Imagine putting all your time, money, and efforts into an app that just a bunch of people will download: in a digital world made of 5 billion available apps, this is not utopia, this could be a possible result, and that’s why User Acquisition is a crucial aspect for every app's success.
1. What is user acquisition
Among the many different definitions, one arrives directly at the key concept behind this definition:user acquisition is, in fact the strategy aimed at driving new users to an app.
This process, achieved through marketing and advertising campaigns, consists of a strategic display of advertisements with the ultimate goal of persuading people to install an app. Think about yourself scrolling Instagram, suddenly a banner comes up, and a few moments later, you are downloading the app: what brings you from Instagram to the app store is essentially user acquisition.
2. Why user acquisition is instrumental to your app's success
In this economic reality constantly characterised by fierce competition, user acquisition enables the companies not only to find new users but also to attract interested and engaged individuals who download and begin to use the app.
Contrary to traditional marketing campaigns aimed to attract the highest number of people, thanks to user acquisition strategy, a company is able to connect with users that bring higher profitability to an app: users with the highest chance to spend more money in-app, through in-store purchases, subscriptions, and deposits. In this way, you, as a client will not only have just a higher number of users, but what matters most is that you will increase the amount of high LifeTime Value customers, which are the ones that bring the highest amount of revenue to the business.
3. User acquisition: different strategies to achieve it
Several different strategies make user acquisition possible, and these include paid, which are externalised processes, or owned media marketing.
First one to mention is organic user acquisition, thanks to which the company can gain new customers without paying direct fees and spending money on aids. One example of it is surely the App Store Optimization, aimed to increase the visibility of an app in the app store to its best level through keywords, catchy descriptions, and effective images.
Switching to a more traditional user acquisition channel, Offline advertising carried through offline media like TV, newspaper or radio could be an essential way to support online efforts, increasing brand awareness and visibility to make the campaign more effective.
Crucial to mention are also Social Media as a medium for advertising, nowadays in fact the promotion through influencers enables you to quickly achieve the target market you want to include in your user database, also making the number of your social media followers grow exponentially.
Last but not least, the App Install campaign is surely one of the most lucrative ways to attract users and to boost acquisition for mobile apps, as it brings significant volumes of new users faster, ultimately helping the app's ranking in the stores.
4. Cost advantages related to user acquisition
To make what we mentioned before even more concrete, how is it possible to invest with the aim of increasing the volume of valuable users thanks to these campaigns? In terms of costs, this goal is achievable through CPI and CPA, which are basically two performance-based models where respectively the first one is focused to increase volume of the installs while the second one, definitely less risky for advertisers who pay only when revenues are generated, is aimed at finding higher quality and more involved users who effectively download the app.
To find out more about CPA and CPI related to Digital marketing, check this out https://mapendo.co/blog/cpi-vs-cpa-which-to-choose-and-why/
But after this brief introduction, how are CPA and CPI related to an increase in revenues?
The success of an app install campaign is also related to substantial cost benefits for the company: taking advantage of Cost per Action and Cost per Install performance models it is possible to counterbalance their specific costs thanks to revenues generated by new users, optimising this process till achieving Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Return on Investment (ROI) increases.
5. Creation of company value through user acquisition
In conclusion, user acquisition is a process that enables you to grow your customer base, providing you with higher lifetime value users thanks to a highly targeted marketing campaign. You will be rewarded not only by the number of customers increasing but also by an effective growth in revenues directly connected to your user acquisition strategy.
