Scaling Your App To 1 M Users
Scaling Your App To 1 M Users
Scaling Your App To 1 M Users
Contents
Introduction ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 3
Conclusion �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������26
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 3
Introduction
App growth matters. It is the core of everything you do as an app marketer. All your
metrics, campaigns, and strategies center on building a large user base. But don’t worry
if you’ve just started and your number of users is on the smaller side. In this guide, we’ll
uncover expert methods on how to grow your app from 1,000 to 1 million users.
We’re going beyond user acquisition in Part 2 of our guide and diving into user retention,
launching internationally, and as a bonus—influencer marketing.
When growing your app, you’ll discover that a significant part of your scaling journey is
keeping your users satisfied and engaged with your app. We’ll walk you through how to
measure and improve user retention for maximum growth.
And when things are going well, it’s a great idea to launch your app internationally.
However, this needs to be well-planned. In this guide, we’ll cover the major steps you’ll
need to take before launching your app on a global scale.
Additionally, as promised, we’ll also take a long look at one of today’s hottest marketing
trends—influencer marketing—and how you can use it to further your app brand’s
awareness and credibility.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 4
1. User retention
Although user acquisition is key for scaling your app, retaining existing users is equally
important and often a more cost-effective strategy. At the very least, the two should
always be strategized hand-in-hand. User retention is a metric that refers to how many
users still use an app after install. It’s an important part of user lifetime value (LTV) and
can be used to project brand loyalty as well as referrals.
User retention allows marketers to understand how their app is performing over time.
This metric is particularly helpful in diagnosing any problems with an app’s onboarding
process and spotting churn and pain points. Therefore, monitoring your app’s
retention rate is critical to understanding how to keep your users. In the report, we’ll
walk through how to measure and boost your retention rates.
2. Internationalization
Launching your app internationally is an excellent way to bring more users to your app.
However, doing so requires careful planning and regional-specific considerations such
as language and culture. In the second section below, you can find top advice and tips to
help you ensure your app’s global launch is a success.
Bonus
Section 1:
User retention
High retention rates indicate that users are satisfied with an app.
Users who remain active in an app for longer periods of time are
more likely to provide higher engagement and more possibilities for
monetization. User retention is also an essential metric marketers
use to understand which channels are delivering the highest value
users. Using insights gleaned from user retention, marketers are
able to optimize their user experience to retain more users.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 6
Fintech
E-commerce
Educational
Entertainment
Games
Health
Lifestyle
Publications
Social
Travel
Utilities
Industry-wide
In general, aim to keep more than a third of your users on Day 1 (the day after install).
But note that the average retention rate depends on your app vertical and should be
determined by testing over time. For example, if you have a travel app, you may have users
that use your app only once or twice a year, which is fine.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 7
• End your onboarding with a CTA, prompt for push notifications, or other
ways to engage.
You can achieve personalization by using relevant user data to improve your app’s
experience. For instance, you can enhance the user experience by remembering users’
names and making relevant suggestions based on their previous behavior.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 8
Tip: It’s not advisable to double up on push notifications and in-app messaging.
g
Trackin
Allow
k
to Trac
p Not
Ask Ap
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 9
Deep linking plays a critical role in your user retention strategy as it offers users more
personalized ways to re-enter your app. Deep linking uses a link from a campaign to
bring users to a specific app page rather than an app store for a more streamlined user
experience.
Apps that implement deep links have been shown to double their user retention across
Day 1, Day 7, and Day 30. All app verticals can benefit from deep linking as they provide
a highly versatile approach to building a seamless user experience across marketing
channels.
20%
Indirect deep link
20% OFF
Add to cart
Fallback
For example, in an e-commerce app, you can notify/target users about offers on
products still in their cart, bringing them directly to checkout. Similarly, if you have an
educational app, you can prompt users to complete a course, linking them directly to
where they left off.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 10
Thomas Butta,
Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 11
Next, make sure to apply deep links relevant to your vertical and users. For example,
if you have a gaming app, providing deep links that bring users directly to events or
challenges rather than the home screen is likely to boost engagement.
Lastly, maximize your marketing channels with deep linking. Then watch as users easily
land in your app via email, website, or paid campaigns. Also, don’t underestimate email
as an effective channel to drive users to specific in-app content, as 46% of email opens
now occur on mobile. In summary, assess all your marketing channels for deep linking
opportunities.
If you’re looking for an MMP with deep-linking capabilities, note that Adjust’s LinkMe
feature allows you to send users to a specific landing page to drive conversions.
+
Deeplinking generated 45% more revenue and provided FLO a direct line
of sale in the dataset.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 12
Section 2:
Going international
Widen your app’s reach by increasing its visibility to new target segments in other
countries. Consider launching your app internationally. In addition to English,
focusing on other languages—most often Chinese, Japanese, German, French,
Italian, Russian, Portuguese, and Hindi—is critical for an app marketing strategy.
To launch internationally, you’ll first need to gauge the resources available to your
team to determine which languages you can support in the near future. A quick
early win is to get your app store descriptions translated for each market you wish
to pursue.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 13
India 4,791,296,159
Brazil 3,209,807,168
Indonesia 1,802,370,019
Russia 1,337,870,380
Mexico 1,123,004,519
Turkey 1,088,637,296
Vietnam 890,934,397
Thailand 659,071,473
China 3,482,995,207
Japan 516,614,612
Russua 363,598,228
France 245,939,355
Germany 221,266,898
Canada 199,144,203
Brazil 185,718,570
Korea 176,176,953
Q1 2022
Tip: Promote the iOS version of your application in the countries in which
Apple devices are more common, such as the United States, the U.K., Japan,
Germany, and France. Then, for more Android-focused countries like India,
Brazil, and Indonesia, you can focus on the Android version of your app.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 14
In most markets, simply translating your app won’t make it appealing to your target audience.
The next step is to localize your app’s content. Localization goes beyond translation to make
the content appear as though written for the local population. It involves analyzing relevant
keywords in each target market and identifying essential characteristics of each region, like
religious beliefs or dominant cultural features. Learning and implementing the country or
region’s user behavior, preferences, and choices will bring infinitely better results.
LOCALIZATION IN ACTION
Tamatem, a leading mobile games publisher in the MENA region, wanted to
launch “Fashion Queen” adapted from Nanobit’s “Hollywood story” and localize
it for an Arabic-speaking audience. Initially soft-launching in the GCC region,
Tamatem used statistics from Adjust to analyze the performance of the creatives
for different ad groups and optimized accordingly. They were then able to
increase the app’s Day 1 retention rate by 7% and LTV by 30%. Thanks to the
success of the campaigns, the app’s marketing budget has scaled five times since
its launch.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 15
2. Localization
• Translate mobile app text string, metadata, tips, push notifications, and
FAQs.
• Translate privacy policy and other user license agreement information.
3. Internationalization
• Hire local marketing and customer service support.
• Translate the company website and blogs.
• Create a localized social media strategy.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 16
2 LOCALIZE ASO
Gaining more organic users and boosting your visibility early on is vital for
succeeding in a new market. Therefore, make sure to localize your App Store
Optimization for each new market. Pay attention to fonts, colors, and symbols. Any
creatives or visuals should also feel like they have been specifically designed for the
individual market. Localization will enhance the value of your content for the target
audience and drive organic traffic.
3 SOFT LAUNCH
Poor app performance will lead to user churn and bad reviews, ruining your ability
to scale before you even get started. Your app needs to be functionally ready to
share with a larger audience before launch. Any app performance issues must be
addressed before scaling. A soft launch can help do this. As a limited release of your
app, a soft launch will allow you to get early customer feedback, positive reviews,
and a chance to take care of any lingering issues before launch. Running a soft
launch for your app is also an excellent way to test whether your app has potential in
the market.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 17
Bonus:
Influencer marketing
With 49% of consumers relying on influencer recommendations to make a purchase
decision, influencer marketing is proving to be a worthy investment. In fact, the industry
is projected to reach $16.4 billion in 2022. Influencer marketing can add great value to a
brand as influencers are more likely to be trusted than traditional advertising. Depending
on your app vertical, it can be a great way to drive traffic and increase users.
90 42
to be an effective sales are the most
% %
form of marketing important influencer
marketing metrics
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 18
Instagram
Instagram is generally the best performing platform for brands wanting to reach new
audiences quickly. It’s also the best channel for social action, with an average 3.2%
engagement rate compared to 1.5% across all social networks. Instagram users are more
likely to comment, like, and share the content they consume. It’s also beneficial to show an
influencer’s ads on your social media as they have great click-through rates and can often
outperform your creatives in terms of ROI. When measuring ROI, you should also consider
brand lift (ad recall, brand awareness, and consideration) in addition to conversions.
Twitch
Twitch is another popular option, where distinct communities are built around particular
streamers and personalities who interact and chat regularly. This heightened interaction
creates a sense of belonging on the platform. Twitch states that 80% of its users are
open to brands sponsoring Twitch streamers and esports teams, making it a powerful
influencer marketing platform.
Twitch’s live setting adds an increased sense of authenticity. Although larger streamers
may have influence over a bigger audience, smaller streamers can notably influence
their audience in much more direct ways. Viewers get regular attention and form more
intimate relationships than those influencers with larger channels and thousands of
viewers.
In addition, Twitch offers a bounty program that gives smaller channels the chance
to boost their profiles by being sponsored by potential partners. For example, brands
can post a bounty for streamers to play a certain game for a duration with a required
average concurrent viewer count and set a payout amount.
We’ve found that engagement rates tend to drop with larger influencers and that smaller
influencers see higher CTRs — around 100k subscribers is a healthy balance of both.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 19
TikTok
The short-form, video hosting platform TikTok is one of the hottest places right now for influencer
marketing. With over 1 billion monthly active users, almost 50% of TikTok users said they use the
platform to help them make purchase decisions. Unsurprisingly, the social media app has one of
the highest engagement rates, at 12.43% for nano-influencers and 13.7% for mega-influencers,
according to Statista.
Even with a smaller budget, you can partner with nano or micro-influencers, called content creators
on TikTok, and see significant return on ad spend (ROAS). But it’s essential to first identify your
brand’s niche and which audience to pursue. From there, you can select a content creator who is
already connected to your audience and create a campaign with them.
YouTube
The video-sharing platform YouTube has long been associated with influencer marketing
campaigns and remains a highly effective channel today. In fact, 26% of US social media
users say that YouTube is the most successful channel in getting them to try new products.
Example 2: Gymshark
Example 3: Headspace
Jidé Maduako,
CEO and Co-Founder
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 24
2 Include custom deep links or deferred deep links to gather conversion metrics to
see the impact of your influencer marketing on brand awareness.
3 Pay attention to brand name mentions. You can use Google Trends to see where
your mentions are coming from and whether they’re increasing or decreasing.
Tools like Brand24 allow you to get data on your mentions and engage with them
accordingly.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 25
Tip: Finding an influencer that’s a good fit for your product is more important
than choosing one based on their number of followers.
Micro-influencers (followings between 10,000 and 50,000) can often be more effective
because their niche attracts a more dedicated audience. Influencers with 1,000 followers
generated 85% higher engagement than influencers with a following of 100,000. Micro-
influencers are very likely to make product recommendations, with a study finding they
are 22.2 times more likely to engage in “buying conversations.“
In short, influencers with more followers are potentially less likely to push your app, with
engagements tending to decrease as followers go up. You can find influencers that are a
good fit for your product either through agencies or by searching through hashtags for
content relevant to your app. This allows you to pinpoint potential influencers that actively
post about your product’s vertical.
Scaling your app to 1 million users: The ultimate guide – Part 2 26
Conclusion
Scaling your app from 1,000 to 1,000,000 users takes time, an in-depth strategy, and
persistence. In both Part 1 and Part 2 of this guide, we’ve laid out several practices you can
follow to ensure your app is moving forward toward your goal of competitive growth. We
hope you now feel better equipped to grow your app’s user base.
Starting with ASO and UA and moving into retention and internationalization,
the sequence in which we’ve presented these strategies is a suggestive order for
implementation and can vary by app. Once you start utilizing them, you’ll create a
continuous cycle of user acquisition and retention strategies that should develop as you
grow. We say ‘continuous’ because you’ll always need to focus on user acquisition and
retention, as both should be part of your ongoing marketing strategy.
To stay on top of your marketing budget, it’s also essential to partner with a mobile
analytics platform to help you accurately measure mobile attribution. A mobile
measurement partner can provide important user acquisition and retention metrics
like app installs, in-app sessions, and monthly active users—to name a few. Don’t
spend all your time organizing your data. Streamline your data analyses and campaign
optimization with a mobile measurement partner—and Adjust's Datascape—to
exponentially grow your app.
ABOUT ADJUS T
adjust.com @adjustcom