Tips to reduce your app uninstall rate – words Alexa Wang
When you develop an app, one of the biggest obstacles you’re likely to face is the potential uninstall.
Developing a great app is about having staying power, especially if your monetization strategy is subscription-based. If you have a high rate of people uninstalling, obviously it’s not good in terms of making money.
Uninstalls are also bad for App Store Optimization. A lot of times when a business or entrepreneur develop an app, they focus so much on initial downloads that they don’t put as much attention on user retention and reducing uninstalls. Yes, downloads are important for App Store Optimization, but that’s not the only relevant metric.
App uninstalls are another big optimization metric. In fact, one Moz study indicated that active monthly users are one of the primary indicators of an app’s ranking.
You have to keep users involved, engaged and prevent them from taking the ultimate disengagement step with an uninstall.
So, what should you know to reduce your uninstall rate?
Dive Deep Into Analytics
Analytics are one of the most important things you can use to learn more about uninstalls to ultimately prevent them. You need to be able to see where you’re losing users. Where are they starting to become disengaged and then what’s the ultimate point where they uninstall?
There are a lot of different places you could be losing users. For example, maybe it’s your onboarding process or your perhaps your registration is too complex. Maybe it’s somewhere further down the road. Regardless, identifying that point or multiple points where you’re losing people is important, so you know where to make changes.
While it could be very different for your app, some of the most common reasons for uninstalls include the following:
- The loading time for your app may be too long to hold the interest of users
- Irrelevant notifications or too many notifications (notifications are important, but they need to be relevant to the individual user)
- A poor design either in one particular area or throughout, as well as poor user experience
- The app drains too many resources from the device it’s installed on
Be Proactive
Once you’ve identified the points where a user is most likely to become disengaged, you can start being proactive in how you re-engage. You want to focus on user engagement as an ongoing metric.
Basically, be proactive in ensuring that you stay at the top of the mind of your users. For example, use push notifications and emails in smart ways with the aim to keep yourself front and center to your users. If you’re wondering why push notifications are important for re-engaging users, the answer is simple: it’s one of the most direct ways to get their attention in a timely and consistent manner. Additionally, they provide a sense of urgency and ensure that users are aware of your product or service.
Continue measuring along the way. Look at how different methods of reaching users are working. For example, how are push notifications working versus emails, and so forth?
Multi-channel re-engagement is usually the best option to prevent uninstalls when you have a clearer idea of where it’s happening and when.
Provide Value to Keep Users Engaged and Active
You have to give a reason for people who have downloaded your app to want to continue using it and keep it on their device. It’s up to you to provide that value or compelling offer that keeps them coming back.
Two options are discounts and exclusive content, but you may have to experiment until you find what works best for your users.
Personalized incentives tend to work best in many cases. To put this into action, you’ll be segmenting your users and then working on unique strategies for each group you create.
Provide Excellent Support
If your users do run into a problem somewhere along the way, they need to be able to reach someone quickly and easily. It’s often best to make the option for them to reach support through the app itself, but offer multiple options to appeal to more people. For example, also provide easily accessible support services on your website and social media channels.
Another form of support can come from users talking with one another. Add a discussion forum to your app so that users can go there and talk to other people to find answers to questions.
Finally, be careful with how you introduce updates. A small update could cause users to drop off if they find that it’s clunky or challenging to deal with.
Rather than rolling out major updates all at once, it’s best to phase them in gradually. You should also be sparing with appearance-related updates because even though they may mean a minimal change to the actual functionality of the app, it can feel confusing to users.
Make sure you communicate with users along the way about any updates that are going to be made as well as scheduled downtimes to avoid the frustration that leads to uninstalls.
