app messages

Use in-app messaging to welcome new users launching your app for the first time and help them discover new features. Or display a personalized promo when they view a particular product.