Written by
Benjamin Daniels
8 mins read
3 great examples of how gamification can boost your app re-engagement strategy
One of the biggest barriers to mobile app growth is user churn. Across the app market, Day 30 user retention sits around a meager 3.1%. Pressingly for many app publishers, that number represents wasted money spent on acquisition and lost revenue potential. So how does one tackle the problem? To be sure, you cannot face up to the task without a successful re-engagement strategy. That’s why we’ll be looking at some re-engagement tactics & some highly motivating gamification examples like personalization, levels, and points.
Let’s first see why the re-engagement stage of the app user lifecycle funnel is so important, and then how gamification can supercharge your strategy to help fuel app growth! In this article, we cover:
- Where re-engagement fits in the Mobile App Funnel
- How to approach the challenges ahead and get your users hooked
- 3 great re-engagement examples powered by gamification
- Gamification can be the solution for your app too
Where re-engagement fits in the Mobile App Funnel
So, you’ve acquired a user. Congratulations! But you might find that after spending money on acquiring them, (which in 2021 cost $1.22 on average per user), you are not seeing a return on investment. Despite activating your new users with an offer, many simply decide to stop using your app. Indeed, 92% of all new users churn within just 7 days! This is where re-engagement comes in to claw back both users and your cash.
Ultimately, re-engagement differs from user retention in that it allows a broader scope for action. The re-engagement stage has three primary purposes:
#1 Activation
Frequent users are great, but daily users are even better. Generally, the top 20% of customers will make up 80% of your revenue. That’s why you might want to re-engage and further activate some of your users with gamification examples like personalization and rewards to improve their Customer Lifetime Value. For example, a food retail app could track sign-ups and first orders, and follow up on dormant users by offering them a perfectly timed discount code or push notification.
#2 Upselling
Many app marketers use this stage to upsell and incentivize engagement from previous purchasers and cart abandoners. Certainly, these customers are going to be more receptive to re-engagement. In fact, according to a study by Adjust, users generated by a retargeting campaign bring in 37% more revenue events in the first month compared to newly acquired users!
#3 User retention
One of the clearest cases for re-engagement is bringing back lapsed users. Finding success here is rewarding, a 5% boost to retention can boost profits by as much as 95%!
But it’s important to understand that user churn doesn’t necessarily represent a failure on your behalf, nor does it mean that the user isn’t fit for your app. It’s just a natural part of the customer journey! That’s why re-engagement is an integral stage of the Mobile App Funnel, and it can be optimized with a tailored gamification strategy.
How to approach the challenges ahead and get your users hooked
Of course, getting those three elements of re-engagement right is challenging. A common failure is poor segmentation. Essentially meaning that you’re targeting the wrong audience, or not personalizing the experience enough. In the end, this can come from tracking the wrong user events or vanity metrics. On this front, every app marketeer needs to ask themselves, ‘what is the best sign of a valuable user?’
For example, you could track how often a user opens your app. That could tell you your most active users. But on that metric alone you’d be missing some crucial context. Who is better, ultimately, the daily user with a short session length, or the weekly user with a longer session? The answer depends on your app and the vertical you operate in.
To get your answer, and gain a better insight into your users, you need to interact with them and be constantly optimizing your interactions.
Here are 3 ways you can start re-engaging your users:
The power of email
Email is one of the most cost-effective re-engagement strategies because you don’t have to pay a middle man to send the message or ad. Currently, emails benefit from a respectable 21% open rate, with the finance industry seeing even higher at 23%. Of course, the challenge with emails is that you don’t want to become spam. Ultimately, that means giving your users something valuable in the email, such as a discount.
Use push notifications personalized to the individual user
With an average open rate of up to 18%, push notifications can be a very effective way to reach your dormant users. Even better, case studies show that personalized push notifications see a 54% conversion rate! For example, a fitness app for running like Nike Run Club can track when a user usually exercises. But if the user happens to be inactive during that time, then it could be the perfect time for a reminder to exercise.
Gamification that makes the user experience fun and satisfying
They say that the best defense is a good offense. Equally, the best re-engagement is good engagement! A gamified experience introduces game-like elements to make things more engaging and what is called intrinsically motivating. Intrinsic motivation means that the user is motivated by things like fun, personal growth, and a sense of purpose.
This is in contrast to external motivation, which encompasses things like hard results, prizes, and the need to win. To foster long-term engagement, behavioral science shows that you need both! On that note, gamification examples like challenges, points, and rewards are a fantastic way to make your app intrinsically motivating.
Just getting started with gamification? Catch up to speed on our What is Gamification page!
3 great re-engagement examples powered by gamification
Gamification can be your best friend in re-engagement, no matter the vertical you’re in! Let these examples across mobility, fintech, and fitness show you the way forward:
Ouibus boosts its revenue with a scratch ad re-engagement campaign
Sales can be great – but ideally, they should target users who weren’t intending to purchase anyway! That’s what makes sales and discounts a great technique for re-engagement, and French travel app Ouibus is proof that it works.
Ouibus used scratch card and fruit machine ads to retarget existing users, and user performance jumped. While the discount was the extrinsic motivational factor, gamification made the ad intrinsically motivating – and therefore successful! People like games, and it shows. At the end of the campaign, Ouibus saw a 27% boost in revenue!
Fintech app Revolut finds success with a coffee cashback campaign
Cashback is a powerful re-engagement technique, and Revolut used it to great effect. Over a period of 6 months, selected Revolut users were given 6 days to benefit from 50% cashback on purchases at the Notes Coffee chain in London. The results were amazing!
- A 590% uplift in the number of transactions per user vs Non-Perks users
- A 625% boost to incremental sales over the 6 month campaign period
- A 15% user retention rate, improving visit repetition, and winning back lost customers!
Not only did Revolut improve user retention with this campaign, but they also managed to activate users and upsell to them at the same time. Consider that a win-win-win!
Fitness app SWEAT leverages social media to bring back users
Essentially, part of re-engagement is reminding users of the value you can offer them. What better way is there for a fitness app, then, but to directly show off this value! To facilitate this, women’s workout app SWEAT integrated features that let users brag about their before-and-after exercise photos on social media, reminding their friends and families of the app’s benefits!
In effect, this helps existing users track their progress, an important gamification dynamic. But the knock-on effect of incentivizing this behavior hugely impacts lapsed users. Not only is this strategy free, (your users do the re-engagement work for you), social media can amplify your message faster than you can imagine. In fact, SWEAT’s CEO actually says this feature is the reason the app became successful!
Gamification can be the solution for your app too
Seeing users churn is frustrating. In the end, users quitting is a sign that an app doesn’t give them enough reason to stick around. That’s what makes re-engagement so crucial because it means a user churning isn’t the final chapter! It absolutely is possible to re-engage users, and more than that, it’s a necessity – case studies are clear that re-engaged users are more valuable for your business than newly acquired ones.
On top of that, gamification examples like rewards can double your efforts in re-engagement. Of course, developing a re-engagement strategy can be an intensive top-down exercise. But you needn’t make it hard on yourself.
Instead, StriveCloud runs workshops led by gamification experts that can start your journey. We start by looking at your goals & data to send you home with an initial gamification concept & a tailored roadmap to gradually implement it into your app!
With user acquisition costs on the rise, and competition harder than ever, there has never been a more important time to focus on your existing users and make the most of them. That’s why your app needs a re-engagement strategy you are happy with, and gamification can give your plan the power it needs to truly re-engage your users!
Wrap-up
Re-engagement differs from user retention in that it allows a broader scope for action. It has three primary purposes:
- Activation – The top 20% of customers will make up 80% of your revenue.
- Upselling – A retargeting campaign brings in 37% more revenue events in the first month compared to newly acquired users!
- User retention – A 5% boost to retention can boost profits by as much as 95%!
So how can you actually go about re-engaging your users?
- The power of email – Email is one of the most cost-effective re-engagement strategies because you don’t have to pay a middle man to send the message or ad. The challenge with emails is that you don’t want to become spam.
- Use personalized push notifications – Case studies show that personalized push notifications see a 54% conversion rate!
- Make the user experience sticky with gamification – They say that the best defense is a good offense. Equally, the best re-engagement is good engagement! There are plenty of gamification examples that make grunt work in apps more meaningful or just improve the overall experience.
How to use gamification to power up your re-engagement strategy? Let’s look at some successful gamification examples:
- French travel app Ouibus boosted revenue by 27%through a gamified re-engagement ad. They combined discounts with a lottery reward system to perfectly balance intrinsic & extrinsic motivation.
- Fintech app Revolut created a reward program for its users & actively pushed it to its userbase. Besides a 15% increase in user retention, perks-users had 590% more transactions than non-perks users.
- Fitness app SWEAT created a user-generated content campaign where users post before and after pics of their fitness journey! The CEO said this feature is the reason the app became successful! And best of all, it’s free!