What is slow banking? 5 tried & tested ways to make it work!

The concept of "slow banking" is represented by a piggy bank, symbolizing the focus on long-term savings and more complex financial products, as opposed to fast, transactional digital banking.

We hear that digital banking is the new normal, but not all of the services that banks traditionally provide can be done online. While fintech apps are great at fast peer-to-peer payments and quick investments, more complex and long-term products like pensions, insurance, or investments are not yet fully digital. We call this segment ‘slow banking’ - and there’s a revolution brewing. With well-known gamification examples like points systems and prizes, some businesses are creating the motivation needed to get users online.

According to experts, this is the next growth opportunity in finance!

In this article, we’ll discuss slow banking, the challenges in the sector, and 5 gamification examples that will help the slow banking revolution.

• What is slow banking?
• 3 challenges the sector must overcome
• 5 gamification examples that help slow banking
• 3 of the best gamification examples you need to see
• Recap

What is slow banking?

Today, digital banks are competing to be available for users at the instant they’re needed. Accounts are often free and fast to open and paying a friend is easier than ever. This is what we call ‘fast banking’ - quick cash, current accounts, and speedy transfers. To be sure, innovation in the fintech sector has perfected this, but there is yet a way to go in ‘slow money’. This segment is all about the long-term customer value. They care about sustainability and sell more complex products that last such as pensions and insurance.

This diagram clearly separates "fast money" (focused on speed and transactions) from "slow money" (emphasizing long-term value and customer relationships), providing a visual anchor for the article's core concept.

But the sector isn’t fully digital yet. The reason is that many consumers are not comfortable completing the customer journey online. Instead, they do what is called ROPO, meaning ‘research online, purchase offline’. So while digital has a huge impact on purchase intention, studies find that 55% of customers still won’t purchase insurance online. The story in pensions is similar. Research finds that while 62% of Gen Z would use a pensions app, 38% of workers have never viewed their pensions online.

The chart illustrates consumer behavior in slow banking, showing a significant percentage of users who will not purchase insurance online, which underlines the challenge of full digitalization.

Cognizant - "Getting slow money right will make customers more loyal, less price sensitive and more inclined to do business with [you]."

This is where fintech must step in! Cognizant, a consulting firm, found that digitalizing slow money could boost revenue by 14.2%. But to get that prize, there are challenges that banks and fintech must overcome.

3 challenges the sector must overcome

Organizations in slow banking need to tackle the problems in the sector if they want to secure their position. For one, financial institutions need to know that slow-money products often require their customers to do a lot of research, make complex decisions, and have financial literacy. These barriers make up the 3 big challenges for slow money:

#1 Customer retention is a struggle

Across banking in general, Day 30 app user retention hovers around 11.5%. In other words, 9 in 10 customers won’t use your app for longer than a month! A huge factor that drives churn is a poor user experience -basically, an app that isn’t valuable, fun, or satisfying. Indeed, research shows that 40% of customers will leave their current provider if they can find a better digital experience somewhere else.

#2 Financial literacy is low and hard to build

In a paper from the OECD, they found that just 53% of people have ‘basic financial skills’. Among those statistics, young people regularly scored lower than their older counterparts. Given that young people make up the majority of new and existing fintech customers, and prefer digital channels, this is a problem. As such, banks selling complex products must learn how to inform their young consumers - meaning they must improve user retention. To be sure, education is not gained overnight!

#3 More integration across platforms is needed to create a multi-channel approach

Especially in slow money, people feel more secure in purchasing a product when there is a personal touch. This could be because people have questions about their particular situation, or just need a representative to trust and to have as a point of contact. Often, these concerns lead customers to ‘research online, purchase offline’ as mentioned earlier. Because of this, all different channels need to be integrated to create a seamless customer journey. Make no mistake about it, integration is overwhelmingly important for all consumers in banking - and even more so for younger customers.

This graph emphasizes how important a positive and integrated user experience is for customer satisfaction and retention, particularly in the context of slow money products.

5 gamification examples that promote slow banking

Gamification is a tool that can work magic for finance, and this is just as much the case for slow money as any other segment. Slow money organizations often strive to help users with financial education and engage in social responsibility initiatives such as sustainability and the environment - and here is where gamification aligns so well.

By using game-like elements in a non-game context, gamified apps incentivize desired user behavior and enhance customer motivation. Indeed, this is the approach endorsed by Belgian fintech expert Bjorn Cumps.

Are you still learning the basics of gamification? Get all the info you need right here!

So for those who want to get the slow money right, these 5 gamification examples will work wonders:

1. Badge reward system

A badge system works on multiple levels and results in a range of positive effects:

• Gives users instant feedback.
• Provides tasks with meaning.
• The rush of receiving a badge will push users to achieve the next one!
• Seeing locked badges motivates users to unlock them - this is called ‘constraint’. Nobody likes to see greyed-out features!

Studies show that achievements improve customer motivation.

2. Loyalty program

Loyalty programs reward users for their continued engagement and customers appreciate them. After all, why should they stick with you for the long haul, if they are treated just like a new customer? Taking care of your most loyal users can result in great rewards, for example, Revolut’s loyalty program boosted incremental sales by 625%!

3. Personalized and contextual notifications

Personalized notifications are powerful when done right - research shows they can boost push notification conversion rate by 40%. The essence of personalized and contextual notifications is giving customers messages that are tailored to them and at the most relevant time. A big challenge here is to understand the customer and their buying behavior. When do customers need a certain product, and when’s best to offer it?

4. Progress bars

Progress bars are perfect in slow money. Consider that you want to incentivize your users to achieve a long-term saving or investment goals. A bar that tracks their progress is what you need to have! It provides instant feedback and fulfills the need for growth.

Gamify your app with your business goals in mind! Speak to our experts and see how gamification can help you.

5. Points systems

Points systems are rewarding and also give your tasks a competitive edge. Users will feel that they have achieved something when their points increase, and especially when they can compare them against the points of others. Indeed, a points system is a simple yet powerful way to develop actionable data that you can leverage.

3 of the best gamification examples you need to see

These 3 apps are some of the best gamification examples in slow money. See how they work and the incredible results they achieved!

Australia Commonwealth Bank and the mini-game that banked 600 loans

How do you educate users on property investment and make it fun? With gamification, of course! The Australian Commonwealth Bank developed a game called Investorville, a property investment simulator. Users chose profiles and simulated investing in housing markets across the country, without risking any of their own money. In doing so, the app lets users ‘try before they buy’ and have fun doing it! As a result of tapping into a customer motivation that kept users playing, the bank financed 600 loans in just 1 year.

The "Investorville" simulator from Commonwealth Bank shows how a gamified application can educate users about complex financial topics like property investment, leading to increased engagement and real business outcomes.

Banx incentivizes users to be sustainable with points systems and rewards

Banx is a collaboration between the Belgian bank Belfius and leading digital company Proximus, and aims to give users a ‘personal CO2 dashboard in their pocket’. In short, Banx embodies the sustainable side of slow money. In the app, progress bars keep users informed on their emissions, and users are rewarded with points for sustainable actions, which can then be exchanged for discounts at Banx’s ecological partners. As a result, the app has been found to reduce users' carbon footprint by as much as 50%!

The Banx app's CO2 dashboard illustrates the effective use of progress bars and rewards to motivate users towards sustainable behaviors, directly connecting financial activities with environmental impact.

Mint is a personal finance app that empowers users

Mint has a clear and integrated gamification strategy, including features from in-depth performance graphs, goal-setting, and a clever AI that personalizes the user experience. This involves smarter search functions and proactive notifications that encourage users to save money. These gamification examples empower the user and studies confirm it! Research shows that the gamification in Mint fulfilled user needs for competence and autonomy, and in turn facilitated long-lasting and satisfying customer motivation.

Mint's user interface demonstrates how features like goal-setting and detailed performance graphs create a motivating and empowering experience for users managing their personal finances.

Easily incentivize & keep users motivated to use your product? Discover our app gamification platform!

Recap

Not everything in banking is yet digital and according to experts, there is still an opportunity for growth! The missing piece to make finance truly digital is optimizing ‘slow banking’, meaning long-term and complex products like insurance or pensions.

Using gamification examples like points systems and prizes, some banks and fintech are creating the customer motivation needed. In this article, we’ll touch on how to do it:

What is slow banking?

So far, digital growth has been concentrated in fast money products like peer-to-peer payments and current accounts. But there is yet a way to go in ‘slow money’ services like pensions, savings accounts, and insurance. These are more complex, long-term, and resource-intensive products that require closer personal investment.

A lot of slow money products follow a ROPO customer journey, meaning ‘research online, purchase offline’. Indeed, studies find that 55% of customers still won’t purchase insurance online. The top reasons for offline purchases include tailored services and that they are more trustworthy. But there is an opportunity in digitalizing:

Cognizant - "Getting slow money right will make consumers more loyal, less price sensitive and more inclined to do business with [you]."

Cognizant, a consulting firm, found that digitalizing slow money could boost revenue by 14.2%. But to get that prize, there are challenges that banks and fintech must overcome.

3 challenges the sector must overcome

Customer retention is a struggle

Across banking in general, Day 30 app user retention hovers around 11.5%. A huge factor that drives churn is a poor user experience. Indeed, research shows that 40% of customers will leave their current provider if they can find a better digital experience.

Financial literacy is low and hard to build

In a paper from the OECD, they found that just 53% of people achieved ‘basic financial skills’. Moreover, young people regularly scored lower than their older counterparts. Given that young people make up the majority of new and existing fintech users, as well as mobile app users, this is a problem that must be tackled to digitalize successfully.

More integration across platforms is needed to create a multi-channel approach

Especially in slow money, people feel more secure in purchasing a product when there is a personal touch. This leads customers to ‘research online, purchase offline’ and as such requires your different channels to be integrated to create a seamless customer journey. Integration is overwhelmingly important for all consumers in banking - even more so for young customers.

5 gamification examples that help slow banking

Many slow money businesses teach users financial literacy and care about sustainability, and gamification can help this. By using game-like elements in a non-game context, gamified apps incentivize desired user behavior and enhance customer motivation. Indeed, this is the approach endorsed by Belgian fintech expert Bjorn Cumps.

So for those who want to get slow money right, these 5 gamification examples work wonders:

1. Badge reward system. In short, badges give users instant feedback and provide tasks with meaning. In addition, receiving a badge will create customer motivation to unlock the next one, and seeing greyed-out features will motivate users even more.
2. Loyalty program. Taking care of your most loyal users can result in great rewards, for example, Revolut’s loyalty program boosted incremental sales by 625%!
3. Personalized & contextual notifications - what the user needs and when they need it. Research shows that these AI-powered notifications can boost the conversion rate by 40%.
4. Progress bars. Incentivize your users to achieve a long-term saving or investment goals with a bar that provides instant feedback and fulfills the user's need for growth.
5. Points systems. Points systems are rewarding and also give your tasks a competitive edge. Users will feel that they have achieved something when their points increase, and especially when they can compare them against the points of others.

3 of the best gamification examples you need to see

Australia Commonwealth Bank and the mini-game that banked 600 loans

The Australian Commonwealth Bank developed a game called Investorville, a property investment simulator. In the game, users chose investor profiles and simulated investing in housing markets across the country, without risking any of their own money. As a result, the bank financed 600 loans in just 1 year!

Banx incentivizes users to be sustainable with points systems and rewards

Banx gives users a ‘personal CO2 dashboard in their pocket’. In the app, progress bars keep users informed on their emissions, and users are rewarded with points for sustainable actions, which can be exchanged for discounts at Banx’s ecological partners. As a result, the app has been found to reduce users' carbon footprint by as much as 50%!

Mint is a personal finance app that empowers users

Mint has a clear and integrated gamification strategy, including features from in-depth performance graphs, goal-setting, and a clever AI that personalizes the user experience. This involves smarter search functions and proactive notifications that encourage users to save money. These gamification examples empower the user and studies confirm it!

Get inspired with an expert-led gamification workshop tailored to your app & business goals!

How to innovate in finance, future trends & challenges according to Bjorn Cumps

In this interview, finance expert Bjorn Cumps discusses the evolving landscape of fintech, highlighting customer experience as a key driver of innovation.

What is the most important trend in fintech today? If you ask Bjorn Cumps, professor of financial services innovation at Vlerick Business School and board member of Fintech Belgium, the answer is customer experience optimization! In short, the way people interact with their banks has completely changed. We interviewed Bjorn and asked him about the future changes, trends and challenges faced by the financial industry, and his favorite gamification examples!

Here’s what we talked about:

• Who is Bjorn Cumps (And why you should listen to him!)
• What are the trends in finance today?
• The biggest challenges faced by the finance industry
• Two sides of the gamification coin - pros and cons
• Recap

Who is Bjorn Cumps? (And why you should listen to him!)

Bjorn Cumps is a professor of management practice in financial services innovation & fintech at Vlerick Business School, and a board member of Fintech Belgium. His passion for technology turned into a fascination for fintech and how it brings traditional banks, tech companies & startups together.

At Vlerick Bjorn leads the fintech Bootcamp for Masters and MBA students on topics like fintech, platform business development, gaming, and esports. As an expert in Entreprise Architecture & Platform Ecosystem Management, Bjorn is also closely involved in research for businesses. Finally, he’s the driving force behind Vlerick’s gaming & esports Alumni Club.

We got the honor of interviewing him! Here’s what we talked about:

What are the trends in finance today?

When asked about the trends in fintech, Bjorn replies: “Technology-wise it’s probably the same as any other industry. Major developments in blockchain, AI & machine learning will change the outset for our industry. Finally, the intersection between technology and sustainability has gained lots of momentum in the last year.”

Everything starts with a great customer experience. Mainly, how can we make it more convenient for the customer?

In 2010 a surprisingly low 8% of British adults used mobile banking. Ten years later, however, that number shot up to 80%! This growth is affecting all sectors of fintech, but none more than banking.

Bjorn Cumps - "Mobile [in finance] started around 2011. But it was mostly relegated to early adopters, and uptake was slow. It has now really increased - many banks are now reporting numbers that almost half of their customer loans are being sold online."

The whole goal of fintech is to make financial services more convenient for the customers. The rising adoption of mobile banking is a great illustration of the growing trust in its capabilities and safety.

Delivering a good customer experience means putting the customer at the front of your design. For starters, your app needs a user-friendly interface. Secondly, your communications should be relevant, and ultimately you need to save the user time!

Time efficiency is one of the biggest motivators for using online banking over visiting the local branch. At the moment, the companies that understand this best are the new fintech entrants.

This graphic illustrates the emergence of the "Banking 4.X" model, prioritizing digital experiences and customer-centricity in the post-COVID era.

After Covid-19, a transformational shift emerged within the banking industry, known as Banking 4. X. From now on banks prioritize digital experiences and look for ways to implement these within the customer lifestyle in a seamless way. To achieve this, a business model where sustainable growth, efficient platform banks and customer-centricity come together is necessary.

But how are banks planning to deliver customer-centricity? According to Bjorn, the following two trends are the biggest way to it:

#1 Contextual banking brings users closer to your product.

Again, contextual banking is about customer experience optimization, as it makes things easier for the user. It requires a whole different approach as you try to tailor the experience to your customer's context, instead of your sales team.

Bjorn Cumps - "Contextual banking means going from a product-driven organization, built to sell financial products to customers, towards providing good solutions at the moment when the customer needs it."

With contextual banking, customers get offers tailored to them, at the most relevant time. A big challenge here is to understand the customer and their buying behavior. When do customers need a certain product? And what is the best time to make that offer?

Bjorn Cumps - "You never get up in the morning and say, ‘yeah, I really want to buy a mortgage from a bank.’ You need it...but the more convenient and contextual you make it, the better it will be."

Bjorn notes that while this trend has gained momentum, the technology is not quite there yet. Ultimately, it is dependent on the improvements in artificial intelligence. But it will get there, and sooner than you think, too. As you read this, banks analyze enormous sets of customer data and then perform tests to check their customers’ reactions. Without a doubt, AI is coming, and it will change the outset of the industry.

#2 Moving beyond banking & financial services

According to Bjorn, this is another big trend happening in finance today. Traditional banks and fintech alike are starting to offer cross-industry services like mobility, healthcare or even energy to improve the customer experience. Partnerships are especially popular in green energy, which can help establish brand trust with the eco-conscious millennial generation.

Bjorn Cumps - "Banking and insurance platforms are trying to turn into a broader service for their clients...they do that by linking with fintech."

Finance is not a fun thing to do. But you need it for buying a house, traveling, and virtually anything. By combining all services in one platform, you make the customer's life easier. For instance, you could integrate all services for buying a house like a notary, real estate, and loans into one user-friendly platform.

The biggest challenges faced by the finance industry

Keeping up with customer expectations

One of the biggest challenges in banking will be to keep fulfilling customer expectations. Just like any industry, customer expectations are rising. They expect their online banking experience to be as seamless as a native technology company like Facebook or Amazon.

To compete, banks need to make the customer experience both convenient and relevant. This is needed because people generally don’t think of banking as a fun or motivating activity.

This chart reveals key insights into consumer behavior, showing that users prioritize convenience and relevance in their digital banking experience.

Looking for something extra to keep your users engaged? Check out our app gamification software!

Building an integrated, omnichannel experience

Customers expect the same level of service, regardless of the platform. In fact, research shows that integrated strategies are the most effective! Whether they are using the app, website or visiting the branch, users want their experience to be fluent and personal.

In other words, the easier you make the process, the more likely customers will choose you.

Maintaining trust with customers

Bjorn says that “traditional finance players are still our most trusted advisors, even today - even after the financial crisis”. While fintech is rising in popularity, most people use it in addition to their traditional bank. But he predicts it won’t be that way for long.

Bjorn Cumps - "Trust and interaction is changing. Many of us who want to be served digitally are trusting online channels more and more. It also shows in the frequency and type of purchases we’re making"

Ultimately, customers are seeing the benefits of digital and so adoption is gaining pace. Currently, the only advantage traditional banks have over fintech is trust, but McKinsey & Company thinks the gap will close in the near future. So how do you create trust and improve the customer experience in the process?

This graph shows the shift in consumer behavior towards digital fintech solutions, indicating that trust in these platforms is steadily growing.

Really, according to Bjorn, trust is “earned gradually...but it gets faster as the word spreads”. There’s no magic formula to it! You build customer trust over time by showing you have their interests at heart. This can happen by providing excellent customer service - even if it means slowing down your service where appropriate.

Bjorn Cumps - "Of course, buying a mortgage shouldn’t be the same as ordering something on Amazon...that’s dangerous. The service could be processed in a second, we know that. But studies show that customers have more trust when the process lasts longer, even if it’s not needed."

As you’ll learn from successful fintech gamification examples, the role of gamification is not to build a game. Its purpose is to make the current action, in this case, banking more intuitive, interesting and fun!

Two sides of the gamification coin - Pros & Cons

One technique fintech apps have brought to banking is gamification. In short, gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. Often used gamification examples include badge reward systems, loyalty programs, and prizes.

You can see this in fintech apps like Revolut, Cake, or in traditional banking apps like BBVA. Across the board, gamification has boosted app engagement and retention. However, Bjorn points out that to achieve success, you must have the right gamification strategy.

New to gamification? Get started on our what is gamification page!

How NOT to do gamification

Bjorn Cumps - "Some major banks try and introduce one gamification element such as a progress bar, but alone it is not so effective. Customers are not stupid, they immediately see through it when gamification is just cosmetic."

For gamification to work its magic, Bjorn says you must have a “global approach”. In other words, you need a clear and consistent strategy! Don’t use gamification as last-minute set dressing, instead map out how to gamify your app from the outset, and then you can really harness its benefits.

Need a gamification strategy that works for you? Book a custom workshop & go home with an actionable gamification roadmap!

Take the French fintech app Shine, for example. With a well-produced gamification strategy, they boosted onboarding retention to 80%. But without a well-defined strategy, you risk not just inefficiency, but irresponsibility.

Bjorn Cumps - "There’s very beneficial aspects to gamification, but sometimes it is so fun and easy, and the interface is so intuitive, that it can backfire and take the serious part out of managing money or investing."

Take the example of Robin Hood, the stocks trading app. While their mission was to ‘democratize’ investing, the company was pressured to remove a digital confetti feature after it was found to be too addictive. Bjorn quotes one of the most influential people in fintech, Chris Skinner, on how easy it is to make ill-advised financial decisions when “banking is just seen as a game”.

To avoid this outcome, and boost your app in a responsible and cohesive way, you need the right gamification strategy, tailored to your app. Straight-up copying from other gamification examples won’t work.

How to do gamification the right way!

Bjorn Cumps - "A good way to use gamification is to incentivize desired behavior."

Here, Bjorn gives the example of a Spanish bank. The banking app uses well-known gamification examples like leaderboards and points systems to educate users on financial products and literacy. The leaderboard ranks users who watched the most educational videos and rewards them with redeemable points. Those at the top could exchange their points for rewards, such as discounts on movie tickets. This is a win-win situation for everybody!

Next to improving financial education, Bjorn says that gamification can be extremely powerful when it comes to motivating more sustainable living. He gives the recent example of the Belgian telecom giant Proximus, who launched the eco-conscious digital banking app Banx (done in partnership with Belfius and the B2B fintech company Doconomy).

This venture is based on the idea and success of Alipay in China, which incentivized users to be more CO2 friendly by giving points to reward sustainable habits like using public transportation, or buying bio-friendly products. All in all, experts predict that the program will plant over 600 million trees!

This screenshot shows a CO2 dashboard from a banking app, an excellent example of gamification used to incentivize sustainable behavior by tracking and rewarding eco-friendly choices.

To sum up, Bjorn shares his advice for developing a gamification strategy for a financial app that truly works:

“Have a very clear goal, incentivize ideal user behavior, and make the process fun and engaging. Gamification should be used to take away the barriers that limit a user from fully engaging.”

Recap

Who is Bjorn Cumps & why you should listen to him

Bjorn Cumps is a professor of management practice in financial services innovation & fintech at Vlerick Business School, and a board member of Fintech Belgium. His passion for technology turned into a fascination for fintech and how it brings traditional banks, tech companies & startups together.

The biggest trends in finance

#1 Contextual banking

Again, contextual banking is about customer experience optimization, as it makes things easier for the user. It requires a whole different approach as you try to tailor the experience to your customer's context, instead of your sales team.

Bjorn Cumps - "Contextual banking means going from a product-driven organization, built to sell financial products to customers, towards providing good solutions at the moment when the customer needs it."

With contextual banking, customers get offers tailored to them, at the most relevant time. A big challenge here is to understand the customer and their buying behavior. When do customers need a certain product? And what is the best time to make that offer?

#2 Moving beyond financial services

According to Bjorn, this is another big trend happening in finance today. Traditional banks and fintech alike are starting to offer cross-industry services like mobility, healthcare or even energy to improve the customer experience. Partnerships are especially popular in green energy, which can help establish brand trust with the eco-conscious millennial generation.

The biggest challenges faced by the finance industry

Keeping up with customer expectations

One of the biggest challenges in banking will be to keep fulfilling customer expectations. Just like any industry, customer expectations are rising. They expect their online banking experience to be as seamless as a native technology company like Facebook or Amazon.

Building an integrated, omnichannel experience

Customers expect the same level of service, regardless of the platform. In fact, research shows that integrated strategies are the most effective! Whether they are using the app, website or visiting the branch, users want their experience to be fluent and personal.

Maintaining trust with customers

Bjorn says that “traditional finance players are still our most trusted advisors, even today - even after the financial crisis”. While fintech is rising in popularity, most people use it in addition to their traditional bank. But he predicts it won’t be that way for long.

Bjorn Cumps - "Trust and interaction is changing. Many of us who want to be served digitally are trusting online channels more and more. It also shows in the frequency and type of purchases we’re making."

Two sides of the gamification coin - Pros & Cons

How NOT to do gamification

Bjorn Cumps - "Some major banks try and introduce one gamification element such as a progress bar, but alone it is not so effective. Customers are not stupid, they immediately see through it when gamification is just cosmetic."

For gamification to work its magic, Bjorn says you must have a “global approach”. In other words, you need a clear and consistent strategy! Don’t use gamification as last-minute set dressing, instead map out how to gamify your app from the outset, and then you can really harness its benefits.

How to do gamification the right way

Bjorn Cumps - "A good way to use gamification is to incentivize desired behavior."

Bjorn uses the example of a Spanish bank. The app uses well-known gamification examples like leaderboards and points systems to educate users on financial products and literacy. The leaderboard ranks users who watched the most educational videos and rewards them with redeemable points. Those at the top could exchange their points for rewards, such as discounts on movie tickets. This is a win-win situation for everybody!

Looking to build a gamification strategy that works for your app? Book a value-packed workshop & go home with an actionable roadmap, tailored to your app!

How gamification makes user onboarding better (+11 successful gamification onboarding examples)

Is there a more crucial stage in your customer journey than onboarding? Without a doubt, bad onboarding design can doom your app’s future. Depending on the sector, as many as 83% of those who download a mobile app will have uninstalled it within 24 hours. But it doesn’t have to be that way! By using gamification onboarding examples like progress bars and personalization, you can make onboarding fun and exciting for users. As will become clear below, this is the key to unlocking user retention.

This article will explore the challenges in user onboarding and provide numerous gamification examples to help improve user retention from day one.

• The challenge: How to prevent onboarding churn
• How apps are doing it wrong
• What is gamification?
• What is gamified onboarding?
• Why does gamification for onboarding work?
• 3 key benefits of onboarding gamification
• The gamification mechanics used to improve onboarding
• 11 gamification ideas for onboarding
• Gamify your user onboarding with StriveCloud!
• FAQs

The challenge: How to prevent onboarding churn

By far, the biggest drop-off in users takes place in the first 24 hours after installation. Although, it is important to note that this churn doesn’t affect all apps equally. Indeed, the best apps on the market retain the most users upon onboarding.

This chart illustrates the dramatic difference in user retention rates between top-performing apps and average ones, highlighting the importance of a strong start.

So what do the top apps do right? To begin, an onboarding process should introduce your app to new users. Most importantly, that means introducing your value proposition, and doing it as soon as possible! To retain customers at this early stage, you must remind users why they downloaded your app and why keeping it will benefit them, and above all, do it as streamlined as possible.

How apps are doing it wrong

Many companies fail in their user acquisition strategies for mobile apps during the onboarding process already. In fact, 25% of users abandon an app after using it once! So how can you prevent this?

The worst thing you can do is make your onboarding a slog. This could be caused by an unintuitive interface, like having a lack of autofill options to speed things up.

So keep questions to a minimum and make inputting answers simple. Longer onboardings frustrate users and make them more likely to churn. In fact, retention rates can increase by up to 50% with effective onboarding.

Of course, onboarding too quickly has its problems as well. Without any data about your new user, you have no chance of personalizing the application to their preferences. For example, the meditation app, Headspace, has a short and sweet onboarding process. The app asks new users about their experience level in meditation. This is important to know so that when users do make it to the home screen, the first things they see are relevant to them.

Striking the right balance between too much and too little is difficult. It's clear how highly onboarding affects your customer retention strategies, so it's important to find the right balance. Thankfully, the onboarding gamification examples we’ll explore in this article can help you achieve the right onboarding plan for your app!

Slash churn with gamified onboarding

Indeed, some sectors have no choice regarding their onboarding length. Just to name a few, banking, dating, and mobility apps commonly have necessary onboarding checks they must carry out, such as age verification or proof of a driver’s license. But most apps have generally three onboarding goals and objectives:

1. Ask the user to accept the terms and conditions. Crucially, this shouldn’t feel like you are signing your privacy away! Recent studies show that privacy protection is the biggest security concern for consumers today. As a company, ensuring transparency and trust should be one of your main goals, as it builds a strong relationship with our users.
2. Include demographic questions, like asking for name, gender, and age. To be sure, it improves your marketing if you know who’s using your app. Understanding our user demographics allows you to tailor our services and marketing efforts to better meet customer needs.
3. Perform security checks. Passwords and authentication methods like SMS verification ensure users feel safe on your app. Implementing robust security measures is crucial for protecting your information and ensuring a secure user experience.

If you want to reduce your mobile app churn rate, though, you have to make this process fun and personable, rather than a chore.

What is gamification?

Gamification uses game-like elements to motivate users in non-game contexts. Features like points and levels tap into our common human psychology to unlock a powerful sense of motivation. In turn, this makes the app experience more enjoyable, which increases user satisfaction and retention!

Given that gamification ideas are based on shared behavioral psychology, any app can enjoy the benefits of a gamified onboarding experience. Of course, the design plan differs depending on the industry, but learning what works best in your niche can yield incredible results!

Looking to gamify your user onboarding? Learn all you need to know with StriveCloud!

What is gamified onboarding?

Gamification in onboarding is a great way to engage users at the most important part of the customer journey. Given that poor onboarding is the leading cause of user churn, it is crucial to build an engaging experience. Gamifying the elements of user onboarding makes the process much more interactive. And with onboarding gamification features like progress bars and checklists, you also make installing a new app fun, rather than a slog!

Why does gamification for onboarding work?

Your onboarding is judged based on 3 simple measures:

1. Usefulness – Do users get value from the experience?
2. Ease of use – Can users get to the value intuitively?
3. Fun – Are users satisfied and enjoying the app?

And this is where onboarding gamification can help!

Usefulness

Research shows that gamification increases perceived usefulness, which is the biggest indicator of engagement intention! This is true for a variety of reasons. For instance, goal-setting features are a popular gamification onboarding feature. And for good reason, asking users to set their goals is both interactive and personalized – and nearly 60% of people prefer companies that get to know them and their behavior!

Ease of use

Gamification in onboarding simplifies the customer journey. For example, progress bars show how far a user has until onboarding finishes. In scientific terms, they call this “reducing the cognitive load”. Essentially, this means that engaging requires less mental effort! That’s because gamification is based on easy-to-understand principles. You perform a task, and you’re rewarded for it. To be sure, it doesn’t get clearer than that!

Fun

People love games – it’s that simple. The image of computer gamers playing alone at home is totally false. In reality, nearly 82% of the world’s internet users are gamers! That’s because games are enjoyable and we instinctively seek out fun experiences.

Computers in Human Behavior - "This study found perceived enjoyment to significantly influence brand attitude… In particular, the intention to engage with a gamified brand is likely to lead to positive attitudes towards that brand."

The widespread adoption of gaming across demographics shows that game mechanics are a universally understood and enjoyable medium.

3 key benefits of gamified onboarding

Faster time to value

The time to value metric measures how long it takes for new customers to experience the benefits of your product or service. Evidently, customers who quickly gain value from a product are more likely to continue using it.

Gamification in onboarding is the perfect solution for achieving an excellent time to value. It helps you get to the AHA moment and activate your users faster. So, instead of a boring process where users just fill in their details, your app can start delivering straight away with rewards and engaging features. As a result, you shorten the “time to value”, which gives users a reason to stick around!

Higher retention

In short, when you use gamification in onboarding with features like badges and progress bars, you make the process more fun. Not to mention, easier to understand. All in all, this makes it harder to quit! You can see this in the superior retention rates for the top Android apps. Today, 70% of the world’s top 2000 companies use gamification!

Interactive experiences are more memorable

Gamification in onboarding is all about making the process more interactive. In essence, gamification asks users to put in a little bit of effort to get something back in return. And this interactivity helps us remember! Behavioral psychologist Edgar Dale demonstrated this with the “cone of experience”, which notes that people are better at recalling and learning from direct and purposeful experiences.

The gamification mechanics used to improve onboarding

Gamification means using game-like features in a non-game context. These features give your app development toolkit a boost by tapping into a powerful source of motivation that we all have. Based on behavioral science, gamification plays on mechanics that are rooted deep in human psychology.

What is gamification & how does it work? Learn all the basics right here!

Here are some examples of the main gamification mechanics that can improve the onboarding process:

Badges can reward the effort of new users and provide the task with meaning

Try rewarding your new users with a badge. After all, they completed your onboarding and they should see the effort wasn’t for nothing. This is a form of feedback called positive reinforcement and it motivates users to continue! To support that, research shows that ‘status feedback’ positively influences user retention. Of course, badges are just one way of rewarding new users, you can give them points or even vouchers.

Giving users personalized avatars will boost user retention

Let your users set up their own profile pictures. Research is clear that avatars boost a user’s sense of ownership over the app. This is essential for long-term user retention! To back that up, a 2021 study showed that avatars satisfy the psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, in turn influencing ‘reuse intention’.

Progress bars make onboarding flow naturally

Progress bars fill up depending on how far along a task the user is. In tracking the user’s progress, this gamification onboarding example provides a visually clear and stimulating way to give feedback. Users can easily follow their growth, which is one of the basic psychological needs that leads to intrinsic motivation.

11 onboarding gamification examples to inspire you

Badge rewards

#1 BrewDog

As a part of the brewery’s loyalty program, Brewdog rewards customers for “killing carbon” by shopping at their carbon-negative business. To incentivize users, the company offers a spate of different badges. That includes during onboarding, where BrewDog offers badges for registration, first purchases, and other activities.

Why does this work? Simply put, because people love to earn badges! Receiving a badge is positive reinforcement, and having a stack of badges can proudly display your growth. This makes badges a form of “status feedback”, which papers show positively influences user retention.

Here are the amazing results of BrewDog’s gamified loyalty program:

• 100% rise in average order value
• 400% higher purchasing frequency
• 136% increase in email click-through rate!

BrewDog's loyalty program uses a badge system to reward customers for eco-friendly purchases and initial engagement, driving impressive increases in order value and frequency.

Checklists

#2 Navexa

Navexa is an investment portfolio tracker. To entice users to onboard (and pay for the product), the fintech app uses a clever checklist. Essentially, Navexa extends the free trial to users who complete certain activities on the checklist, like adding their data.

To be sure, this is way more effective than simply giving users for free a longer trial in the first place. Dozens of behavioral studies have shown that the higher the price, the more humans value the item! Of course, with gamification in onboarding, users don’t pay with their money, but with time and effort. And when users are rewarded for that time and effort, they’re more than happy to take part!

Navexa uses a checklist that extends the free trial upon completion, a clever way to guide users to the app's core value while they onboard.

#3 Quora

Quora is a social Q&A website that also uses gamification in onboarding. With just a checklist, Quora elicits the ‘endowed progress effect’. Put simply, this principle says that people are more likely to finish something if they think they’re close to completing it.

To unlock this effect, the checklist includes ‘dummy’ tasks like registering and visiting your feed. In practice, you can double down on this by including a balanced mix of easy and harder tasks. Usually, people finish the easy tasks first, and then they will be compelled to complete the rest!

Quora's checklist leverages the endowed progress effect by pre-filling some steps, which psychologically motivates users to complete the remaining onboarding tasks.

Milestones

#4 Headspace

Some apps have a longer onboarding period than others. For wellness app Headspace, they have eight screens with dozens of decisions to make. That’s why when new Headspace users complete onboarding, they’re greeted with this cheery sentence:

"Congrats! You’re now a member of Headspace."

For one, this acts as a positive signal that the onboarding is over. In turn, this milestone breaks the experience into smaller, more doable parts. Also, the screen’s positive reinforcement rewards the user and celebrates their effort, which is intrinsically motivating. In effect, that means users are enticed to keep using the platform!

Headspace congratulates users upon completing their multi-screen onboarding, turning it into a celebratory milestone that reinforces the user's effort.

#5 Lime

Onboarding gamification doesn’t stop once the customer signs up! Indeed, shared mobility app Lime offers a great example of how to successfully onboard. When customers finish their first ride on one of Lime’s e-scooters, they get a milestone that celebrates the occasion! For one, this acts as a marker and visualizes the customer’s progress. Ultimately, this personalized feedback builds trust and motivates riders to book another journey!

Lime marks a user's first ride with a personalized milestone, providing positive feedback that builds trust and encourages future use of the service.

#6 Nike Training Club

Fitness apps and habit formation go hand in hand. And gamification in onboarding can help create habits right from the start! When Nike Training Club onboards new users, they reward users who trial the workouts by unlocking milestones that come with an encouraging message. In short, this displays the user’s progress and reinforces the idea that the workout has meaning!

What’s more, users can see all of the future milestones, but they’re grayed out. This psychological phenomenon is called ‘constraint’. Basically, it’s a technique commonly used in gamification where you can’t access certain areas of the experience. As a result, you can’t help but feel that you are missing out – and losing out is extremely motivating!

Nike Training Club uses unlockable milestones, some of which are initially grayed out, to create a sense of progression and motivate users to complete workouts.

Progress bars

#7 LinkedIn

Progress bars are so simple, yet so powerful! As a progress bar fills up, users receive both instant feedback and an indication of how long is left. This helps avoid user frustration and boredom, as progress bars have been found to reduce the ‘cognitive load’ of onboarding. That’s good because a perceived longer onboarding means higher churn!

In short, that’s why professional social network LinkedIn uses a progress bar. Because users must input a lot of data, the app’s onboarding can be quite long. So to combat churn, LinkedIn’s progress bar also features subtle reminders of a user’s incomplete tasks. This plays on a psychological principle called the ‘Zeigarnik effect’.

Kendra Cherry, Psychologist - "When you start working on something but do not finish it, thoughts of the unfinished work continue to pop into your mind even when you’ve moved on to other things".

By using the progress bar and additional questions to emphasize missing details, LinkedIn boosted profile completion by 55%!

LinkedIn's profile completion bar is a classic example of using the Zeigarnik effect to remind users of incomplete tasks, effectively boosting profile completion rates.

#8 Shine

Fintech onboarding can be a hassle. For instance, there are a lot of legal requirements. That might be why a whopping 38 % of customers drop out of the onboarding process. However, adding gamification in onboarding can achieve real results! This is how French fintech Shine earned a completion rate of 80%.

Throughout each onboarding screen, Shine features a multiple dot style progress bar. This instantly lets users know how long is left, and makes the onboarding flow naturally!

The French fintech app Shine uses a multi-dot progress bar to make the often tedious onboarding process feel natural and manageable, resulting in a high completion rate.

Points

#9 Duolingo

Duolingo is the top language-learning app on the planet and for good reason! They are famous for their use of game elements to motivate. This includes gamification in onboarding. For example, new users who open Duolingo are first asked to pick their target language. Next, they play a quick interactive demo lesson. And once they complete it, they earn points, or “gems”. These gems serve multiple purposes:

• Can purchase perks like extra lives, harder lessons, and streak freezes
• Celebrates the user’s achievement, spurring more engagement
• Fast and instant reward, which leads to positive feelings
• Tracks personal growth, important for Edtech apps!

Only after rewarding those gems does Duolingo ask users to create a profile! This shortens the time to value considerably. And given that Duolingo is known to studiously run A/B testing to improve their metrics by 1% every week, you can be sure that their onboarding gamification is the best! In fact, Duolingo’s day 1 retention at launch was just 13%. But today that figure is an impressive 55%!

Luis Von Ahn, CEO @Duolingo - "Learning a language is really hard work, and the hardest part is staying motivated. Gamification is the key to getting learners to stick with it."

Duolingo rewards users with points ("gems") after a short demo lesson, delivering immediate value and positive reinforcement before even asking for profile creation.

#10 Tweet Hunter

Tweet Hunter is a growth tool for the social media network Twitter. And they have a unique financial reward attached to their points system! During onboarding, users have a checklist they need to complete. With each item they finish, they earn points, which they call tokens. In fact, users are rewarded with tokens every day that they use the app. And what do these tokens do? They represent a share of the company! If Tweet Hunter gets acquired, your tokens determine how much you’ll get. Sounds lucrative, right?

This feature is so effective because it is essentially a win-win scenario. The company gets your engagement, and you get the potential of a cash prize! This is an example of reciprocity, which builds brand trust and ultimately keeps users engaged for longer.

Tweet Hunter's unique onboarding gives users tokens for completing tasks, which represent a share of the company, creating a powerful win-win incentive for engagement.

Contextual notifications

#11 Ixigo

With 12 million monthly active users, Ixigo was one of the most downloaded travel apps around the world in early 2021. Immediately upon installation, the app makes a great effort to make every customer interaction personal and contextual. Shortly after signing up, users get an email from Ixigo. The message’s first line features the user’s name - a must-have personalization tool that convinces the user your email isn’t just any old clutter.

What works amazingly though, is how Ixigo rewards users for signing up by sending a redeemable voucher! This is a clear call to action that shows off the brand’s value proposition and gives users a reason to start using the app. The results are clear - while the average open rate of emails across all industries is just 21%, Ixigo’s first email sees an impressive 54% open rate.

Ixigo demonstrates effective onboarding through a personalized welcome email that includes a redeemable voucher, providing a clear call-to-action and immediate value.

Want great results like these with less hassle? Discover our app gamification software!

Gamify your user onboarding with StriveCloud!

Because onboarding is such a crucial step in the process, it’s important to get your onboarding gamification right. That’s why we recommend using a gamification tool like StriveCloud. And when you use our software, you get more than just a control panel with over 20 interactive features – you also get the advice and assistance of our expert team!

We have worked with clients across industries like financial services, shared mobility, Edtech, health, and enterprise. Through this experience, we have developed 3 simple steps to gamification success:

1. Workshop. Let’s build a plan together with your unique goals & target audience in mind.
2. Set-up. We’ll integrate your new features and get you up and running!
3. Onboarding. Finally, we train your team to use our control panel, so you can make live changes whenever you want! Of course, we will be there if you need us.

Make implementing gamification easier! Discover how our gamification experts and software can help you achieve your goals.

FAQs

What is gamification?

Gamification uses game-like elements to motivate users in non-game contexts. Implementing features like points and levels taps into human psychology to unlock a powerful sense of motivation. In turn, this makes the app experience more enjoyable, which increases user satisfaction and retention!

How does gamification improve onboarding?

Onboarding gamification boosts 3 important metrics: the usefulness of the process, its ease of use, and how much fun it is. In short, gamified onboarding can simplify the sign-up and tutorial, which decreases time to value and activates the user faster!

What are some effective onboarding gamification ideas?

Gamification in onboarding can be highly effective. For instance, fintech app Shine uses progress bars to give users a rewarding dopamine hit when they finish! With this, Shine boasts an amazing 80% sign-up rate, compared to the industry average of just 15%.

How fintech is using app gamification and 3 of the best examples

This article explores how fintech companies are using gamification to boost user engagement and retention.

Between 2020 and February 2021, a staggering 5000 fintech startups opened their doors. The market is booming faster than ever. However, user attention is limited. With all these apps out there the question on the minds of product managers everywhere is “how do we motivate users to stay engaged with our app?” One answer is app gamification. Its popularity is increasing in fintech as case studies show success with boosts in metrics like mobile app engagement and retention.

In this article, let’s look at what gamification is, why fintech is learning to love it, and how the top apps are uplifting retention with it:

• What’s behind the fast growth of fintech apps?
• Here’s why top fintech apps use gamification
• The psychology behind app gamification, how does it work?
• 3 greatest gamification examples from top fintech apps

What’s behind the fast growth of fintech apps?

Consumer confidence in fintech is on the rise, but it’s important to note that this is a new phenomenon. In 2011, just 22% of UK consumers said they would trust a new banking provider. On the other hand, 55% said they’d trust existing banks. And that was shortly after the financial crash!

This graph illustrates the growing consumer trust in fintech applications, a key driver of the industry's expansion.

However, today’s statistics tell a different story. Research from 2020 shows that nearly 2/3 of people use digital banking across the Eurozone. Some countries are hotter markets than others. For example, in the Netherlands, 89% of people use online banking!

So what’s affecting this growth, and will it continue?

Yes, fintech will continue to grow. Impressively so.

The value of fintech is set to rise by over 20% year on year, up from $110 billion in 2020 to nearly $700 billion in 2030. In other words, that means in 2030 the fintech industry will be bigger than the entire GDP of Switzerland!

What are the reasons behind this growth?

Millennials, now aged 24-40, represent a larger share of consumers every year. And as the first generation to grow up with mobile phones and video games, it is no surprise that millennials prefer mobile banking channels, especially compared to their elders.

In addition, the rate of smartphone adoption is growing fast in developing countries, where a rising middle class is lifting incomes and mobile app engagement.

What are the challenges to this growth?

Across the sector, security and privacy are the primary concerns of consumers when asked about fintech. New apps would do well to assuage users of these concerns.

But a major threat to individual app growth is a poor user experience. Day 1 user retention in digital banking is just 30% - meaning 70% of people who download a fintech app will have uninstalled it within 24 hours. Obviously, an engaging and user-friendly design can reduce the chances of this, and gamification is a great way to achieve it.

Here’s why top fintech apps use gamification

Video games, the internet, and fintech. What connects these 3 things? According to research, the answer is millennials. The typical gamer is 34 years old, just as the average age of an internet user is 25-34, and it is the same story for fintech. In short, app gamification is a way to speak to a growing part of the market in a way they understand and enjoy.

That should explain why banks from old to new are so eager to gamify their apps. For example, traditional banks like BBVA are trying to learn from the video game sensation Fortnite! This BBVA article mentions an important fact:

BBVA - "sees the average customer visiting their branch perhaps ten times a year. They maybe check their banking app 200 times a year."

Certainly, that statistic tells you how important mobile app engagement is, and that’s why finance is turning to app gamification.

Not sure how to begin? Kickstart your process with an expert-led workshop & go home with a roadmap tailored to your app goals!

Take Australia’s Commonwealth Bank, which developed a game called Investorville, a property investment simulator. In just 1 year, the bank financed 600 loans with leads generated from the game. That’s just one example of how a fun experience can earn you return users.

The psychology behind app gamification, how does it work?

Simply put, gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. This can describe a wide range of features from badge reward systems to loyalty programs.

One of the first gamification examples goes back to 2006 when Coca-Cola started using features like loyalty points and prizes as part of its My Coke Rewards program. The campaign retained 20 million lifetime members! Since then, gamification has evolved and found a new life with mobile apps.

What is gamification & how does it work? Learn all the basics right here!

However, the core mechanics of how gamification works still remains the same:

• Relationships - People are social creatures and are naturally motivated by competition, collaboration, and relatedness.
• Accomplishment - Achievements like badges give customers goals to strive for. Pro tip: indicating user progress is even more motivating!
• Empowerment - Ultimately, you need to give users control, as well as relevant and personalized rewards that show you value their unique contribution. This could mean positively reinforcing customer actions with perks for instance.
• Unpredictability - People love to explore and stay surprised, that’s why things such as variable rewards are shown to increase customer retention.
• Constraint - Try locking off exclusive features. Science shows the fear of missing out is as motivating as winning!

Did you ever wonder why some apps are so habit-forming? Apps like Facebook have built-in these motivational triggers, so that every time we, for example, go out for dinner, we have to post a picture.

The same goes for why Waze has 130 million monthly active users or why Duolingo is way better than school. By playing with common human psychology, app gamification taps into our inner motivation and enjoyment and provides a boost to mobile app engagement.

3 greatest gamification examples from top fintech apps

According to Fortune Business Insights, the banking industry is one of the biggest markets for gamification. Given that, there are plenty of fantastic gamification examples from fintech apps that are showing the way forward:

A Revolut cashback campaign with a basket of benefits

Research shows that 70% of those aged 24-42 would spend more if they were to receive at least 5% instant cashback. So how about 50%? Over a period of 6 months, Revolut users were given 6 days to benefit from half price cashback on purchases at the Notes Coffee café chain in London. The results were incredible!

• 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.

Those figures are huge. Of course, putting 15% next to 625% seems small, but that 15% retention rate is over a 6 month period. In contrast to the average 15% that is the Day 7 user retention in digital banking. Essentially, Revolut found out how to keep customers for 6 months longer than most apps do for 7 days!

Revolut's cashback campaign is a powerful example of using rewards to drive transactions and user retention.

How Axis Bank pioneered Augmented Reality in banking apps

The Indian-based Axis bank is the first bank in India, and perhaps the world, to use augmented reality in its banking app. After the global success of Pokémon GO, this bank decided to find a use case for AR in banking.

Their banking app allows users to look around and see offers pop up. Along with Pingpay users can instantly pay and get discounts on various items.

Amit Sethi, chief information officer at Axis Bank wants to continue down the path of gamification saying “this is just a first step to gamification. Soon we’ll be adding points, loyalty systems, and more.”

Want more results with less hassle? Discover our app gamification software!

Additionally, the bank puts a high priority on target push notifications to keep users engaged. Micro-segmentation and dynamic reminders helped them engage 23% of users on their website and acquire 36% positive leads for the bank to invest in.

Axis Bank's innovative use of augmented reality demonstrates how cutting-edge technology can create unique and engaging user experiences.

Shine shows that you can boost user retention with gamified onboarding

According to a report by ABBYY, 90% of companies lose potential prospects during the digital onboarding process. On the other hand, with a gamified onboarding process, French fintech Shine boasts an onboarding conversion rate of 80%. How so? Easy -

• Progress bars let the user know how long is left.
• One screen, one action - they keep it simple.
• A big call-to-action button that just looks so clickable.
• Digital confetti to celebrate free, unlimited accounts.
• Most importantly, the process is short!

Of course, as a bank, onboarding will always be there because of legal requirements. But, Shine shows that it doesn’t need to put customers off. Following these tips will make the onboarding process quicker, easier, and more fun and let customers try your app faster. This is important because the features of your app are where customer value is created!

Shine's onboarding process uses gamified elements like progress bars and celebrations to create a positive initial user experience.

Recap

Here’s a challenge, how do you compete with the 5000 new fintech startups that opened doors just last year? Or the decrease in general attention spans?

One answer is app gamification. Its popularity is increasing in fintech as case studies show success with boosts to metrics like mobile app engagement and retention.

What you should know about fintech today

Consumer confidence in fintech is on the rise. In 2011, just 17% of UK consumers said they would trust a mobile banking provider. Today, research from 2020 shows that nearly 2/3 of people use digital banking across the Eurozone!

Will fintech continue to grow? Yes, impressively so.

The value of fintech is set to rise by over 20% annually, up from $110 billion in 2020 to nearly $700 billion in 2030. In other words, fintech will be richer than all of Switzerland!

What are the reasons behind this growth?

Millennials, aged 24-40, represent a larger share of consumers every year. Growing up with video games and mobiles, it is no surprise that millennials prefer mobile banking. In addition, the rate of smartphone adoption is growing fast in developing countries.

What are the challenges to this growth?

Across the sector, security and privacy are the primary concerns of consumers when asked about fintech. To individual apps, though, a challenge is a poor user experience. Day 1 user retention in digital banking is just 30% - meaning 70% of people who download a fintech app will have uninstalled it within 24 hours. To be sure, an engaging and user-friendly design can reduce the chances of this, and gamification is the solution.

Why top fintech apps use gamification

In short, the audiences align. The typical gamer is 34 years old and most fintech users are 25-34. So, app gamification is a language this demographic understands and enjoys.

Banks both old and new see this, to the point that traditional banks like BBVA are trying to learn from the video game Fortnite! The BBVA article mentions something important:

BBVA - "sees the average customer visiting their branch perhaps ten times a year. They maybe check their banking app 200 times a year."

That describes how important mobile app engagement is, and it’s why finance is turning to gamification. That’s 200 opportunities to create a relationship with your customer!

The psychology behind gamification, how does it work?

Simply put, app gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. One of the first gamification examples goes back to 2006 when Coca-Cola started using features like loyalty points and prizes as part of its rewards program. The campaign retained 20 million lifetime members! Even with mobile apps, the concept is the same:

• Relationships. People are naturally social!
• Accomplishment. Achievements like badges give customers goals to strive for.
• Empowerment. Give users control and reward their unique contribution.
• Unpredictability. People love to explore and stay surprised.
• Constraint. Lock-off features. Studies show that missing out is motivating!

3 greatest gamification examples from top fintech apps

A Revolut cashback campaign with a basket of benefits

Over 6 months, Revolut users were given 6 days to benefit from half-price cashback on purchases at the Notes Coffee café chain in London. The results were incredible!

• 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.

Compare that retention rate to the average 15% Day 7 user retention in digital banking. Essentially, Revolut kept customers for 6 months longer than most apps do for 7 days!

How Axis Bank pioneered Augmented Reality in banking apps

Their banking app allows users to look around and see offers pop up. Along with Pingpay users can instantly pay and get discounts on various items while walking around India! The chief technology officer says more is about to come!

Shine shows that you can boost user retention with gamified onboarding

According to ABBY, 90% of companies lose potential prospects during the digital onboarding process and end up opening an account. On the other hand, with a gamified onboarding process, French fintech Shine boasts a rate of 80%. How so? Easy -

• Progress bars let the user know how long is left.
• One screen, one action - they keep it simple.
• A big call-to-action button that just looks so clickable.
• Digital confetti to celebrate free, unlimited accounts.
• Most importantly, the process is short!

Following these tips will make the onboarding process quicker, easier, and more fun and let customers find out faster the customer value!

Not sure how to begin? Kickstart your process with an expert-led workshop & go home with a roadmap tailored to your app goals!

How to retain the Gen Z users (and what every fintech app needs to know)

This image sets the stage for our discussion on retaining Gen Z users in the competitive fintech landscape, emphasizing the digital-native audience.

Across banking and fintech, figuring out how to increase app retention can be a challenge - especially if you’re targeting young people, the so-called ‘digital natives’ who grew up with video games and the internet. But there are ways that fintech apps can improve user retention, and the best in the sector have already figured it out. The answer is gamification! Take Revolut, who implemented gamification examples like a leaderboard to encourage university students to open an account.

In this article, we will discuss the behavior of Gen Z, those aged 9-24, and how it is affecting fintech, as well as how gamification examples can help crack user retention!

• Why young people are important for fintech apps (and how to retain them)
• Gamification examples that can boost user retention
• Challenges: Ikano Bank and the mini-game played by 1.5 million
• Leaderboards: Qapital helps users save as a team
• Points system: BBVA makes financial education fun
• Personalized notifications: How Moven makes users 50% more likely to save
• Recap

Why young people are important for fintech apps (and how to retain them)

Today, 13 to 24-year-olds spend more than double the time using mobile apps each day than those over 45. Given their activity, it should be no wonder then that Gen Z and Millennials are hugely important to digital banks, even if they do not hold the spending power of their older counterparts. As of today, younger people make up the biggest share of both new and existing fintech users, and by quite a difference.

The chart clearly shows that younger generations, including Gen Z, form the largest segment of fintech users, making their retention critical for growth.

Combine that with user retention and things look positive. In 2020, fintech had the best retention rate of any vertical. But that’s no reason for complacency - Day 30 retention still sits at a low 12%. So what’s happening? What does it mean that there is high sector growth in young people, but low app retention? For one, that Gen Z wants what fintech has to offer! But on the other hand, that they also give up on new apps pretty quickly.

This graph highlights fintech's leading position in app retention compared to other industries, while also showing room for improvement in long-term engagement.

Low user retention in young people is bad news for many reasons - but none more pressing than what lies behind the fact that most Gen Z members trust their family and friends' recommendations the most. The reality is that nearly 1 in 3 young people will not purchase a product or service without being personally advised by a friend! Compare that to those aged between 57 and 75, who prefer to rely on written and video content for recommendations. In brief, retaining your young users is a matter of future growth.

A common cause for user churn is a poor user experience. In the digital world, young consumers are clever and know what’s good and what’s not - this isn’t their first rodeo! In fintech, young users expect things like free accounts, 24/7 support, and a customer-centric design, with features such as built-in savings tools or expense sheets. But these alone are not enough, to retain users you need to create a truly motivating experience.

Increase user retention by uplifting the experience with fun elements. Check out our app gamification software!

But how do fintech apps create a motivating experience for young users? According to the OECD, the answer is gamification! The OECD, a club of developed countries, produces economic reports that are highly regarded, and in a report entitled ‘Advancing the Digital Financial Inclusion of Youth’, it is written:

OECD, 2020 - "Technology can be used to enhance digital and smart communication (such as social media, gamification, personalisation or interactivity) and lead to higher consumer engagement."

So let’s see exactly what gamification means and some great use cases in fintech.

Gamification examples that can crack user retention

In brief, gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. Gamification examples could be a badge reward system or examples of personalization like custom user avatars. These features inspired by games are extremely familiar to nearly every young person - in the US 93% of 6-8 year olds already play video games. On top of that, research has found that young consumers had more intention to purchase a gamified product when compared to older customers. The study also says that engagement with a gamified app or service comes down to perceived usefulness.

New to gamification? Get started on our what is gamification page!

So what are some gamification examples and how can they be useful to Gen Z?

Challenges: Ikano Bank and the mini-game played by 1.5 million

Challenges are great in so many ways! For one, they give users a clear purpose within your app. It’s not just a great way to get users started, but it also provides an intrinsic motivation to continue. Research by McKinsey shows that challenges create a flow-like state where people are more productive and motivated. In other words, user retention! The logic behind it is that people are more motivated to work and progress towards a clear goal, rather than completing separate grunt tasks with no real meaning.

In addition, challenges can be a fantastic way to bring people together. When people challenge each other, the positive effects can be multiplied!

Ikano Bank showed the power of challenges when they pit Swedish digital banking users against each other. The time was 2014 and Flappy Bird was the most downloaded app on the App Store. Riding on the game’s popularity, the bank produced a mini-game that challenged users to protect a flying piggy bank and avoid crashing into costly expenses.

Ikano Bank's mini-game demonstrates a creative use of challenges to engage users by tapping into popular culture and creating a viral experience.

During the 21 day campaign, the game garnered over 1.5 million plays! Now that’s a lot of engagement, and it seems especially impressive when you learn that just under 10 million people live in Sweden.

Leaderboards: Qapital helps users save as a team

When US-based fintech app Qapital calls itself ‘the only challenger built on behavioral science’, they mean gamification. The psychology of leaderboards is simple and well established through research - leaderboards provide a picture of a person’s progress, as well as help users make social comparisons between their peers. This, in turn, motivates them to improve and reach the top. So as well as fulfilling the need for competence and growth, leaderboards introduce a fun element of competition.

But while the use of leaderboards is famous in sectors like education or fitness, their use in fintech has to be smarter than simply rating people’s time investment/effort. For sure, Qapital is a great example of how to do it right. Through the app, users can create shared goals such as saving up for a holiday. Here is where gamification works its magic - while progress bars show how far the team is as a whole, a leaderboard ranks users by their individual contributions. This is a subtle and clever way of pushing users to improve their performance when they see others ahead of them. Indeed, leaderboards are found to ‘significantly increase user performance’.

Qapital's app showcases how leaderboards and shared goals can foster a sense of teamwork and competition, driving consistent user engagement with savings.

Their gamification strategy must be working - Qapital has over 1.8 million customers and users have through the app collectively saved $1 billion! What’s more, the average age of a Qapital user is just 27. Compare that to Revolut, whose user is on average 34.

Points system: BBVA makes financial education fun

Points systems are simple and they work wonders! In short, users will stack up points by completing tasks, which can be used to level up or redeemed for prizes. Most importantly, a points system needs to align how you reward users with your goals as a product manager. Finance expert Bjorn Cumps sums this up when he says “a good way to use gamification is to incentivize desired behavior”.

One of the best examples of this in fintech is how the Spanish bank BBVA taught users financial literacy and made it fun! The bank launched BBVA Game, a web app with app tutorials and explanations on how to pay taxes and do transactions online. This fits in with BBVA’s strategy of attracting Gen Z by helping them save. You cannot say they don’t understand their young customers!

In the app, users earn points by completing challenges and can redeem them for music downloads, movies, smartphones, or even tickets for the La Liga football league. After only 6 months the game had over 100,000 users and its users showed an 18% higher satisfaction rate! On the whole, the results were extraordinary:

The results from BBVA's gamified financial education program clearly show a significant increase in user engagement and satisfaction across several key metrics.

Personalized notifications: How Moven makes users 50% more likely to save

Personalized notifications use customer data to target the right user with the right offer at the right time. For this reason, personalization is highly effective, although it seems that only younger consumers are happy with the trade-off in privacy. 47% of those aged 55 and up are ‘very concerned' about data privacy, compared to just 28% across Gen Z. The same goes for the Millennials.

Sara Koslinska, CEO of Limitless - "Generation Z doesn’t understand taboos and is completely open to sharing their experiences with finances"

That makes Gen Z a fantastic audience for personalized notifications. Moven is just one fintech taking this gamification example to their advantage. The entire app is built with a contextual experience in mind, meaning that the app actually changes to suit the user’s behavior. For example, Moven will send users personalized notifications reminding them to save money when they are most likely to do so. CEO Brett King notes that upon a repeat notification, users are 50% more likely to save money!

In addition, users are prompted to ‘lock away’ their savings at a time when their spending behavior allows them to do so. A personalized notification gamifies the moment, making it fun and satisfying to save money.

Moven’s Impulse Saving feature illustrates how personalized, timely notifications can gamify the act of saving money, turning a good intention into action.

Moven is one of the great gamification examples that shows you how to achieve user retention in Gen Z!

Want to improve your mobile app experience? Accelerate your growth with an action-packed gamification workshop tailored to your app goals!

Recap

Figuring out how to increase app retention can be a challenge - especially if you’re targeting young people, the generation who grew up with video games and the internet. One of the solutions is gamification.

In this article, we discussed the behavior of Gen Z, those aged 9-24, and how it is affecting fintech, as well as how gamification examples can help crack user retention!

Why young people are important for fintech apps (and how to retain them)

The power of the youth is on the rise. Gen Z makes up the biggest share of both new and existing fintech users, and by quite a difference! Without a doubt, retaining Gen Z is crucial for future fintech growth and here’s why:

• Gen Z spends more than 2x the time using mobile apps daily than those 45+.
• While fintech has the best retention of any sector, Day 30 retention is just 12%.
• Low user retention means fewer customer advocates - and nearly 1 in 3 young people will not purchase a product or service without being recommended it!
• This challenge is unique to Gen Z - compare to those aged between 57 and 75, who prefer to rely on written and video content.

But how do fintech apps create a motivating experience for young users? According to the OECD, an organization of developed countries, the answer is gamification!

OECD, 2020 - "Technology can be used to enhance digital and smart communication (such as social media, gamification, personalisation or interactivity) and lead to higher consumer engagement."

Gamification examples that can crack user retention

In brief, gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. These features are extremely familiar to nearly every young person - in the US 93% of 6-8 year olds already play video games. On top of that, research has found that young consumers had more intention to purchase a gamified product when compared to older customers.

So what are some gamification examples and how can they be used to retain Gen Z?

Challenges: Ikano Bank and the mini-game played by 1.5 million

Challenges give users a clear purpose within your app. It’s not just a great way to get users started, but it also provides an intrinsic motivation to continue. Research by McKinsey shows that challenges create a flow-like state where people are more productive and motivated. In other words, user retention! The logic behind it is that people are more motivated to work and progress towards a clear goal, rather than completing separate grunt tasks with no real meaning.

Ikano Bank showed the power of challenges when they dared Swedish digital banking to play a mini-game where they had to protect a flying piggy bank and avoid crashing into costly expenses. During the 21 day campaign, the game garnered over 1.5 million plays!

Leaderboards: Qapital helps users save as a team

When US-based fintech app Qapital calls itself ‘the only challenger built on behavioral science’, they mean gamification. The psychology of leaderboards is well studied - leaderboards provide a picture of a person’s progress, as well as help users make social comparisons. This, in turn, motivates them to improve.

In Qapital, users can create shared goals such as saving up for a holiday and a leaderboard ranks users by their individual contributions. This is a subtle and clever way of pushing users to improve their performance when they see others ahead of them. Indeed, leaderboards are found to ‘significantly increase user performance’.

Their gamification strategy must be working - Qapital has over 1.8 million customers and users have through the app collectively saved $1 billion! What’s more, the average age of a Qapital user is just 27. Compare that to Revolut, whose user is on average 34.

Points system: BBVA makes financial education fun

In a points system, users stack up points by completing tasks which can be used to level up or redeemed for prizes. Finance expert Bjorn Cumps sums this up when he says “a good way to use gamification is to incentivize desired behavior”.

One of the best examples of this in fintech is how the Spanish bank BBVA taught users financial literacy and made it fun! The bank launched BBVA Game, a web app with app tutorials and explanations on how to pay taxes and do transactions online. This fits in with BBVA’s strategy of attracting Gen Z by helping them save.

In the app, users earn points by completing challenges and can redeem them for music downloads, smartphones, or even tickets to watch a football match. After only 6 months the app had 100,000+ users and customers showed an 18% higher satisfaction rate!

Personalized notifications: How Moven makes users 50% more likely to save

Personalized notifications use customer data to target the right user with the right offer at the right time. Out of all demographics, Gen Z is the happiest with this. 47% of those aged 55+ are ‘very concerned’ about data privacy, compared to just 28% across Gen Z.

Sara Koslinska, CEO of Limitless - "Generation Z doesn’t understand taboos and is completely open to sharing their experiences with finances"

In Moven, the entire app is built to change to suit the user’s behavior. For example, Moven will send users personalized notifications reminding them to save money when they are most likely to do so. CEO Brett King notes that upon a repeat notification, users are 50% more likely to save money!

In conclusion, that is how you achieve user retention in Gen Z, by helping them to achieve their goals with gamification examples that make the process easier and more fun. In short, providing them with customer value!

Want to improve your mobile app experience? Accelerate your growth with an action-packed gamification workshop tailored to your app goals!

Why loyalty programs are changing (and how to keep up)

Loyalty programs are evolving beyond simple points systems, incorporating gamification elements like trophies and rewards to drive deeper user engagement.

If you look at a typical customer journey, you will almost always see ‘loyalty’ placed at the end of it. While building a reliable user base continues to be a crucial goal for every business, the rules that determine loyalty programs are changing. Loyalty programs have always had some sort of reward system, but before it was usually based on point collection and discounts, which made it very unscalable. The use of gamification features like challenges, raffles, or badges adds an extra layer of motivation that doesn’t exponentially increase retention costs.

Look at leaders from across the app market like Duolingo in education, Sweatcoin in fitness, or Revolut in banking. They all used gamification to reach the top and generate more loyal users than their competitors. For sure, their examples are leading the way.

In this article, let’s review how gamification is improving loyalty programs and how using gamification building blocks can enhance your customer loyalty.

• Why a change in how loyalty programs work is inevitable
• What is Loyalty 4.0 - and how is it changing app development
• How to implement loyalty 4.0 in your app
• TLDR

Why a change in how loyalty programs work is inevitable

Long-held business wisdom states that the top 20% of customers make up 80% of your revenue, a phenomenon known as the Pareto Principle. That statistic is why businesses have always focused on developing effective loyalty programs. It makes financial sense to build a reward system around those who have the most impact on your wallet!

But while the loyalty programs of old were hugely successful at the time, (as well as creating the rulebook many still follow), they are not optimized for today’s digital age. In 2006, Coca-Cola started pioneering gamification features like loyalty points and prizes as part of ‘My Coke Rewards’. The campaign retained 20 million lifetime members!

This is what a loyalty program looked like in 2006, with a focus on transactional rewards like points for prizes.

Of course, that’s a success by any measure. However, loyalty programs like My Coke Rewards were based on a transactional relationship, and today’s consumers need more than that to have rewarding experiences. Building a reward system around offers like ‘buy 10 drinks, and your 11th is free’ doesn’t take advantage of the incredible toolkit app developers and commercial teams have access to now.

So much more can be done and indeed must be done to thrive in the app market today. There is one important reason why that is so:

Gen Z wants more interaction from loyalty programs

The young ‘digital native’ Gen Z demographic, aged around 10-24, cares more about brand loyalty than any other generation. To stay loyal, Generation Z members expect consistent engagement and chances to interact with the brand, rather than just being targeted for sales. In other words, engaged Gen Z members are more likely to stick by you. But you need to do more than that to earn their loyalty - they want to be heard! Gen Z’ers are very forgiving if your product or service is not perfect, but they want to see be able to personalize their experience. Most importantly, they are looking for an authentic brand whose values align with theirs.

This graph highlights Gen Z's strong desire for engagement and authentic brand connections, which traditional loyalty programs often lack.

Why else would they buy merchandise from their favorite YouTuber for instance? They do it because they love to watch them and want to support or even represent them! There’s a clear reason why apps have to pay attention to Gen Z and their expectations. Compared to other generations, Gen Z spends more time and money on mobile. Gen Z is online 8 hours a day and mobile purchases account for 1/3 of all their transactions! So this demographic is an ideal target for loyalty programs, but Gen Z wants the exciting interaction and engagement that they expect online. Luckily, there is a way to leverage your efforts.

What is Loyalty 4.0- and how is it changing app development

Loyalty 4.0 is the new attitude to loyalty programs that embraces these shifts. The world is moving away from a transactional model, and forward to a more interactive and experiential method of engagement. The best loyalty programs today use gamification rewards like points and badges to create a genuinely engaging reward system. Gamification examples like these are a huge part of what makes Loyalty 4.0 so effective - and most importantly for apps looking to grow - scalable.

The cost of building a loyalty program for large companies reaches up to $30 million, and that’s no small sum. It costs to give out discounts, perks, and financial incentives. Given this, it is no wonder that businesses are looking for more affordable incentives, but just as effective. Gamification rewards do one better, and can be more effective! For example, a simple sprinkle of digital confetti to celebrate a user’s achievement is both cheaper AND more motivating than offering cash prizes. So what’s the deal?

Gamification means implementing game-like elements into a non-game context. In doing so, research shows that you inspire a very human and powerful sense of intrinsic motivation that compels users to participate and engage in your app.

Intrinsic motivators are based on complex goals like personal growth, purpose, and fun. To foster long-term customer loyalty, this intrinsic motivation is essential. Gamification rewards are so motivating because they make your app experience and reward system fun and worthwhile.

Just getting started with gamification? Catch up to speed on our What is Gamification page!

In short, the journey matters more than the destination! That means less emphasis on transactional discount offers that focus on results - what we call extrinsic motivators - and more on intrinsic motivators. Indeed, studies show that while extrinsic motivators push users through the discovery phase, reward systems with intrinsic drivers sustain long-term loyalty.

How to implement loyalty 4.0 in your app

So loyalty 4.0 is all about making your app both fun and scalable. This is crucial to cementing your app’s future! But how do you do it? As experts say - you need a clear strategy from the beginning. To offer the user experience you wish, and be capable of customer growth, your app development needs to be user-centric and flexible.

These needs were in mind when creating StriveCloud’s gamification building blocks. It is a nimble strategy of app development, where product managers can construct their app a step at a time - optimizing as they go. Building blocks allow you to easily create synergetic and consistent gamification features that are highly customizable and adaptable so that you can stay close to your customers’ needs.

How to design for customer loyalty? Get yourself a value-packed gamification workshop & go home with a roadmap tailored to your app goals!

Success is already being created using building blocks to generate customer loyalty. Take HumanForest, an e-bike-operated company that launched in 2019 to make London a greener city. Since their founding, they have had a loyal user community of 35,000, and StriveCloud’s gamification building blocks form a part of the app’s fabric:

An in-app currency that incentivizes green mobility (and gives users power!)

Users earn TreeCoins by riding e-bikes, which show how many trees worth of CO2 their cycling has saved! This means that in addition to a value-based reward system, HumanForest includes the customer’s impact on helping the planet. This gives users the intrinsic motivation needed to keep going - indeed, knowing that your actions have power is an extremely powerful motivator!

HumanForest's app uses 'TreeCoins' as an in-app currency, directly linking user actions to a positive environmental impact and providing intrinsic motivation.

Challenges keep the user experience fresh and exciting

Building blocks allow for personalized challenges, and HumanForest is taking full advantage of that. For example, users are challenged to cross over the River Thames that famously bisects London and are rewarded by upgrading their personal level.

Leveling systems tailor the app’s identity

Users enjoy being able to level up! It tracks progress, demonstrates personal growth, and can be a way of bragging about your social status! All of these are basic intrinsic needs. HumanForest takes advantage of StriveCloud’s building blocks and customizes their levels to their brand identity - the top level is not gold, but wood. Suitable for a forest!

Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved

HumanForest ranks the Treecoins that every user in the community earns, and this makes users feel more motivated! Together, the reward system of in-app currency and the competition in the leaderboard work to enhance each other. Building blocks make new features work together in an integrated way - which is important in creating a streamlined user experience.

The HumanForest app effectively uses leaderboards and community rankings to foster healthy competition and enhance user motivation.

Make retention a core part of your app strategy with StriveClouds' gamification building blocks. Find out what it could mean for you!

TLDR

• Loyalty is the end goal of every customer journey.
• It is as important as ever, but the rules are changing because of the expectations of Gen Z, who spend more time on mobile than other generations.
• Gen Z expects fun, interaction, and engagement from loyalty programs.

This has created Loyalty 4.0 which takes into consideration these expectations:

• A reward system based on gamification features like digital confetti, which is more effective and more affordable than the old model of cash prizes.
• Gamification rewards inspire the intrinsic motivation needed for long-term loyalty!

The StriveCloud gamification app brings loyalty 4.0 to you:

• Flexible and user-centric building blocks.
• Easily adjustable to user feedback - keeping your customers close.

HumanForest is one app that embodies loyalty 4.0, by using StriveCloud’s gamification building blocks to create features like:

• An in-app currency that incentivizes green mobility and empowers its users!
• Challenges that keep the user experience fresh and exciting.
• Leveling systems tailored to the app’s identity.
• Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved.

Looking to get started with Loyalty 4.0? Book an expert-led gamification workshop & set up an action plan tailored to your wants & needs!

How using building blocks makes your app stronger and more resilient than ever

The concept of using building blocks provides a strong and flexible foundation for modern app development.

In the age of ‘there is an app for that’, people are used to having their unique needs met. Given that, app personalization is on top of the agenda. Today, the best design is expected to be customized, responsive, and flexible - and these needs have given rise to ‘building blocks’ as a powerful method of app development. With this in mind, StriveCloud’s app gamification blocks allow you to insert game dynamics into your app to help drive in-app user motivation & growth!

In this article, we’ll discuss how app building blocks work, why they’re effective, and how the gamification blocks from StriveCloud can transform mobile apps for the better.

• How app building blocks make your app stronger
• Introducing StriveCloud’s app gamification blocks
• HumanForest - an example of how to do gamification right!
• TLDR

How app building blocks make your app stronger

It is said that great design is just the iteration of good design. In other words, the most successful design is built on an iterative, customer-centric approach. Often, this means doing things bit by bit and running regular tests on users to see if a particular feature turns users off or makes them tick. Building blocks are at the heart of this philosophy, where developers can take flexible pre-made blocks and easily integrate, customize, and tweak new features on their app.

In essence, building blocks lend your app nimble flexibility that improves your interactions with two key stakeholders:

#1 Keeping up with users wants & needs

At times, customers can be a mystery. Creators and developers will surely relate to the story of putting lots of hard work into something that seems guaranteed to succeed but ends up failing. With building blocks, however, you can efficiently and cheaply integrate features that suit your customer feedback and avoid that pitfall. For example, Duolingo - the world’s top educational app - is famous for its iterative and user-centric design. When Duolingo introduces a new gamification element, they do it incrementally.

This process ensures that each feature works with real users. Think about new features like a novice baseball player - you wouldn’t expect them to bat without having done so before. Building blocks mean that you can easily integrate new features into your platform, as well as easily remove them should your testing yield negative results.

#2 Keeping up with the competition

Of course, apps need to keep an eye on the competition so they can respond efficiently to any threats or challenges. Think of Skype, for example. Only recently in February 2020, Skype was the world’s top video calling app with a market share of 32.5%. However, in 2021 they lost a huge part of the market to Zoom & were replaced by the new leader. The reason? Zoom jumped to the number one spot because of an iterative building block design process that allowed them to solve the problems that plagued Skype’s platform.

So while building blocks can help challengers take on market incumbents, they can also help those incumbents respond to new competitors. But to do that, app developers need the flexibility and app personalization that building blocks offer.

Introducing StriveCloud’s app gamification blocks

If you want to create a genuine relationship with your userbase, gamification is a great way to go. In short, gamifying an app is the application of game-like elements into the user experience to motivate and change people’s behavior. Because gamification is focused on leveraging user behavior, it aligns perfectly with the user-centric strategy of building blocks.

Just getting started with gamification? Catch up to speed on our What is Gamification page!

The app gamification blocks allows product managers to insert, remove, and adjust new features to best suit their users’ needs. It doesn’t require code and can be customized to fit your user experience entirely.

StriveCloud’s gamification building blocks allow you to spice up your user experience in a range of ways:

1. Make it competitive. Foster a sense of competition, collaboration, or challenge with gamification features like leaderboards, custom ranking points, and challenges. In this way, you bring a sense of unpredictability that keeps the user engaged!
2. Make progress visible. Leverage achievements, progress bars, and leveling systems to keep users engaged.
3. Reward participation. Retain more users with a carefully thought-out rewards system. Insert points, badges, and in-app currencies to give users a sense of accomplishment & positive reinforcement!
4. Make winning easy to understand. Empower your users by making their experience clear with contextual notifications and a custom mailing system.
5. Make the experience social. Drive community engagement & viral growth with gamification features like user profiles, avatars, and referrals. With these motivational triggers, you fulfill the incredibly powerful need for social relatedness.

How to design for behavioral change? Get yourself a value-packed gamification workshop & go home with a roadmap tailored to your app goals!

HumanForest - an example of how to do gamification right!

HumanForest is a London-based shared mobility company with the aim of making transportation emission-free! The app successfully promotes ecological behavior using the building blocks from StriveCloud!

We helped the HumanForest team develop a gamification strategy based on their goals. By leveraging gamification building blocks they not only spice up the user experience but also better articulate their brand mission.

Find out more about the specific gamification features they used below:

An in-game currency that incentivizes green transportation

Using building blocks allows HumanForest to introduce elements one by one, and the in-game currency was one of the first that HumanForest decided to integrate. HumanForest’s TreeCoins are completely unique in that they represent how many trees worth of CO2 you have saved by riding an e-bike! This visualization makes the currency feel much more tangible - and in turn a more valuable achievement.

This screenshot of the HumanForest app shows how users can redeem their "TreeCoins," tying rewards directly to sustainable actions.

Take a leaf out of HumanForest’s book & gain speed with the gamification building blocks from StriveCloud. Gamify your app in no time - custom to your goals!

Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved

HumanForest ranks every user in the community, based o the TreeCoins they’ve collected. Needless to say, this makes users feel more motivated! The sense of challenge or community often fuels user motivation to compete. The genius of using building blocks is how easy it is to implement new features like the leaderboard that complement existing ones like the TreeCoins. As a result of this strategy, the user benefits from a consistent and streamlined user experience.

The leaderboard feature fosters a sense of competition by ranking users based on the number of "trees" they have saved through their travel.

The next steps for HumanForest

Because building blocks are flexible and based on app personalization, HumanForest users can expect the platform to remain fresh, exciting, and relevant to them. The app’s development team already wants to utilize more of StriveCloud’s building blocks toolkit. For example, planned features include lotteries to win a bike helmet or personalized challenges such as crossing the River Thames that famously bisects London.

This animation demonstrates future gamified features, like personalized challenges, that can be added using a flexible building-block approach.

The results for HumanForest? Success! An amazing 35,000 Londoners are using the platform to make their travel greener - benefitting themselves, the city, and the planet. In view of their achievements, HumanForest is valued at an exciting €37.7 million, and their satisfying user experience promises to make the app a major player in the e-bike mobility market across Europe.

TLDR

• As the supply in apps grows, so do user expectations. Users expect a high level of app personalization.
• App building blocks are an easy way of improving your app without spending an endless amount of time in development.
• Building blocks make implementing features easy - think of it as adding a LEGO piece to a structure.
• The flexibility that building blocks provide strengthens your relationship with customers and the competition
• The gamification building blocks from StriveCloud allow you to insert gamification mechanics into your app.
• These gamification blocks allow you to make the user experience competitive and social, as well as reward user participation and make progress visible.
• HumanForest is just one app that is taking advantage of it
• The e-bike mobility app features an in-game currency called TreeCoins that incentivizes sustainable traveling.
• As well as a leaderboard that ranks user’s coins
• And in the future, HumanForest plans to utilize the building blocks to their full potential and include more exciting features!

Put customer motivation at the center of your app. Follow an expert-led gamification workshop & create a custom gamification roadmap!

How mobility app HumanForest is using gamification to make the world a better place

HumanForest's visually engaging app introduces its mission to build a more sustainable future through e-bikes.

By far, people see climate change as the most serious problem facing the world today. This creates a huge opportunity for mobility apps to make an impact on green and sustainable behavior. One such app is the e-bike sharing app HumanForest, which is on a mission to make the London metropolis more green. Their new and exciting app is full of gamification examples that improve the user experience and provide the necessary motivation towards sustainable urban mobility.

We spoke to Co-founder and Head of Marketing, Michael Stewart, about some of the gamification examples they use, and how it motivates Londoners to go green! He told us all about how gamification differs from a “copycat” loyalty program and why he decided to work with StriveCloud.

Let’s dive in!

• Who is HumanForest?
• 3 trends changing how we travel (and how HumanForest is ready)
• The gamification examples that motivate greener behaviors on HumanForest app
• An in-game currency that matters
• Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved
• Levels encourage long-term engagement
• Recap

Who is HumanForest?

HumanForest is a shared mobility provider from London, that has the mission of making micro-mobility more affordable & sustainable. They discovered that motivating people to use sustainable transportation, could help them recover CO2 emissions worth a forest.

"We started in London, because here we saw the biggest opportunity. Micro-mobility was expensive and there weren’t many other operators."

Compared to other mobility services HumanForest wants to make theirs easily accessible. That’s why every user receives 10 minutes of free riding per day. HumanForest shows an advertisement at the beginning & end of every ride. They make sure it’s always related to a green cause, climate change, or sustainability. It allows brands to promote sustainable behavior on a relevant & credible channel.

3 trends changing how we travel (and how HumanForest is ready)

Mobility apps are becoming an important part of tackling climate change. With sustainability in mind, people are changing how they get from A to B. Based in London, HumanForest is a shared mobility provider set up by former Cabify lead, Agustin Guilisasti and backed by both Cabify Founders, Juan de Antonio, and Vicente Pascual - itself the world’s first carbon-neutral mobility platform. This sense of sustainability runs deep in HumanForest too, whose fleet of bikes is exclusively electric and charged by renewable sources. Currently, the company is valued at an impressive £32 million (€37.7 million).

Figuring out user motivation will fuel your app growth. Kickstart your process with an expert-led workshop & go home with a roadmap tailored to your app goals!

In 2017, e-bike apps served over 500 million people. In 2025, that number will be closer to 900 million! HumanForest is planning to grow along with the explosive market expansion.

These 3 trends reveal what’s behind the increase:

#1 Cities want sustainable solutions

Local governments are doing their part to fulfill the climate promises signed at the Paris accords. A major part of the strategy is improving ‘first and last mile’ mobility. Essentially, most people don’t live within a convenient distance of their nearest train or bus stop, and this portion of the journey is where the car still holds sway.

"We’re thinking about big capitals because of the high need for micro-mobility & environmental awareness. In the future, we’re looking to expand to bigger capitals within Europe."

To be sure, city authorities see the value in e-bike operators like HumanForest. While London is a difficult patchwork of 32 councils that often don’t agree, HumanForest founder Agustin Guilisasti boasts that they’ve not lost a single tendering application.

#2 Less driving, more cycling

According to research by Kantar, the car is still responsible for more than half of all journeys in large cities worldwide. The future is greener, however. In 2030, the percentage of automobile trips will decline to 46%. Among that number, shared rentals and electric cars will take over. When it comes to alternative modes of transport, cycling will see the biggest boost of all with an 18% increase.

#3 Customer-centric design

To make the best journey choices, travelers need to be empowered with the right tools. Research from the journey planner app Moovit shows that consumers' expectations are changing to want a more customer-centric design. Users want more options, more control, and more immediate service.

For mobility apps, this can mean showing users the closest bike, when the bus is arriving, or if the train will be crowded. These features will make shifting to sustainable transport even more convenient and streamlined.

These fully electric bikes are the foundation of HumanForest's sustainable mobility solution, powered entirely by renewable energy.

3 gamification examples that motivate greener behaviors on HumanForest App

It isn’t easy to encourage people to hop on a bike over a personal car - or over the bike of your competitor, for that matter. But gamification can help! While a lot of competition in shared mobility is based on price differentiation, there are other ways to get people on your platform that don’t include razor-thin margins.

Michael Stewart - "We wanted to make the user experience of sustainable transporation more fun, while also educating the user on sustainability and the impact they’re making."

A gamified app experience, it’s a starting point for in-app differentiation. Features like leaderboards and points, improve user engagement and motivate active participation in the long run. In short, gamification will:

• Make the user experience fun and rewarding, which research shows leads to customer loyalty.
• Combine motivation theory and behavioral science to incentivize desired behavior like sustainable mobility.
• Satisfy basic psychological needs like knowledge, growth, and status.

What is gamification & how does it work? Learn all the basics right here!

Seeking these benefits, HumanForest joined forces with StriveCloud and together designed, co-created, and launched a loyalty program that rewards users for moving sustainably around London.

Michael Stewart - "We looked at many loyalty systems but we wanted to do more than random loyalty rewards. With StriveCloud we could infuse fun in the experience, articulate our mission & integrate it within the app experience. Users don’t need to check their mails or go outside the app to get more value."

Here are some awesome gamification examples from HumanForest:

An in-game currency that matters

The more people ride HumanForest, the more ‘TreeCoins’ they earn. But the TreeCoins are no made-up coins, they’re actually the number of trees each user has saved by taking an e-bike! For every mile by bike users represent 1 tree in saved CO2. Every 5 miles or trees gets the users 1 TreeCoin, which gives them 1 minute of free riding or discounts with environmentally conscious retailers.

Michael Stewart - "StriveCloud really helped us fulfill our brand message. The TreeCoins explains our mission perfectly. 1 mile = 1 tree, 5 miles = 5 trees & 5 trees = 1 coin. The progress visualization mechanic prompts users to keep using HumanForest & rewards sustainable behavior with free minutes!"

This visualization makes the currency feel much more tangible - and in turn much more valuable. Users can literally see their positive impact on our planet! A great benefit of that is that it will inspire users to share how many trees they’ve saved, giving users something to brag about.

This screenshot from the app shows how tangible rewards like 'TreeCoins' directly link user actions to a positive environmental impact, making progress feel meaningful.

Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved

People like to see themselves grow and they like to be rewarded. But they also need to fulfill a sense of social relatedness and a leaderboard can do just that. By ranking the trees that each user saves against each other, users feel will more motivated. The challenge feels real when others are joining in and this extra rush is super motivating.

Level up your profile, level down your carbon footprint!

The user reward isn’t just made by TreeCoins. They also have the chance to level up their profiles based on the number of rides taken. Users can collect experience points and work up from their original ‘bonsai’ avatar. This works as a great status symbol that rewards those who put in an extra effort.

These gamification features serve to create for HumanForest a platform that is a must-have in today’s competitive app market - a platform that is fun, empowering, and above all, customer-centric.

Michael Stewart - "I really like how easy-to-use StriveCloud is. I don’t need to interrupt any developers or use any code, there’s no lengthy deployment process & changes are updated instantly."

More than that, if you can be those things while making a positive impact on something so important like climate change, then your app will stand an even greater chance of success.

Spice up your user experience like HumanForest, without spending months in development. Find out more →

Recap

By far, people see climate change as the most serious problem facing the world today and mobility apps like the new e-bike service provider, HumanForest, are tackling the challenge.

Based in London, HumanForest is a shared mobility provider - itself the world’s first carbon-neutral mobility platform. HumanForest is also sustainable; their fleet of bikes is exclusively electric and charged by renewable sources. Currently, the company is valued at €37.7 million.

It’s clear that e-bikes are the future - in 2017, e-bike apps served over 500 million people. In 2025, that number will be closer to 900 million!

3 trends changing how we travel (and how HumanForest is ready)

#1 Cities want sustainable solutions to the first and last mile challenge

A major part of tackling climate change in urban mobility is solving the ‘first and last mile’ challenge. Essentially, most people don’t live within a convenient distance of their nearest train or bus stop, and this portion of the journey is where the car still holds sway.

City authorities see the value in e-bike operators like HumanForest to fix this. While London is a difficult patchwork of 32 councils that often don’t agree, HumanForest founder Agustin Guilisasti boasts that they’ve not lost a single tendering application.

#2 Less driving, more cycling

According to research by Kantar, the car is still responsible for more than half of all journeys in large cities worldwide. The future is greener, however. Cars will decline to 46% and cycling will see the biggest boost of all transport modes with an 18% increase.

#3 Customer-centric design

To make the best journey choices, travelers need to be empowered with the right tools. Research from the journey planner app Moovit shows that people crave customer-centric design. Users want more options, more control, and immediate services. These features will make shifting to sustainable transport convenient and streamlined.

The gamification examples that encourage green behaviors

Gamification can help encourage people to hop on a bike over a personal car - or over the bike of your competitor. In short, gamification will:

• Incentivize desired behavior like sustainable mobility.
• Make the user experience fun, which research shows leads to customer loyalty.
• Satisfy basic psychological needs like knowledge, growth, and status.

Seeking these benefits, HumanForest joined forces with StriveCloud and together have designed, co-created, and launched a loyalty program that rewards users for moving sustainably around London. This is how:

An in-game currency that matters

The more customers ride HumanForest, the more ‘TreeCoins’ they earn. These are actually the number of trees each user has saved by taking an e-bike! This visualization makes the currency feel much more tangible - and in turn a more valuable achievement.

Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved

People like to see themselves grow and they like to be rewarded. But they also need to fulfill a sense of social relatedness and a leaderboard can do just that. By ranking the trees that each user saves against each other, users feel will more motivated. The challenge feels real when others are joining in and this extra rush is super motivating.

Level up your profile, level down your carbon footprint!

Users can collect experience points and work up from their original ‘bonsai’ avatar. This works as a great status symbol that rewards those who put in the extra effort.

On the whole, these gamification features serve to create for HumanForest a platform that is a must-have in today’s competitive app market - a platform that is engaging, fun, empowering, and above all, making a positive impact on the environment!

Drive the behaviors you want to see! Get an expert-led gamification workshop & learn how to design for customer motivation!

How to drive app growth - 5 expert tips to optimize our funnel!

Understanding the app growth funnel is the first step toward optimizing your user acquisition and retention strategy in the competitive mHealth market.

Without a doubt, health is the most universal mobile app category. Every human needs to look after their health in some way, whether it be their diet, sleep, or fitness. In 2021 medical app downloads grew 50% year-over-year, gathering over 3.2 billion downloads across health, fitness & medical apps. But this can be a double-edged sword. A larger market, however, also means more competition, making it not only harder for your app to stand out, but giving unsatisfied users lots of options to switch to alternatives. According to the App Growth Network, the solution to brand differentiation and user churn is customer experience optimization.

The App Growth Network is a leading app marketing agency covering full-funnel app growth for clients like Farmville, Nutrition tracker ‘Cronometer,’ and meditation app ‘Breethe’ just to name a few. Specialized in tactics like App Store Optimization, user acquisition & retention for apps they’ve managed to get results like a 23% increase in conversion and 56% boosts in organic installs.

We’re happy to have collaborated on their latest Ebook on how to make your Health & Fitness app successful. Here’s a quick peek inside on how mHealth apps can drive growth from start to finish:

• The state of mHealth today
• How to optimize the 5 stage customer funnel
• Acquisition: how to increase your user base
• Activation: convert acquired users to engaged users
• Retention: incentivize habit formation
• Re-engagement: a reward system that wins back inactive or churned users
• Monetization: increase revenue & convert free users to paying customers
• TLDR

The state of mHealth today

Depending on what your app offers, you may see user activity fluctuate throughout the year. It might sound obvious, but data from apps like Zwift shows that indoor virtual cycling does better in January than in July. Conversely, you can imagine that diet tracking apps might do better in January, fresh from a season of large Christmas dinners. Even though all the sub-verticals in health might grow differently, the mHealth sector as a whole is experiencing an exciting boom period.

This graph illustrates the significant growth in mobile app categories, with gaming showing the highest increase, a lesson mHealth apps can learn from.

However, as you can see, the biggest growth score belongs to gaming. But gaming doesn’t have a monopoly on what makes games so attractive and engaging. Indeed, mHealth apps can learn from games to produce those kinds of impressive numbers.

How to optimize the 5 stage customer funnel

mHealth may be hugely diverse, but the core challenge remains the same for every app. Essentially, health and fitness apps need to make what can often be a demanding task into something motivating. Even more than that, they need to make task completion into a habit! But when research shows that it takes on average 66 days to form a habit, it isn’t easy to do that. To form a habit that lasts, you need a compelling and engaging reward system. This is where customer experience optimization comes in!

Get the full rundown on how to optimize your app. Download the App Growth Network’s free ebook and start your journey!

To start, the App Growth Network recommends looking at your customer funnel. The lifecycle stages of your typical user will determine which touchpoints to prioritize.

The five-stage customer funnel visualizes the user journey from acquisition to monetization, providing a clear roadmap for optimization.

Acquisition: how to increase your user base

This is the first hurdle that every app needs to overcome. Because this stage happens when a user has no prior brand awareness, acquisition requires a heavy financial cost. You will face stiff competition in acquisition from some apps that have already positioned themselves in the mind of the customer.

- "Many apps need to invest a lot of time and money into this stage, particularly if you’re a Health & Fitness app without previous brand awareness. Celebrity fitness apps, like Carrie Underwood’s Fit52, have an advantage due to their worldwide celebrity status."

But if you don’t have a household name representing your brand, that’s OK, there are other ways to draw in users. To generate organic user acquisition - free, of course - you need effective tactics like App Store Optimization (ASO), word-of-mouth, and other social media strategies.

- "ASO is the most effective way to increase your app’s visibility and make it more discoverable by potential users searching in app stores."

An optimized ASO solution can turn your fortunes around! For the meditation app Ten Percent Happier, the App Growth Network’s advice on ASO rewarded the client with a 10% conversion boost and a 40% increase in installs within 60 days.

Activation: convert acquired users to engaged users

So the user has downloaded your app, but you now need to keep them engaged. What’s important at this stage is an onboarding process that is clear and exciting. Users need to know what’s expected of them and what they can expect in return. If you don’t achieve this, you may turn a potential loyal customer into a frustrated deserter.

So how do you bring customer experience optimization to onboarding?

• Start by asking relevant and easy to answer questions. Fitness apps may ask for your experience level for example.
• Make it clear how long onboarding will take by displaying a progress bar.
• Put off private information questions like names and email addresses until after the user is invested by inputting their level and things like personal goals. - Show that you care about them before you ask for their details!

With this type of onboarding flow, you can boost activation metrics by 4x times or more!

Retention: incentivize habit formation

For health apps, forming a habit is crucial! Retention will define whether your users get something out of your app or not. Certainly, no diet tracker can show significant results in just a few days, no matter how good it is. In the meantime, users want to be rewarded, so you need an effective reward system, or else they will churn - and many do.

- "But here’s the harsh industry fact: the average app in the Health & Fitness category retains only 20% of its users on Day 1. By Day 7, that number drops to less than 9%, meaning over 90% of churned users! At Day 30, only a scant 4% are still around."

This retention curve starkly illustrates the rapid drop-off of users in health and fitness apps, emphasizing the need for robust engagement strategies.

So you need an app that can engage and excite you! People need to love your product. The App Growth Network’s report recommends a few of the best user retention practices. For one, optimized push notifications will persuade users and push them along their customer journey, rather than jolting them and adding to their digital clutter. Health apps might want to focus on workout reminders and congratulations on results to create an effective and consistent reward system. This brings us to how gamification can help!

StriveCloud - "At StriveCloud, we found that applying design principles like gamification can result in a 500% increase in 90-day user retention for mHealth apps."

Gamification elements such as leaderboards and badges are a great way to achieve customer experience optimization. In essence, most apps already offer extrinsic motivators - such as the need to achieve results - but many miss out on the ever-important intrinsic motivation that gamification offers! In the long-term, users are motivated by more complex and human reasons such as fun, social status, and personal growth. Intrinsic motivation is shown to improve the use of health apps drastically.

How does gamification create healthy habits? Book a free consultation & discover how it could work for you!

Re-engagement: a reward system that wins back inactive or churned users

It’s easy for users to churn. We all know the joke of how New Year’s resolutions never get met - and that phenomenon can particularly affect health & fitness apps. But from a business point of view, you don’t want to let them churn. Indeed, it is more cost-effective to re-engage a user than acquire a new one.

So it’s best to avoid churn, and that can be done by optimizing your strategy to focus on retention. It can be super effective to incentivize lapsed users to return with an enticing reward system such as by offering ‘free stuff’ as a free premium membership or discounts on exclusive events/features.

An example of a re-engagement push notification offering a special reward is a proven tactic for winning back lapsed users.

Monetization: increase revenue & convert free users to paying customers

There are many popular models in mHealth for monetization:

Freemium/Subscription

Most health and fitness apps use a freemium or free trial subscription model. The idea is based on reciprocity - you offer something and the user reciprocates by paying once they have seen the value of your app. Some apps limit the free features by time, for example by cutting off free members after 14 days, and others by simply locking away ‘premium features’. This is a popular gamification mechanic called constraint and it works! Science shows the fear of missing out is as motivating as winning.

How does the psychology behind gamification work? Find out on our What is Gamification page!

Paid apps

Some apps require an upfront fee. To be successful with this model though, you need strong branding and positive reviews to generate interest.

In-app advertising

Of course, to keep your app free you can include ads like banners and video interstitials. If users don’t want ads, they can upgrade to a paid version.

In-app purchases

Alternatively, some free apps offer additional purchases in the app to buy extras. This goes back to that constraint dynamic - the locked features will entice users to upgrade!

But there’s more to learn if you want to achieve success as a health & fitness app. To get the full scope on how customer experience optimization can boost your app, download the App Growth Network’s free ebook and start your journey!

TLDR

Health is the most universal mobile app category. However, a larger audience also means increased competition. Therefore churn and retention is especially challenging for mHealth!

The App Growth Network shows the solution is customer experience optimization. A lesson that can be learned from the most popular app category: games!

That doesn’t mean turning your app into a game! Rather design an experience that delights the user so they want to keep coming back.

Here are some quick app growth tips to implement into your funnel:

• Design a reward system that facilitates habit formation.
• App store optimization help less established brands gain more traction & can lead to up to 40% more installs.
• A clear & fun onboarding process leads to almost 4X more activation.
• Gamification can result in a 500% jump in 90-day retention for mHealth apps.
• Focus on retention! It’s more cost-effective to re-engage existing users.
• Monetize with your preferred model, whether it be paid upfront to freemium.

For more expert advice, download the App Growth Network’s free ebook

The top 13 health & fitness apps of 2023 all have one thing

Discover the power of game mechanics to motivate healthy behaviors and learn how top apps are using gamification features. From in-app communities to badges, we’ve gathered 13 gamification examples from the leading industry apps that can help you boost your growth in 2023.

This image of an athletic woman stretching sets the stage for our deep dive into the leading health and fitness applications.

• How 2022 changed the health & fitness market
• #Fitbit uses social connection to motivate users to run harder
• #MyFitnessPal is a master of motivation
• #Calm uses personalized gamification features to reduce churn
• #Weight Watchers incentivizes users to meet their goals with rewards
• #Headspace uses badges and streaks to boost user’s self-esteem
• #Replika has a personalized AI to align with the user
• #Lose it! challenges users to lose weight
• #Yoga-Go is centered on customer value
• #Peleton boosts its user retention with its community
• #Plan a personalized workout program with Muscle Booster
• #Immerse in a gamified story with Zombies, Run!
• #Mango Health helps users have a healthier lifestyle
• #SuperBetter focuses on creating healthy habits for its users
• What we can learn from these gamification features
• TLDR

How 2022 changed the health & fitness market

In 2022 the exercise and weight loss segment held the largest revenue share of over 54.6%

As 2023 has begun, the mHealth balance sheet looks healthier than ever. In what is a huge milestone, the market size of the sector is anticipated to expand to USD 293.2 billion in 2030. Growing awareness among adults to use mobile health solutions and supportive government incentives for using digital healthcare is the cause of an exciting growth period affecting the whole industry, from meditation platforms to sports & diet trackers, and even instructional exercise apps.

This chart illustrates the projected growth of the mHealth market, highlighting the increasing competition in the sector.

The unprecedented competition coincides with the consolidation of the market, and this has created a difficult environment to thrive in. While many apps do their best to vie for attention, the top apps rake in the cash. For context, Fitbit, the #1 top-grossing app in health & fitness, makes $3 million a month in the US alone.

Certainly, it is enviable that these apps bring about healthier lifestyles for their users and make money doing it. To get the job done, and lead the market, the world’s top health & fitness apps utilize gamification. Put simply, these apps all implement a range of gamification features designed to motivate users & elevate user engagement strategies!

New to gamification? Catch up to speed with our ‘What is Gamification’ page!

Let’s run down the top 13 grossing health & fitness apps and see how they gamify:

#1 Fitbit uses social connection to motivate users to run harder

Fitbit is a health & fitness app used with a wearable wrist device. The app tracks your daily steps, which buy your way up the leaderboard. Leaderboards are one of the most effective gamification examples because it creates a magnetic sense of social connection. Users find enjoyment and fulfillment when they can compete (or collaborate) with friends!

What’s more, they can then share the results on social media, which we call a positive intensifier. It works, as Fitbit over 47 trillion steps in 2022. Studies show that the leaderboard alone leads to a 15% increase in daily steps!

Fitbit's leaderboard shows how a sense of social connection and competition can motivate users to increase their daily activity.

How Fitbit uses gamification to make being healthy more fun!

#2 MyFitnessPal is a master of motivation

Calorie counter MyFitnessPal has 200 million users, and it does so because the app is a master of motivation. On MyFitnessPal, users can set a goal for their calorie intake, and this target defines the graphs and visualizations they see. As a result, their graphs and progress trackers are personalized to their custom goals.

Gamification examples like goal-setting have the power to transform your user’s quest! Studies show that personalized tools are more effective at helping users achieve goals.

This progress tracking view from MyFitnessPal is an effective gamification tool that helps users visualize their achievements.

#3 Calm uses personalized gamification features to reduce churn

How did the wellness app Calm achieve a 3x boost in user retention? Simple – by letting users set their push notifications to remind them to meditate.

With Calm’s Daily Reminder feature, users receive a motivating message at a time of their choosing. By personalizing push notifications, Calm not only avoids frustrating new users with clutter but also helps facilitate habit formation.

Calm's personalized daily reminder feature effectively reduces churn by helping users build a consistent meditation habit.

#4 Weight Watchers incentivizes users to meet their goals with rewards

The Weight Watchers app combines all weight loss tools in one. It is one of the best sports & diet trackers on the market. Users can track anything from diet, water intake, and sleep all the way up to physical exercise. The app even allows you to scan your favorite foods to effortlessly track nutrients. Besides tracking users can take guided coaching sessions & mindset training.

When users on the WW app hit their goals, they get a ‘Win’. This is positive reinforcement at its most clear! Moreover, wins rack up points that elevate your standing in a tiered rewards system. With it, users are motivated to win to earn feel-good items such as gym memberships or free body products.

This reward system takes advantage of the mechanics behind many gamification examples. Namely, constraint and accomplishment. In short, constraint means that users crave things that are locked off from them. By hiding increasingly more generous prizes behind tiers, users are motivated to keep going! In turn, this provides accomplishment and the happy feelings that come with it. It’s a positive feedback loop!

The Weight Watchers reward system uses points and tiers to incentivize users and create a positive feedback loop of accomplishment.

#5 Headspace uses badges and streaks to boost user self-esteem

Headspace is an incredibly successful meditation app, and one of the best habit-forming apps. Fostering habitual visits is essential for creating an active user base. Certainly, these app’s gamification features facilitate users to keep up their routine:

• Celebrating early achievements with prizes results in the ‘endowed progress effect’, which says that users rewarded early are more motivated to achieve.
• Badges are not shared. Since the app is all about mental health, it chooses to avoid any social comparison between users that can dampen self-esteem.

Headspace rewards users with non-competitive badges, fostering self-esteem and motivating them to continue their meditation practice.

#6 Replika has a smart, personalized AI made to align with the user

You may not have heard of the wellness app Replika, but it is highly successful. Currently, the app boasts 10 million registered users. These users, mostly between the ages of 16-24, come to Replika for conversations with an AI-powered chatbot that acts as a virtual friend or a mentor. Amazingly, 85% of Replika users feel better after conversing with the AI.

What makes Replika’s AI so special is that it is meticulously personalized to the user. The more the user chats with the AI, the more the chatbot will develop a compatible personality. How cool is that! The approach is backed up by research studies that show how customizable tools enhance user autonomy – for example by molding a personal AI chatbot – & increase intentions to engage.

Replika's personalized AI chatbot adapts to the user's personality, enhancing engagement through a unique and autonomous experience.

#7 Lose It! challenges users to lose weight

Lose It! uses the proven principles of calorie tracking to educate and help you succeed. To get started just input your profile details with your goal weight and they will calculate the ideal daily calorie budget best for you. Next, easily track your food, weight, and activity and get ready to celebrate your weight-loss victories. There’s no easier way to change your habits and learn about your nutrition needs.

Of all the gamification features, challenges are some of the most fun. This is especially important for tracking apps, where their very point requires lots of repetitive tasks. By including a competitive and exciting element, users are more likely to complete them!

The "Lose It! Challenge" feature makes repetitive tracking tasks more exciting and increases user adherence through competition.

#8 Yoga-Go is centered on customer value

From their user-centric interface to a simple and personalized onboarding, Yoga-Go is quick and easy to get into. For one, these features make users more motivated to return to the app regularly. But right from the beginning, it means that users are less likely to become frustrated and churn early. Why? Because the user value is clear! This approach made Yoga-Go hugely successful, generating $2 million every month.

Yoga-Go's personalized onboarding process immediately demonstrates value, motivating users to return and reducing initial churn.

#9 Peloton boosts its user retention with its community

Of all the fitness apps, Peloton is perhaps the one with the tightest community. The benefits of an in-app fitness community are clear, making 60% customers likely to become loyal to the brand. Forbes notes that Peloton’s social integration runs deep, and it’s because of the gamification, whether it's introducing social elements or a fitness app challenge. Users can show off shared badges earned in team fit challenges, and even brag about hitting the top place on a live class leaderboard!

Peloton's live leaderboard harnesses deep social integration and gamification to build a loyal and highly engaged user community.

#10 Plan a personalized workout program with Muscle Booster

Muscle Booster has over 1000 workouts available of between 30 and 60 minutes. You can simply choose the area you want to work out & get a personalized workout plan.

The first thing you want when new users install your app is to immediately see the potential benefits. By asking users what areas of the body they want to optimize, Muscle Booster gives the user autonomy. This is crucial for mHealth apps because health is intrinsically personal. As such, when you implement personalized features, you give customers ownership over the user experience - making them more likely to stay.

Muscle Booster demonstrates how personalized workout plans give users a sense of ownership, increasing their likelihood of staying engaged.

#11 Immerse in a gamified story with Zombies, Run!

Zombies, Run! is an app that turns running into a fun game about being chased by zombies. With various game plots, the user can benefit from GPS tracking, distance, pace and time recording, calories burnt, and other customizable preferences. The app also provides virtual competition with other users making each mission even more exciting. Whether the user loves horror stories or simply needs the motivation to run, Zombies, Run! certainly makes use of an original gamified experience.

Zombies, Run! uses creative storytelling to transform exercise into an exciting and immersive narrative-driven game.

#12 Mango Health helps users have a healthier lifestyle

Mango Health inspires patients that take daily meds to live a healthier lifestyle by making it easy, fun, and rewarding. This app sends custom reminders to take your medicine, drink water, record your mood, check your blood pressure or watch your weight. As they stay on schedule, patients earn points that unlock the chance to win higher rewards such as $5-10 gift cards, money donations to charity organizations, and more. The best part? It’s free!

Mango Health's interface shows how rewards like gift cards can make the routine task of taking medication fun and financially advantageous.

#13 SuperBetter focuses on creating healthy habits for its users

SuperBetter borrows game elements to improve mental health and social-emotional learning, and it differentiates itself from other apps by supporting the change of habits and behaviors. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concluded that “SuperBetter helped reduce depression in a controlled trial”.

How does it work? In a game design, the users can select from a list of options the obstacles that they want to overcome: depression, anxiety, chronic pain, etc. These obstacles become the “Bad Guys” that the users must defeat by winning the battles with the help of Quests and Power-Ups, such as calling a friend or smiling at a stranger. Unlike other gamified apps, SuperBetter's goal is engaging communities in a friendly way, without leaderboards and competition.

SuperBetter creatively transforms mental obstacles into "Bad Guys," engaging users in a supportive, non-competitive game to build healthy habits.

What we can learn from these gamification examples

It is clear by now that the best mHealth apps understand human motivation. By leveraging gamification features like points and levels, these apps become motivating to use leading to 35% of users seeing better outcomes in their health goals.

Build an experience that guides your users on their health journey while achieving your goals! Find out how gamification can help!

To be sure, the mHealth industry is banking on the benefits of gamification. As a result, the gamification industry is set to register a stunning compound annual growth rate of 22.3% over the forecast period 2023-2030. With this in mind, does your app take advantage of gamification mechanics?

• Relationships. Make your app feel more real and necessary.
• Accomplishment. Users crave personal growth!
• Empowerment. Today’s consumers expect autonomy and personalization.
• Unpredictability. Gamification keeps your app lively, which reduces churn.
• Constraint. Incentivize retention by locking benefits for your most loyal users.
• Sense of belonging. Users benefit from the value of community building.
• Storytelling. Engage your users in an unforgettable unique story.

In short, is your app made to motivate? Are you confident that your app features these powerful mechanics? To thrive in 2023, you need to use every tool at your disposal.

This call-to-action banner encourages you to book a session and explore how a custom gamification strategy can help you achieve your goals.

TLDR

• Health & fitness is growing fast, the market size of the sector is anticipated to expand to USD 293.2 billion in 2030 How are all the top mHealth apps motivating users in a saturating market? With gamification features like badges and leaderboards.
• Fitbit’s leaderboard leads to a 15% increase in daily steps.
• MyFitnessPal’s personalization tools make users more likely to achieve goals.
• Calm achieved a 3x boost to retention with a simple ‘Daily Reminder’ feature.
• WW’s tiered loyalty system rewards accomplishment with prizes and freebies.
• Headspace celebrates early achievements – see the ‘endowed progress effect’.
• 10 million Replika users are more likely to engage thanks to personalized AI.
• Lose It! challenges bring users together with a common goal.
• Yoga-Go has a simple, user-centric interface that lowers barriers.
• Peloton’s social features create a self-motivating loyal community.
• Personalized workout features let Muscle Booster users work on their goals.
• Zombies, Run! uses unique storytelling to immerse the user into a running experience.
• Taking medication becomes fun and financially advantageous with Mango Health.
• Super Better transforms mental obstacles into the “bad guys” that the user must defeat.

Lead the pack in a record-breaking year for health & fitness apps! Book a value-packed gamification workshop & design a custom app gamification strategy & roadmap to achieve your goals!

Why your fintech app needs a great loyalty system (and how to make one!)

A well-designed loyalty system is crucial for user engagement and retention in modern fintech applications. If fintech companies want to scale user engagement, then they need a loyalty program optimized for mobile. Gone are loyalty cards in the wallet and receiving a coupon book in the post - today’s mobile world is all about innovation. What fintech apps today can do is use app gamification to motivate and boost user retention. If you make your app ‘sticky’, loyal customers will follow! As a bonus, this business model is easy to scale.

In the following article, let’s cover how app gamification can uplift a loyalty system for fintech that’s both cost-effective and highly scalable!

• Why a loyalty program is so important in fintech
• Where apps go wrong with loyalty programs
• 3 gamification features that improve user retention
• How app gamification can boost your fintech app
• Case study: the HumanForest loyalty system making London greener
• TLDR

Why a loyalty program is so important in fintech

There’s an old saying in business that says that it is more cost-effective to retain a customer than it is to convert a new one. Without a doubt, this adage on the importance of customer loyalty is as true today as when it was first said - research shows that loyalty leaders grow their revenues 2.5x as fast as their industry peers!

This chart illustrates that companies leading in customer loyalty experience significantly faster revenue growth compared to their peers. Loyalty programs typically reward users with points and discounts. By rewarding users for staying with you, you prove to them what their loyalty is worth. Remember, your customer’s lost loyalty is another company’s acquisition! A bank that offers a great sign-up deal might just poach a customer who sees no benefit from sticking with you.

An effective fintech loyalty program is possible - Revolut, for example, introduced a loyalty system that boosted transactions per user by 590%! But achieving user retention means giving users a real reason to stick around, which of course isn’t easy.

Want to increase loyalty like Revolut? Book a gamification workshop & go home with a roadmap tailored to your goals.

While the general app market has an annual retention rate of 35%, fintech is at 16% retention. Indeed, banking does better, but those benefits tend to be consolidated among a well-established group. In fintech, full of new challengers, high churn rate is influenced by bad loyalty programs that negatively affect user retention.

The data highlights the disparity in user retention rates between the general app market and the more challenging fintech sector.

Where apps go wrong with loyalty programs

Experts advise that the pitfalls of a bad loyalty system are far-reaching:

Account inactivity

Forbes notes that each inactive account can cost banks upwards of €100 a year.

Low redemption rates

Why put effort and money into creating loyalty perks, when redemption rates are low? Loyalty programs need to be influenced by regular user research to see what works.

High transaction costs

Suppose you choose to offer discounts in your loyalty program. Of course, they can work, but implemented poorly a 5% loyalty discount can lead to a 50% decrease in profits.

High system management costs

If your loyalty program isn’t scalable, you will be overspending on administration.

Low numbers of new and retained customers

When just a 5% jump in user retention can achieve a 95% uplift in revenue, repeat customers are critical to the success of your business. Bad design can push users away!

The most common design issues are that the loyalty program is too expensive, not scalable, or is simply implemented poorly. However, even if you solve those fundamental problems, there’s one more thing you might have overlooked.

A big reason behind failed loyalty programs is an overemphasis on extrinsic motivation at the expense of intrinsic motivation. In short, extrinsic motivational factors are simple, they are blunt things like the need for results, the rush of winning, or the fear of losing. But it is intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation’s complex and powerful brother, that leads to long-term user retention, and gamification is how you create it.

3 gamification features that improve user retention

Long-term user retention comes down to creating the right motivation - and extrinsic motivation can only go so far. Extrinsic drivers trigger initial engagement and are crucial for the discovery phase. But to create user retention, customers need a little bit more and that’s where gamification comes in. By using game-like elements, you incentivize user behavior and give people the additional push they need to engage with your app.

What is gamification and how does it work exactly? Find out all the details on our What Is Gamification? page!

Balancing intrinsic and extrinsic motivators is key to creating a loyalty program that fosters long-term user engagement. Take these three gamification features, for instance. See how both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators help develop a user loyalty program that makes customers more active and engaged:

#1 Progress bars

Progress bars and statistics are a popular gamification feature on fintech apps, often used to help users track their savings (or get insight into their spending behavior).

Extrinsic motivation: Users get to see their savings account pile up cash. It’s a great way of self-rewarding, without the bank or fintech companies having to give out expensive prices or discounts. Basically, users are rewarded through their own saving behavior!

Intrinsic motivation: Seeing a progress bar fill up creates a feeling of growth and achievement. Users are motivated to work towards a clear goal, and even more so when they get to see the progress they’re making towards it! The farther users come to reaching their goal, the more motivated they will be to persist and thus stay active on your app.

#2 Challenges

Challenges are another powerful app gamification feature that fintech can use to activate its users. European bank OTP Banka Hrvatska, for instance, used challenges to motivate its users to complete a series of short product education videos.

Extrinsic motivation: Challenges prompt users to take action by setting a clear goal and sometimes adding a reward to it. Think of all the “30 days of doing X” challenges. The reward doesn’t have to be monetary, and can also just be achieving a set goal such as “increase your financial literacy”.

Intrinsic motivation: Users are driven by a desire to achieve a certain goal. As they complete more challenges, they’ll also feel a sense of personal progress and growth, which will only fuel their motivation more.

#3 Contextual notifications

Contextual notifications help users move forward in your app. Let’s say a user has a goal of saving a fixed amount per week, but continuously crosses the line. You might help them achieve their goal by sending a quick reminder. The same applies vice versa: a quick “good job” message can be a great way to reinforce positive user behavior and keep the user coming back.

Extrinsic motivation: notifications always make the next step clear to users. It helps them to stay focused and achieve their goals faster on your app.

Intrinsic motivation: notifications provide instant feedback to users, and can positively reinforce them to continue on the right path, or quickly help them learn and adjust.

How app gamification can boost your fintech app

Knowing what gamification is, represents just one part of the journey - you also need to know how to implement your desired features in your loyalty program! They need to work together, be consistent with your platform, and be easily adjustable to the customer feedback you’ll get upon release. The solution to those necessities is a building blocks system.

This is an app development method that’s flexible, malleable, and intuitive to use - simply drag, drop, and adjust the blocks into your app’s inner workings and the possibilities are endless. To learn more about the StriveCloud building blocks app gamification that can power your app, read our blog post on how exactly it works.

Case study: the HumanForest loyalty program making London greener

HumanForest is a London-based shared mobility company with the aim of making transportation emission-free! The app successfully promotes ecological behavior using the building blocks from StriveCloud. We helped the HumanForest team develop a gamification strategy based on their goals. By leveraging our app gamification building blocks, they spiced up the user and brand experience. This method even articulated their brand mission.

These are a few features that have transformed the HumanForest loyalty system:

An in-game currency that incentivizes green transportation

Using building blocks allows HumanForest to introduce elements one by one, and the in-game currency was one of the first that HumanForest decided to integrate. HumanForest’s TreeCoins are unique in that they represent how many trees worth of CO2 you have saved by riding an e-bike! This visualization makes the currency feel much more tangible – and in turn a more valuable achievement.

Leaderboards that rank how many trees users have saved

HumanForest ranks every user in the community, based on the TreeCoins they’ve collected. Needless to say, this makes users feel more motivated! The sense of competition in the customer community motivates users to participate. The genius of using building blocks is how easy it is to implement new features like the leaderboard that complement existing ones like the TreeCoins. As a result of this strategy, the user benefits from a consistent and streamlined user experience.

The results for HumanForest? Success! An amazing 35,000 Londoners are using the platform to make their travel greener – benefitting themselves, the city, and the planet. In view of their achievements, HumanForest is valued at an exciting €37.7 million, and their satisfying user experience promises to make the app a major player in the e-bike/mobility market across Europe.

TLDR

• Research shows that loyalty leaders grow revenues 2.5x as fast as their peers.
• App gamification can guide the journey in optimizing your platform.
• Revolut’s loyalty program introduced a gamified discount that boosted transactions per user by 590%!
• But that success is rare - fintech has under half the average app user retention.
• Bad loyalty programs can result in costly account inactivity, wasteful low redemption rates, and high transaction & management costs!
• Gamification improves your loyalty system by providing intrinsic motivation.
• Intrinsic drivers are crucial for long-term user retention & loyalty.
• You can create both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation with gamification features such as progress bars, challenges, and contextual notifications.
• An easy and flexible way to implement these features is with in-app gamification building blocks such as the one by StriveCloud.
• HumanForest has used our app gamification to succeed - creating a loyal community of 35,000 across London alone

Looking to drive user motivation on your app? Discover our app gamification building blocks!

Grow your app in 2022 with these 15 app growth tactics!

Mobile app growth is a key focus for 2022, and this article outlines effective strategies to engage and retain users.

2021 was a watershed year for mobile. For the first time ever, over 7 billion people are active mobile phone users. That’s nearly every single human on the planet! This rapid growth presents opportunities for app developers to grow their user base. Moving into the new year, mobile app engagement moves up on the priority list! But how do you do that in 2022? From gamification examples like badges and points to social media integration, there are many ways to make your app more exciting.

In this article, we’ll cover 15 of the best growth tactics to watch in 2022.

1. How 2021 sets the scene
2. A smart gamification strategy made to motivate
3. Optimize your loading times
4. Augmented reality is here to stay
5. On-demand is an expectation, not a luxury
6. Take advantage of the power of AI
7. Ensure your retargeting is up to scratch
8. Make onboarding matter
9. Hyper-casual is the next big thing
10. Partner with established companies
11. Free trials and subscriptions are on the up
12. Integration, integration, integration!
13. Work on your App Store Optimization
14. Personalization can overcome age differences
15. Grow your in-app community
16. ‘Creativity, creation & connection’ will define 2022

How 2021 sets the scene

Rebounding from the chaos of 2020, new habits like working from home have now become the status quo for many. So what is the state of play as we begin the new year?

Consumer behavior is shifting:

• Consumers in developed markets now spend 33% of their time on mobile - equalling an eye-watering 3.8 TRILLION hours of screen time
• 70% of that time is spent on social media & photo or video apps
• But behavior differs wildly with age - Gen Z are the most active and social

This chart highlights how different generations engage with mobile apps, with Gen Z leading in social and video consumption.

And competition is tougher than ever (but so is the prize!):

• Global mobile ad spend is up 23% and hit a record $295 billion
• 233 apps generated over $100 million in 2021 - 13 of them over $1 billion
• More apps than ever - 2 million released in 2021 alone

The graph illustrates the significant revenue generated by top-performing apps, underscoring the high stakes and potential rewards in the mobile market.

So how do you grow your app in this market? These are the 15 best app growth tactics for 2022:

#1 A smart gamification strategy made to motivate

Gamification can be one of the smartest ways to grow your app! Case studies have shown that gamification examples can result in a 500% increase in 90-day user retention. That’s an enormous boost, especially when you consider that a jump of just 5% in user retention can boost profits by as much as 25-95%!

Gamification works by motivating users, in turn driving up mobile app engagement. Gamification examples like badges, points, and rewards entice users with science-backed behavioral studies. The motivational drivers pushed by gamification are common to us all, which is what makes gamification so effective and pervasive!

New to gamification? Catch up to speed with our ‘What is Gamification’ page!

#2 Optimize your loading times

Don’t make your users wait. The first 5 seconds are critical for future mobile app engagement - every added second of load time reduces your conversion rate by over 4%! But in case your users have to wait, one gamification example like fun loading screens can make the wait less painful.

#3 Augmented reality is here to stay

Implemented right, AR can be a huge driver of mobile app engagement. For example, Snapchat generates over 6 billion AR interactions every day! But AR goes far beyond face filters. For instance, banking apps can use augmented reality to show customers their closest ATM, and mobility apps can use easily display info to users on the move.

#4 On-demand is an expectation, not a luxury

On-demand is not limited to shared mobility apps like Uber or food delivery apps. In banking, instant transfers are now an essential feature. Current statistics show that on-demand services make $57 billion a year - and this will only increase. In addition, as 5G becomes more widespread, people will get used to having things instantly!

#5 Take advantage of the power of AI

Artificial intelligence can totally transform your app. To name just one example, smarter chatbots will lead to more efficient and effective customer service, as well as a scalable approach to customer engagement! This will prepare your app for future growth.

This graph shows the projected growth of the AI market, emphasizing its increasing importance for enhancing app functionality and user experience.

#6 Ensure your retargeting is up to scratch

Low rates of user retention plague the app market. Today, around 90% of new users will churn within 30 days. To improve that number, your retargeting strategy is crucial. A great tool you should use is contextual, personalized push notifications that hit your user at the right time with the right words. Pro tip: use a little personality! Personalized notifications are a great way to implement gamification examples into your app in a less obvious way.

Make retention a core part of your app strategy with StriveClouds’ gamification building blocks. Find out what it could mean for you!

#7 Make onboarding matter

Onboarding is the first hurdle your customers face in the app, and you need to make it matter! This is where the value of your app should be clear. Don’t ask prying questions or immediately request that new users sign up. How will they know if they want to sign up if they haven’t tried the app? Optimize your onboarding to avoid frustrating your users and pushing them to churn.

This example of a streamlined onboarding process demonstrates how to welcome new users effectively without overwhelming them with unnecessary steps.

#8 Hyper-casual is the next big thing

The App Annie report for 2022 shows that hyper-casual gaming is on an ‘astronomical rise’. Hyper-casual games are minimalistic, easy-to-play, and free-to-play and were the fastest-growing app genre of 2021. What does this mean for non-gaming apps? Ultimately, these apps will change consumer expectations. Think free, fun, and fast.

#9 Partner with established companies

Partnerships can be mutually beneficial. For newcomers, established institutions bring trust and know-how, meanwhile, the big names can benefit from new innovations. For example in banking, fintech Cake partnered with the Belgian bank Argenta to create a personalized rewards program that drives mobile app engagement. In shared mobility, e-scooter company Circ joined with Spanish train operator Renfe and taxi app Cabify to create an integrated mobility app that benefits all three companies.

#10 Free trials and subscriptions are on the up

Offering people something valuable before asking them to fork over their hard-earned cash is called reciprocity - and it works. As of the end of 2021, in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions grew 15% year-on-year, an increase of $4 billion!

#11 Integration, integration, integration!

Your mobile phone can do what took multiple devices to do just a few years ago. Apps are headed the same way! We have moved past ‘there is an app for that’ and people want integrated platforms. Research by fintech unicorn Klarna confirms the fact:

David Sandström, Chief Marketing Officer at Klarna - "70% of mobile shoppers are looking for a single app that better unites services and features instead of switching between apps".

#12 Work on your App Store Optimization

Optimizing your page on the app store is certain to boost growth. For one, it is a potential new user’s first impression of your app. Strong branding and good reviews can be enough to encourage people to pay upfront, should you run on a paid model. In addition, a page with more memorable and relevant keywords will push your app further up the search results page. That’s more eyeballs on your product for completely free!

As an example, the App Growth Network’s advice for meditation app Ten Percent Happier rewarded the app with a 10% conversion boost and a 40% increase in installs.

#13 Personalization can overcome age differences

Whilst generations differ in what apps they use, that doesn’t mean your app has to pick one age group to target. The key to growing with a diverse userbase is personalization! Personalizing your app gives each individual user personal benefits and attention, making them feel valued. You can do this through contextual or behavioral targeting, essentially using the user’s data to better tailor their app experience.

Fintech app Moven does this excellently, leveraging user data to learn when is the best time to remind users to save up some of their cash. CEO Brett King notes that upon a repeat notification, users are 50% more likely to save their money!

Moven's impulse saving feature illustrates how personalized, data-driven notifications can encourage positive financial habits in users.

#14 Grow your in-app community

Social apps continue to garner the highest level of mobile app engagement. Social features in your app can do the same. Studies show brands with in-app communities have 60% more loyal customers! Users are motivated to return due to a sense of belonging. A truly social experience can be created with gamification examples like user avatars, community challenges, and leaderboards.

#15 ‘Creativity, creation & connection’ will define 2022

No matter what vertical you are working in, every app needs to offer the three critical C’s: creativity, creation, and connection! Making the most of these concepts will create a rounded app that fulfills the need of your customers and drives mobile app engagement.

Get your app ready to skyrocket in 2022! Book a value-packed gamification workshop & design a custom gamification strategy & roadmap to achieve your goals!