Acquiring new customers for a product or service is known as "user acquisition" (UA). An app's user acquisition strategy is what promotes its installation on a user's mobile device, and it often takes the form of advertising and discounts.
Importance of UA
Businesses often struggles to discover and keep new customers without a well-thought-out user acquisition plan. To avoid wasting money on ineffective advertising, user acquisition has become a data-driven science that analyzes historical performance to identify successful patterns and trends. Because of this, it's becoming both a challenging optimization problem and a crucial element of success to develop ways to increase app discovery while also persuading customers to install your software.
Types of User Acquisition campaigns
Owned media marketing - In order to attract customers, owned media strategies focus on promoting via already-owned channels. Emails, text messages, and rewarded user invitations are all forms of owned media assets. Some examples of user acquisition strategies that make use of owned media assets include email targeting to convert web users to app users and the addition of user invite banners in a game to promote sharing in exchange for in-game cash to incentivize players to ask their friends to play.
Paid Media Marketing- The goal of paid media promotion is to increase the number of app downloads by exposing prospective new user acquisitions to advertisements. Users may be acquired profitably via sponsored media by using an appropriate supply chain, focusing on the correct audience, and employing an appropriate collection of creative materials. To acquire users for a fee, you may employ advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, such as posts, banners, and videos. Choosing the appropriate ad network for recruiting app users for your objectives, budget, and goals is the first step in developing a sponsored user acquisition plan. Depending on your available resources, this strategy will allow you to see results much more quickly. You must monitor the two most crucial metrics after the campaigns have gone live: the total number of installations and the conversion rate. Cost-related parameters should also be monitored to ensure continued profitability. You may use all of these figures to fine-tune your advertising initiatives. In conclusion, an app campaign's creatives are the single most crucial aspect of its success. Video advertising often has the greatest conversion rates for mobile applications, particularly games. What's more, a video ad may do a better job than any still image showcasing an app's most salient features. As soon as you zero in on a winning idea, commit fully to it. To avoid losing your audience due to ad weariness, do something new.
ASO- App Store Optimization - This is a vital step that may significantly affect the long-term success of your games. It's the act of fine-tuning a product's listing in a digital storefront. Like with search engine optimization (SEO), the objective here is to increase visibility in the App Store's search results. Optimization for the App Store (ASO) is a continuous effort. Market analysis is the first step in ASO. The next step is to consider the search terms that people will use to find your app.
The Difficulties in Marketing Mobile Apps
It's not simple to design a user acquisition strategy that brings in enough revenue to justify the time and effort put into it. Here are a few of the major obstacles that user acquisition managers face nowadays.
Oversaturation of the Market- The app industry is vast and very competitive. Most of these programs/games are pretty similar to one another, and that's one of the main difficulties. Therefore, it's more challenging than ever to get seen.
The Evolving Mobile Environment - Rapid change characterizes the mobile industry. The app/game industry as a whole may undergo radical shifts in the course of a year. Additionally, standards for attracting new users change rapidly. Methods that were formerly considered optimal may become obsolete in as little as a few months.
Fatigue - The fact is that people are sick of always being bombarded with the same in advertisements.
Bottom line
Continuous data-driven optimization is crucial to user acquisition success. Constant experimentation and fine-tuning of campaigns throughout time are major factors. Not establishing an efficient user acquisition strategy can leave you uncertain, and eventually, lose money.
