Remerge Blog How to Launch an Effective User Retention Strategy: EA's Approach

At this year's Mobile Apps Unlocked session Remerge CEO Pan Katsukis was joined on stage by EA's Jennifer Nguyen to offer insights into the decision-making process involved when evaluating and setting up a retention strategy.Together they looked at the key considerations when initiating an app retargeting campaign, which audience segmentation strategy is optimal for your app, and how to get the most out of your in-house user data.Here's the accompanying discussion between Pan & Jennifer discussing the practical considerations and implications involved in EA's user retention strategy.How to Launch an Effective User Retention Strategy from RemergeWhen did you start thinking about user retention and what was the trigger?Retention has always been a key part of our strategy across EA's mobile business. We've all been experiencing this shift in the industry as a whole to investing more in re-engagement, whereas previously the main focus was on user acquisition. Long gone are the days where you can pay a one time CPI to acquire a user and assume they are going to remain loyal to your brand. I think about it from the perspective of being a consumer. According to emarketer, the average person has 40-70 apps on their smartphone and uses just 4-6 apps in a given day. Couple this saturation with the alarming stat (via Localytics) that if user doesn't return to your app within 7 days, there's a 60% chance they never will. I don't think that any company out there can afford to not think about user retention.What was EA's initial approach to increase user retention?I think we'd all agree the first step to improving retention is understanding your users. What I mean by that is knowing where your users are dropping off in your app. Analytics shows when and why this happens by giving us insights into user flow and behavior. The next step is leveraging marketing programs to enhance each individual user's experience with your app. For example, if I'm stuck on a level in your game, and you send me an item that helps me finally complete it, you just took my experience with your game to the next level and you likely prevented me from churning. Your retention-based marketing mix should include personalized push notifications, email, display and social re-engagement campaigns that all work together to foster relationships with users.What are some of the key challenges you've faced when setting up user retention programs?I would say the biggest and most universal pain point we've all run up against when it comes to retention campaigns boils down to one thing: tech. Tech to segment your users in a meaningful and actionable way; tech to syndicate your audiences to all of your marketing channels; tech to connect these channels to speak to one another. Then on top of all the that the average person has 4 devices adding cross-device marketing to our list of tech problems.How can companies segment users in an actionable and meaningful way? What's your experience with segmentation?In the slides you'll see a poor example of segmentation: targeting players who haven't opened your game in the last hour with the message 'we miss you'. Beside it is an example of segmenting users in a meaningful and actionable way: targeting players who didn't make it past the tutorial of your game to give them tips/tricks to advance.Segmentation should also be dynamic and what I mean by that is that it's done in real time and automated, whether you use app events and feed these through a tracking partner to create audiences for your programs, or you build and maintain custom audiences internally.How about your experience with deep links?You can't execute retention programs without them. Deep links are a must have, not a nice to have. Say you target me with a display ad with a special offer for an item I looked at in your app, when I click through, I should land nowhere else other than back at your cart page with the item I was interested in with said offer applied. Deep links are key to supporting high engagement and monetization user flows. To be able send off the coveted "right message, to the right user, at the right time" and then fumble at the last touchpoint by not linking the user back to the specific content personalized for them is a missed win.What were your main criteria when choosing an app retargeting provider?The number one criteria I look for in an app retargeting provider is thought leadership and innovation. At the end of the day, if everyone has the same capabilities, it's going to come down to who is the best provider that will help me propel my business forward. The mobile re-engagement industry is so new and ever-changing that we need the help of partners who are nimble and thought leaders in the space.How did you optimize after the first tests had run?We're always refining and reiterating our strategy. My recommendation would be to target users at all stages of the funnel for scale (from new users, to users who are at risk of churning, down to users who are repeat customers) and refine your messaging to push users down the funnel. This will give you a balance of quality and quantity.Do you have experience with native ads?Yes, native ads are an easy win. You have nothing to lose testing new ad formats. Native ads drive higher CTRs and CRs than standard IAB and you improve your chances of reaching the users you want to retarget.What advice would you give to an app developer thinking about rolling out a user retention strategy?First I would say, start some small tests to get buy in from other stakeholders and then to sum up some of the points I made today, data is your best friend when it comes to understanding your users, get sticky by messaging them in ways that will enhance their experience, keep fighting the good fight when it comes to tech (big wins can be your use case for expanding tech resources), and just keep refining and reiterating.Want to hear more about how we can improve your app's retention & performance? Get in touch at advertisers@remerge.io!And for more app retargeting insights: