Top 6 trends transforming fintech that you need to know in 2022

The fintech landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by significant growth and innovation throughout 2022.

Fintech enters 2022 with record strength. 2021 saw the sector become more powerful and globalized than ever before, with user numbers around the world up 337% from 2020! This era of expansion is leading to fast change - and your fintech app needs to keep up. In this article, we’ll outline the current trends in fintech that will define the sector’s future. In addition, running down the crucial elements of generating mobile app engagement in 2022, ranging from the essentials to gamification examples like points.

• How fintech is changing: the state of play
• The future of fintech is growth
• 6 essential fintech trends you need to know in 2022
• What every fintech app needs for mobile app engagement
• Why trust is make or break - and how to create it
• TLDR

How fintech is changing: the state of play

Comparing 2021 to 2020, investment in fintech nearly doubled! Hidden within that statistic is an incredible fact that the fintech fever has truly gone global. Since 2018, over 100 new unicorns have appeared every year, all of them spread across different continents of the world.

This graph illustrates the global spread of fintech unicorns, highlighting the industry's expansion beyond traditional markets and demonstrating how mobile app engagement is a worldwide phenomenon.

Indeed, the gap between developed and developing markets is closing when it comes to fintech. In regions such as South America, officials estimate that hundreds of millions of people live without a bank account. All the while, the number of mobile users in South America is skyrocketing! The World Bank thinks that fintech is key to boosting the use of bank accounts across much of the emerging world, and you can already see it happening.

In short, the facts all speak to unprecedented growth! To be sure, the success is especially clear when you compare the events in fintech against other industries.

A comparison of industry investment shows that fintech is out-performing many other sectors, signaling strong investor confidence and the high potential for growth.

The future of fintech is growth

At the moment, fintech looks to be heading towards enormous user growth. While the whole industry is doing well, the apps that garner the most attention from investors are mass-appeal B2C verticals, such as payments and stock investments. Simply put, these apps have the power to attract millions of users from across the population! Everyone needs a bank, and more people than ever are getting into the stock market.

Mass-appeal B2C verticals like payments and investments are attracting significant attention, pointing to where future growth will be concentrated.

The predicted boom is already well underway, and user growth has been exceptional. From 2020 to 2021, the number of daily active users for fintech apps grew a whopping 337%! What does this mean for the future of fintech apps? For sure, the next few years will mean expansion into new markets and an increased focus on scalability.

The remarkable increase in daily active users for fintech apps underscores the massive expansion and user adoption underway.

However, there is more to it than that. Game-changing innovations have made new and amazing things possible. Not just in technology, but also in-app development! We’re seeing more gamification examples that keep users motivated and engaged. Tech-wise, recent years have seen cross-border payments become mainstream, have made stock investing easier than ever, and turned instant bank transfers into a common sight. What is to come in 2022 will build on those advances.

6 essential fintech trends you need to know in 2022

This year, fintech can expect to double down on some things that were already popular in 2021, as well as the widespread adoption of new technologies. Here are the 6 prevailing trends likely to have the biggest impact:

#1 Artificial intelligence is improving, and its integration is speeding up

If anything is going to change fintech in 2022, it will be artificial intelligence (AI). Consultancy firm McKinsey estimates that advances in AI may generate up to $1 trillion additional value for the global banking industry every year.

This chart visualizes the potential trillion-dollar value AI could add to the banking industry, emphasizing its transformative power for mobile app engagement.

How will AI achieve this incredible return on investment? Simply put, smarter algorithms give apps the power to better personalize their platforms to each individual user, resulting in an improvement to metrics across the board, from cheaper customer acquisition, higher levels of user retention, and more active mobile app engagement.

For one, AI will help create seamless omnichannel experiences, lowering the barriers to engagement from users interacting with your brand in their preferred method. But more specifically, there are other ways that AI will boost the industry, such as better enabling ‘embedded finance’.

#2 New tech means a new boom in ‘embedded finance’

Embedded finance is a relatively recent development, thanks to the many ways customers can now interact with their mobile and manage their finances. In short, this means the seamless integration of financial services into non-financial products. Think voice banking with Amazon Alexa or easily make payments from your smartwatch. Experts believe it will become a huge part of fintech. Estimates show it will grow an impressive 10x bigger in value between 2020 and 2025.

The projected 10x growth in embedded finance by 2025 highlights a major shift toward integrating financial services into everyday platforms, a key area for gamification and engagement insights.

In China, embedded finance is already the norm. In 2021, nearly 80% of smartphone users made payments on mobile, compared to just 22% in Germany! Of those in China who do pay through mobile, 90% of Chinese mobile transactions go through WeChat - a social media platform - or AliPay, the payments arm of Alibaba, China’s Amazon. Indeed, this shows the way forward that is yet to emerge in Europe and the USA.

#3 Contextual services will bring fintech closer to their customers

In relation to embedded finance, contextual services will be the next big thing. In practice, this contextualization allows apps to interact with users in a way that fits with their individual context. Nobody wants to receive offers or prods to try features that don’t attract them. That would become clutter, rather than provide value! To do this, contextual services use gamification examples like personalized notifications.

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

Research shows contextual notifications boost push notification conversion rate by 40%! The essence of contextual notifications is giving users messages that are tailored to them and sent at the most relevant time. Ultimately, the big challenge here is to understand the customer and their buying behavior. Increasingly, AI is enabling product managers to know these things.

#4 Sustainability will continue to hold importance for consumers

The race to net zero is taking off, and fintech will be a crucial part of the picture. By 2030, sustainable business models are set to unlock revenues of as much as $12 trillion. These earnings - and carbon savings - will be made by leveraging fintech’s talents for digitalization, technology, and data. BBVA, for example, is investing $200 billion to make their organization more environmentally friendly. What’s more, their program BBVA Game uses gamification examples like points to reward users who watch videos about these important subjects.

Gen Z, those born after 1998, are a huge reason why banks are seeing this as the future, and this will continue in 2022.

#5 Gen Z is a crucial generation for fintech apps - more than ever

In short, 66% of Gen Z’ers use fintech regularly, making them a heavily represented group. This number is likely to increase as the generation ages, and as their purchasing power rises. Notably, this demographic supports the decision of banking to go sustainable. In fact, 94% of Gen Z expect companies to urgently address climate change! On this note, there are more challenges ahead for fintech.

#6 Regulators are beginning to seriously scrutinize fintech

Fintech’s growth comes with caveats. The more money the sector makes, the more attention governments will pay to it. Indeed, large fintech apps have already come under the hammer. After an incredible period of growth for N26, one of Europe’s largest neobanks, the German authorities put a cap on the number of new users the app can sign monthly. In 2022, both regulators and customers alike expect safe and responsible platforms.

What every fintech app needs for mobile app engagement

Given the effects of these trends, what does every fintech app need to face up to the challenges involved? In short, consumers are resolute in what the most important features of a fintech app are.

Consumer survey results show that basic functions like security and ease of use are paramount for fintech app users, which provides key insights for improving engagement.

However, long-lasting mobile app engagement requires more than just basic functions. Gamification examples such as points, rewards, and even badge systems can be used to enhance your platform. For example, Revolut’s rewards program or Monobank’s badge system has been shown to have motivated users to continue banking. Not to mention, a higher level of mobile app engagement can lead to a closer brand relationship, and in turn an increased level of trust in your product/service.

This visual compilation of gamification elements demonstrates how features like points, badges, and rewards can effectively drive user engagement in fintech applications.

Boost your fintech app through financial expertise & behavioral design - check out our app gamification solutions!

Why trust is make or break - and how to create it

Belgian fintech expert Bjorn Cumps notes that “traditional finance players are still our most trusted advisors, even today – even after the financial crisis”. Because of this, he adds, most people still use their fintech app only in addition to their traditional bank. But he predicts it won’t be that way for long.

When it comes to handling customers’ money, trust is of course crucial. You can create trust with your users by showing you are attending to their needs. Gamification examples can power up your trust-building strategy in many ways, for example by creating personalized and contextual notifications that show you know what makes your users tick. These gamification features should be used to leverage positive feelings in the customer, such as how BBVA awards points for watching financial education videos.

In addition, a high level of customer service is essential. Research shows that 1 in 3 customers would leave a brand they ‘love’ after just ONE bad experience! Simply put, the market is maturing, and people know what they want and what they can expect. There is no way around it - to be successful in 2022, you need to offer what your users are asking for. If not, customers are now in the position to take their business somewhere else.

TLDR

• Daily active users on fintech apps up 337% between 2020 and 2021.
• At the same time, investment in fintech nearly doubled!
• Everything points to growth, with the sector expanding globally.

The 6 trends that will affect fintech in 2022:

• Artificial intelligence is improving, and its integration is speeding up!
• New tech means a new boom in ‘embedded finance’.
• Contextual services will bring fintech closer to its customers.
• Sustainability will continue to hold importance for consumers.
• Gen Z is a crucial generation for fintech apps - more than ever.
• Regulators will start to seriously scrutinize fintech.

To tackle these trends and take advantage of the growth in fintech, apps need to become experts in mobile app engagement. This involves gamification examples like the points in Revolut’s rewards system, or badges in Monobank’s app - both very successful apps!

Lift up your app in 2022! Book a value-packed gamification workshop & design a custom gamification strategy & roadmap to achieve your fintech app engagement goals!

Top 34 customer experience statistics to guide your app growth in 2023

This graphic sets the stage for the importance of customer experience in modern app development and growth.

Mobile app engagement has never been more important. To put a figure on it, app downloads rose 63% since 2016. Last year, there were a staggering 230 billion installs! With the shift to mobile, customer experience leaders have a competitive edge. Mobile is all about the experience, and product managers know it to be true - today customer experience optimization is named the top priority for businesses.

In this article, we’ll list the 34 customer experience statistics you need to know to help grow your app through 2023, whether you’re in mHealth, fintech, or other market segments.

• Why customer experience optimization is inevitable
• How consumer behavior is leading the way
• 5 statistics that show how companies are reacting to the shift
• How a better mobile app experience boosts growth
• The do’s and don’ts of customer experience optimization
• What lessons can we learn from these customer experience statistics?

Why customer experience optimization is inevitable

In short, two of the biggest reasons for this change in consumer behavior are the coming of age of Gen Z, those aged 18-24, and app market saturation and maturation.

Gen Z cares about the customer experience:

• 88% of Gen Z prefer digital and seamless omnichannel branded experiences.
• 62% will not use apps that are hard to navigate.
• 60% will not use apps that are slow to load.
• A good customer experience will turn Gen Z into brand advocates! Gen Z are the most likely generation to recommend a brand they have an affinity for.

This chart illustrates the significant presence of Gen Z users across the app market, underscoring their influence on digital experiences.

Customer experience is the new key battleground in a growing app market

• In a market with more apps than ever, customer experience (CX) has overtaken price and product as the most important brand differentiator.
• More than 66% of companies now compete primarily over CX – an increase from just 36% in 2010!
• Consultancy firm PWC found that the number of companies investing in a seamless omnichannel experience has jumped from 20% to more than 80%.

This graphic highlights how the focus has shifted from price and product to customer experience as the key brand differentiator in the app industry.

Lift up your customer experience with gamification! Find out everything you need to know on our ‘What is Gamification” page!

How consumer behavior is leading the way

Users know what they want. In order to deliver it, apps need to focus on customer experience optimization. To be sure, consumer attitudes are clear on the matter:

• People choose mobile because it’s a timesaver! 76% of people say they use mobile to purchase items or pay, not because it’s convenient, but saves time.
• 74% of consumers say they are partial to buying based on experience alone.
• 66% of mobile users say a frustrating user experience damages their opinion of the brand, with 55% saying it will make it less likely they engage again.
• 1 in 3 customers would leave a brand they love after just one bad experience.
• Moreover, 92% would completely abandon ship after three bad interactions!

The data shows a dramatic drop-off, with 92% of customers abandoning a brand after just two or three bad interactions, emphasizing the high stakes of CX.

5 statistics that show how companies are reacting to the shift

Businesses are already investing in customer experience optimization, and app developers across the market are making an effort to pave the right way forward.

• 87% of organizations believe that traditional customer experience is no longer enough to satisfy customer expectations and demands.
• Consultancy firm Gartner predicts that by 2023, 25% of organizations will integrate marketing, sales, and CX into a single function.
• Over 90% of enterprises now employ a ‘Chief Experience Officer’.
• More companies are learning what they need to succeed. 55% of CX leaders say their biggest challenge in customer experience optimization is a lack of tools.
• The best-performing companies are 9x more likely to integrate customer data from multiple sources, analyzing and engaging in a cross-channel way.

This graph illustrates that leading companies are significantly more likely to integrate customer data from multiple sources to create a cohesive cross-channel experience.

Although, while many companies are now prioritizing the customer experience, not all are choosing to increase their investment! Research finds that only 44% of businesses are predicted to actually put more money down on improving the customer experience.

Of course, if you want your users to leave with a positive experience, you have to invest in it - one way or another. To be sure, it will represent a return on investment!

How a better mobile app experience boosts growth

Boasting a great customer experience can give your app what it needs to thrive. On the other hand, a bloated and frustrating experience can do the opposite. ‘Better’ can mean many things, from clear, fun, engaging, or just plain simple. In 2021, an estimated $402 billion was left on the table by companies failing to provide a ‘simple’ experience. Don’t fall prey to this trap! Instead, reap the rewards of a great user experience:

A boost to the company wallet

• Customers will pay as much as a 16% price premium for a great experience.
• CX leaders see over 1.5x higher annual growth compared to other companies in customer retention, repeat purchases, and customer lifetime value.

As shown, CX leaders see over 1.5 times higher growth in key metrics like customer retention and lifetime value, directly impacting the company's bottom line.

Make customer acquisition, retention, and referrals more effective

• 71% of people will recommend a product when they have a ‘great experience’.
• 65% say a positive experience is more influential than great advertising.
• 65% of consumers say they would become loyal customers of a brand if they can provide positive experiences through the whole customer journey.

Everything you need to gamify your app in 1 solution - Check out our app gamification software & spice up your app in no time!

The do’s and don’ts of customer experience optimization

Ultimately, the question is ‘what do your users want?’ That depends on what field your app lies in, but there are some prevailing trends that can guide you through 2023:

Do’s

• Make chatbot and customer interactions fluid and organic. This one is crucial, as 78% of consumers say their impression of customer service is improved when agents don’t sound like they’re reading from a script.
• Ensure customer-facing employees know what they’re talking about! 46% of consumers will abandon a brand if employees are not knowledgeable.
• Interact with your users online. A study found that answering a customer complaint on social media can increase advocacy by as much as 25%.
• Invest in omnichannel experiences. A study by Adobe found that companies with the strongest omnichannel engagement strategies enjoy a 10% year-over-year growth.
• Test optimization. Find the most effective schemes for your CTA buttons, UI design and layouts. Not only it will improve your app, but it will also increase the conversion rate.

This visual represents the importance of a smooth, omnichannel experience, where users expect seamless interactions across all touchpoints with a brand.

Don’ts

• Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth advertising. 50% of people would choose word-of-mouth if they could pick only one information source!
• In short, don’t forget to have a seamless omnichannel experience! 71% of customers expect customer service agents to already have all the details on their previous interactions with the brand.
• Above all, don’t make things confusing! Over half of consumers will abandon any sort of purchase if they can’t find a quick answer to their question.

What lessons can we learn from these customer experience statistics?

Without a doubt, customer experience optimization is a necessary step in app development. As an app publisher, you should be consistently analyzing and optimizing your CX. The process should always be on repeat because no design works forever, and only by being truly user-centric can an app thrive. It’s a fact that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those without a clear user focus.

Put simply, optimizing your CX means listening to your customer’s demands and meeting them the best you can. It’s what users expect today, and given the stiff competition being seen across the board in the app market, it’s what they’ll likely find somewhere! Make sure your app is the one that people choose by optimizing your CX and leading your app down a path of growth through 2023 and beyond.

Want to build a thriving userbase? Book a gamification workshop & go home with an actionable roadmap tailored to your app goals!

The 6 stages of the customer experience and the best ways to improve them in 2023

This introductory image sets the stage for discussing the customer experience journey in mobile apps.

2022 was an impressive year for mobile apps. In the US alone, consumer spending on apps increased by a whopping $7 billion compared to 2021! But such rapid growth also brings challenges. Is your app ready for what 2023 will bring? Right now, trends are encouraging app publishers to develop customer experience optimization strategies for the complete mobile app funnel. That means building acquisition engines, as well as a sticky reward system that boosts user retention!

In this article, let’s cover how you can optimize your customer journey with the Mobile App Funnel & what gamification can do to power up that strategy.

• How 2022 was a big year for apps (and why 2023 will be too)
• Introducing the Mobile App Funnel: a customer experience optimization technique
• The 6 stages of the mobile app funnel (and how to activate user behavior)
• How StriveCloud can help with your app gamification journey

How 2022 was a big year for apps (and why 2023 will be too)

With a market set to grow 21% every year between 2021 and 2025, things will not stay the same for long. Indeed, a steady ship is rare in a rising tide.

Looking at the app market at the macro level, we see accelerated growth from top to bottom. More than 2 million new apps were published in 2022, bringing the total to a record over 21 million. Of that number, 233 apps make over $100 million annually, up an incredible 20% in just 1 year.

So the statistics show that the stakes are getting higher, the prizes bigger, and the competition stiffer. But 2022 did pick some winners when it came to growth:

Some app categories are excelling when it comes to mobile app engagement

This graph illustrates the impressive growth in mobile app engagement across various sectors like finance and food retail.

Out of all the app categories, finance is the sector that new users are flocking to most. In 2021, the average number of finance apps used monthly increased by 32.5% compared to 2019. That higher level of mobile app engagement gives more finance apps a chance to gain a loyal customer base! In addition, food retail and mHealth are growing in this metric. However, the market is headed for a shakeup in 2023 due to one development:

5G is on the rise - and users expect speed and efficiency improvements

By the end of 2027, nearly half of all devices will support 5G connections. This will drastically affect the customer experience users can expect to enjoy:

• 5G is 100x faster than today’s 4G
• 5G will allow for more integration of AR and VR tech
• Latency times will reduce from 50 milliseconds to just 1 millisecond!
• Fintech will process faster and more secure mobile payments
• Deeper mHealth integration with wearable devices will eventually become possible

The chart highlights key trends in the mobile app market, emphasizing the rapid adoption of new technologies like 5G and its impact on user experience.

In short, you need to be confident that your customer experience can steer you through the changes up ahead. That means discussing customer experience optimization.

Introducing the Mobile App Funnel: a customer experience optimization technique

The customer journey is a popular concept among marketeers. It helps to visualize what users experience, all the way from acquisition up to becoming a loyal customer. In other words, inquisitive product managers and marketeers looking to optimize their customer journey can benefit from the ‘mobile app funnel’ model.

It may seem overwhelming to picture all your challenges and goals, but a systemic approach can help break it up into manageable segments. The mobile app funnel, or User Lifecycle stages model, gives you the clarity you need to identify the best interventions you might want to take during every stage of customer interaction.

This diagram visualizes the complete mobile app funnel, outlining the six key stages of the customer journey from acquisition to advocacy.

Of course, your challenges and goals will differ depending on the stage. To tackle and achieve them, you must develop a tailored strategy for every segment of the journey. This might seem obvious, but it’s easy to miss some crucial details when you are looking at the big picture. This model helps identify what solutions you need for each stage.

The 6 stages of the mobile app funnel (and how to activate user behavior)

The mobile app funnel helps to map out your customer experience optimization strategy - but to give it extra legs you may want to consider gamification!

Gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context that aims to integrate a genuinely enjoyable and satisfying reward system. StriveCloud knows the potential benefits of mobile app gamification, from a 9% boost to conversion to a 250% jump in social activity just from a simple gamified leaderboard!

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

With that in mind, let’s see how gamification can activate your users in all 6 stages:

#1 Acquisition: increase your user base

Acquiring users can be difficult and costly. At the end of 2021, the cost per install (CPI) rate across the Google Play Store was $1.22. That’s higher than the average, and much higher than in December 2019 when it was $0.97. In essence, it’s getting more expensive to acquire new users. But that doesn’t mean you are without a solution: a successful App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy can boost your conversions by 10%.

For ASO, word-of-mouth and social media tactics are indispensable. Smarter use of keywords, images, and other tags will increase your app’s ranking in the app store!

The gamification boost: How Revolut gained hundreds of users with a leaderboard

When starting out, Revolut had university leaderboards that encouraged students to sign up. This taps into the need for social relatedness. Simply put, competition is fun. In addition, the reward system built on the prize of a premium membership entices users to sign up! This could generate a buzz, like reviews and high star ratings in the app store that will acquire users and boost your ASO strategy.

Revolut's university leaderboard is a prime example of how gamified competition can drive user acquisition.

#2 Activation: convert acquired users to engaged users

It’s not enough to acquire users, you have to activate them. This entails demonstrating your customer value early on. Most apps lose around 80% of new users in just 1 day! Don’t be like that - instead, optimize and concentrate on your onboarding. In doing so, you could see a 4x times boost to activation metrics!

Onboarding should be short, sweet, and personalized! Fitness apps may want to ask new users their experience level, or fintech app users’ priority (like investing or saving). Subtle touches like this can tell a person that their needs will be met; that they are not simply downloading a one size fits all experience. That’s crucial!

Another thing you can do is give your users a headstart. People are more motivated to complete a goal when there’s already some sort of artificial advancement to it. This is called ‘the endowed progress effect’. Companies like Paypal or Dropbox for instance all use this in their onboarding process, and rightfully so as it can increase onboarding completions by over 10%.

The gamification boost: MuscleBooster uses personalized onboarding to become a Top 10 fitness app

The first thing you want when new users install your app is to immediately see the potential benefits. So when MuscleBooster personalized the customer experience, they gave customers ownership over the user experience – making them more likely to stay.

MuscleBooster's personalized onboarding process demonstrates how tailoring the initial experience leads to higher user activation.

#3 Retention: incentivize habit formation

To stick around, people need to love your product. That much should be clear! At this stage of your customer experience optimization journey, it’s important to have the right data. Here, user retention metrics on Days 1, 7, and 30 are the most important KPIs to keep in mind. Not only will this help you compare your app to the competition, but it will also provide an anchor point to base your efforts on.

At this stage, one of your most powerful tools is customizing in-app communication.

The gamification boost: Personalization gives Calm a 3x boost to user retention

Calm achieved success by letting users set their own push notifications reminding them to meditate. By personalizing push notifications, Calm not only avoids frustrating new users with clutter, but also helps facilitate habit formation, and in turn, retention.

StriveCloud’s gamification building blocks can boost your app. Gamify your app in no time – all suited to your goals!

The Calm app's features show how personalization and habit-forming reminders can significantly boost user retention.

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

Don’t miss out on users who might lapse, after all, you spent this much effort to get them to this stage! It can be super effective to incentivize lapsed users to return with an enticing reward system, such as by offering ‘free stuff’ like premium membership or discounts on exclusive events/features.

The gamification boost: Cashback offers brought back lapsed users for Revolut

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! They achieved a 15% user retention rate, improved visit repetition, and won back lost customers.

Revolut's cashback perk illustrates a powerful re-engagement strategy that brings lapsed users back to the app.

#5 Monetization: increase revenue & convert free users to paying customers

At this point, your user loves your app! But what can you do to increase user activity and improve that customer’s lifetime value? There’s a range of monetization strategies you can go for, from in-app purchases to monthly subscription models. Each has its advantages that you need to consider, depending on what you can offer users.

The gamification boost: BBVA bank monetized 100,000 loyal customers through a smart reward system

BBVA, a leading Spanish bank, created a gamification strategy fit for the loyalty and monetization stage. As part of their strategy, they launched the BBVA Game, a web app with app tutorials and explanations on how to pay taxes and do transactions online.

With their reward system, customers can spend their earned points from completing challenges by redeeming them for music downloads, movies, smartphones, or even tickets for the La Liga football league. This is the sort of ancillary income that can boost your bottom line. After only 6 months, the BBVA game had over 100,000 users and its users showed an 18% higher satisfaction rate!

The results from the BBVA Game highlight how a well-designed reward system can successfully monetize a loyal user base.

#6 Advocacy: a smart strategy that makes people talk about you

A 2015 Nielsen report reveals that 83% of people would trust the recommendations of family or friends. However, only a few brands have mastered the word-of-mouth technique and succeeded in converting their users into proud advocates. Here’s where gamification can make the difference.

Exclusivity is a powerful tool that brands can use at this phase. Think about what would make your users proud to display in front of their friends. More than that, you can reward your advocates for using referral links to register for a new account or simply implementing new incentives that would transform advocacy into a habit.

How StriveCloud can help with your app gamification journey

Just like putting a new splash of paint on artwork is stressful for an artist, implementing new features can be troublesome for app developers. How do you know what you are doing is right? Is this reward system suitable for your app’s users? Will it be easy to adjust or take off, should you need to? With StriveCloud’s app gamification building blocks, you need not worry.

The app gamification blocks allow app publishers 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. Ultimately, this lends your business flexibility - to be sure a competitive advantage in 2023’s fast-moving app market!

Start your own gamification journey with a personalized workshop - Bring your goals & data & go home with an actionable roadmap!

Is food retail ready for 2023? Dr. Penelope Schoutteet shares her insights.

This article explores the future of food retail with insights on consumer behavior and mobile app engagement from expert Dr. Penelope Schoutteet.

Food is the fastest growing sector in e-commerce. This is an exciting development that will greatly affect the customer journey for food retailers. To gain insights into where the sector is headed in 2023, we interviewed Dr. Penelope Schoutteet, an expert in consumer behavior, and one of the latest additions to our team at StriveCloud! To start, the sector is discovering the benefits of mobile app engagement, with market leaders investing in customer experience optimization - both offline and online.

The importance of an omnichannel story is just one of the insights that Dr. Penelope Schoutteet, a PhD holder in Business Engineering from the Free University of Brussels, will share. Omnichannel provides a seamless, continuous, and personalized customer experience across any device or location a customer wishes to shop on.

Her advice forms a handy guide to food retailers looking to inform themselves on what 2023 holds in store, as well as the best ways to adapt to those trends.

• Where 2021 left the food retail market
• 3 important insights into consumer behavior today
• How businesses can adapt by focusing on web & mobile app engagement
• Gamification can leverage your touchpoints and make them more powerful
• Wrap-up

Where 2021 left the food retail market

Supermarkets easily claim the largest share of grocery sales, followed closely by large discounters like Aldi or Lidl. However, as Penelope notes, e-commerce is booming! More and more people are choosing e-commerce over supermarkets. Current forecasts estimate that e-commerce will balloon by €100 billion from 2021 to 2026. In contrast, supermarkets will see their share of the market fall.

This graph illustrates the projected growth of e-commerce in the food retail sector, highlighting its increasing market share compared to traditional supermarkets.

So online food purchases are on the rise, but those impressive growth numbers reveal how low digital penetration currently is, especially in comparison to other sectors.

Dr. Penelope Schoutteet - "During the Covid period, food retailers were never closed, so, unlike other sectors, they did not have to reinvent themselves. Yet, because of Covid, less people were allowed in-store and part of the client base did not feel safe shopping. Thus, the boom in online shopping could be seen more as a revolution instead of an evolution."

Unlike in fashion, for example, food retailers relied on brick-and-mortar stores throughout 2021. The fashion industry had no such luck, given the widespread closures, but the shock was not so severe because digitalization was already underway.

Before the pandemic boosted the number of people shopping online, retail brands like H&M already saw online sales increase by 24%. That was in 2019. In comparison, digital sales for many food retailers saw no rise that year. As a result, the competitive landscape in fashion allowed upstarts and digital-first disruptors like Zalando to thrive. In short, this embedded e-commerce in the sector.

For food, this was not the case. As Penelope notes, the market remained stable. So why is there an online push now, and how will this affect food retailers in 2023?

3 important insights into consumer behavior today

At first glance, there are some persistent barriers to consumers purchasing food online.

• Food relies on recurring purchases, which encourages habitual behavior
• Many customers feel the need to check fresh food for themselves
• Paying for and organizing delivery can be seen as an inconvenience

But consumer behavior is changing. The numbers show that the growth in e-commerce will boost total food retail revenue, rather than simply cannibalizing brick-and-mortar sales. That means that minds are being changed!

So what is the unprecedented shift taking place in consumers’ heads? Penelope shared some important insights into what we saw in 2022:

#1 Customers are sensitive to the nuances of delivery - but not so much about speed

While companies that sell impulse or exceptional purchases like Amazon might emphasize the fastest possible delivery time, the food sector works differently.

Dr. Penelope Schoutteet - "On delivery speed, on whether customers want their food to arrive the next day or not, it is not necessary. Since food is a recurring purchase, consumers know what they want ahead of time. 48 hours is actually a perfect time frame."

In addition, Penelope notes that her research finds that click and collect and home delivery are nearly equally preferred - what customers actually do care about is price. Paying for delivery can lead to customers going in-store instead.

#2 Omnichannel retail is now a must-have

The shopping experience isn’t an offline OR online story. Most people combine both online and offline platforms to complete their shopping journey. One way this manifests for instance is ROPO, or ‘research online, purchase offline’. This concept is clearly visible in the mobile app engagement strategy of some retailers. Belgian giant Colruyt, for example, only lets app users browse and create lists, not purchase directly.

This image of the Colruyt app demonstrates the omnichannel 'research online, purchase offline' (ROPO) strategy in action, where customers use digital tools to prepare for an in-store experience.

As a result of omnichannel consumer behavior, it is more important than ever to focus on customer experience optimization and provide your customers with an original story throughout all channels.

Dr. Penelope Schoutteet - "People prefer a combination of online and offline. When it comes to offline, we must consider travel time. [Store] proximity is key, seeing as food is bought very frequently. Therefore, data is key. You have to know where your customers live, how long it takes them to get to you."

To support this point, research by McKinsey shows that the number 1 reason customers switch retailers is in fact store proximity. To improve your performance in this metric, user data can be easily collected through website and mobile app engagement, such as with the use of digital loyalty programs to further understand where your most loyal customers live.

Looking for a new way to create customer loyalty online? Check out our app gamification software!

On the whole, there needs to be a seamless journey between online and offline channels. Indeed, the benefits are impressive. Research shows that omnichannel grocery shoppers shop more often and spend up to 20% more compared to in-store-only shoppers.

#3 Successful online experiences build trust - and customers are more confident today than ever

In short, delivering food online is not so new anymore. The astronomical growth of meal kit providers like HelloFresh (whose revenue doubled from 2019 to 2020) has made the concept less foreign. As a result, more people now trust that the fresh veggies and meats they order are picked with quality in mind, just as if they themselves had chosen them.

How businesses can adapt by focusing on web & mobile app engagement

In 2023, the power of online channels like websites or mobile apps will continue to grow. Although, as Penelope points out, “the physical channel is still the most important”, the right app strategy can align you with your customers’ wants. As a result, providing you with another touchpoint to leverage.

Ultimately, food retailers can find growth through customer experience optimization.

Dr. Penelope Schoutteet - "It is not always possible to be close to your customers...but since physical stores are very important for food retailers, aligning all channels towards an optimal location strategy is key. If you do not offer online delivery, and customers need to collect, you can have a separate location next to the store to expedite the process."

When it comes to click and collect, customer experience optimization relies on an omnichannel journey

Of course, easy-to-find and front-facing desks with ready-to-help assistance can go a long way to making online purchases more convenient. However, this strategy is optimized when partnered with online platforms like websites and mobile apps. A quick and handy digital ordering process combined with a quick physical collection will give your customers unparalleled value.

For example, web and mobile app engagement can help by giving customers key information before they engage in-store, such as by detailing when the store is at its busiest. This makes the whole process more convenient for the consumer and more efficient for the retailer!

Web & mobile app engagement can build and leverage existing customer loyalty

Food consumers are generally more loyal than those in other sectors. In short, the market is consolidated and alternatives are few. Given this, loyalty schemes have historically not been seen as a priority. But the world of food retail is now finding out that mobile can make customer loyalty stronger.

Simply put, buyer data gathered from mobile apps can better personalize and contextualize offers to users’ preferences. For example, when a user buys a non-food item, the app can assist by making the return policy clear with a push notification. Contextual notifications like this can create a closer brand relationship, and in turn, augment sales and boost loyalty. Efforts like this are an important element of customer experience optimization.

Gamification can leverage your touchpoints and make them more powerful

Gamification is the use of game-like elements in a non-game context. This can take the form of badges, points, and challenges, for example. 2022 could be the year that gamification becomes prevalent in food retail. Indeed, it is starting to gain steam:

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

500,000+ sign-ups for a fruit & veg challenge

In 2021, British retailer Sainsbury’s hosted the ‘Great Big Fruit & Veg challenge’, which challenged app users to set personal targets on healthy eating. Success was rewarded with loyalty card points, which can be used in exchange for discounts. The challenge encouraged over half a million Brits to sign up and resulted in a 9% boost to fresh food sales! By gamifying their customers’ food shop, Sainsbury’s showed a route to growth.

Sainsbury's successful fruit and veg challenge shows how gamified mobile app engagement can directly influence purchasing behavior and boost sales in food retail.

Healthy purchases earn users points (and free delivery)

Similar to Sainsbury’s, Belgian premium retailer Delhaize launched the Delhaize+ card which rewards the purchase of healthy food items with points. What differs here is the advertised possibility of using those points to get discounts with partners. It’s a great way to reward customers for their loyalty and keep them engaged with your brand.

The Delhaize+ points system is a powerful tool for customer experience optimization, rewarding loyalty and encouraging healthier buying habits through gamification.

To add to that, gamification can make delivery more convenient - for both the consumer and the retailer. Rewards such as free delivery or discounted items can push users to a delivery time that suits the store, i.e. when the van is full, or already headed in the user’s direction. As Penelope states, "that’s what customers want. They prefer free delivery".

Of course, this is not always possible. However, consumer behavior can be influenced by leveraging a customer's desire. With the right gamification strategy, you can optimize the customer experience to create life-long brand fans!

Wrap-up

To conclude, food retail is going digital - but not every retailer is ready. Some retailers don’t even have mobile apps, and they will miss out on the growth in e-commerce. Others have an app, but fail to provide sufficient customer value.

Simply put, there are 3 crucial questions:

1. Are you investing in customer experience optimization?
2. Do you have an omnichannel story?
3. Are you using every tool available to boost mobile app engagement?

Consumer behavior is shifting. In the coming years, more and more food retailers will explore the power that gamification has to inspire customer loyalty and engagement. A clever and flexible gamification strategy goes hand in hand with an omnichannel customer journey, ultimately boosting your service offering. This leads us to a final question:

Start optimizing your omnichannel experience today. Book a custom gamification workshop & go home with an actionable roadmap to growth!

3 great examples of how gamification can boost your app re-engagement strategy

Understanding how gamification can enhance an app re-engagement strategy transforms how developers approach user retention.

One of the biggest barriers to mobile app growth is user churn. Across the app market, Day 30 user retention sits around a meager 3.1%. Pressingly for many app publishers, that number represents wasted money spent on acquisition and lost revenue potential. So how does one tackle the problem? To be sure, you cannot face up to the task without a successful re-engagement strategy. That’s why we’ll be looking at some re-engagement tactics & some highly motivating gamification examples like personalization, levels, and points.

Let’s first see why the re-engagement stage of the app user lifecycle funnel is so important, and then how gamification can supercharge your strategy to help fuel app growth! In this article, we cover:

• Where re-engagement fits in the Mobile App Funnel
• How to approach the challenges ahead and get your users hooked
• 3 great re-engagement examples powered by gamification
• Gamification can be the solution for your app too

Where re-engagement fits in the Mobile App Funnel

So, you’ve acquired a user. Congratulations! But you might find that after spending money on acquiring them, (which in 2021 cost $1.22 on average per user), you are not seeing a return on investment. Despite activating your new users with an offer, many simply decide to stop using your app. Indeed, 92% of all new users churn within just 7 days! This is where re-engagement comes in to claw back both users and your cash.

Ultimately, re-engagement differs from user retention in that it allows a broader scope for action. The re-engagement stage has three primary purposes:

#1 Activation

Frequent users are great, but daily users are even better. Generally, the top 20% of customers will make up 80% of your revenue. That’s why you might want to re-engage and further activate some of your users with gamification examples like personalization and rewards to improve their Customer Lifetime Value. For example, a food retail app could track sign-ups and first orders, and follow up on dormant users by offering them a perfectly timed discount code or push notification.

#2 Upselling

Many app marketers use this stage to upsell and incentivize engagement from previous purchasers and cart abandoners. Certainly, these customers are going to be more receptive to re-engagement. In fact, according to a study by Adjust, users generated by a retargeting campaign bring in 37% more revenue events in the first month compared to newly acquired users!

This chart clearly shows the significant revenue lift from retargeted users compared to newly acquired ones, highlighting the financial benefit of a strong re-engagement strategy.

#3 User retention

One of the clearest cases for re-engagement is bringing back lapsed users. Finding success here is rewarding, a 5% boost to retention can boost profits by as much as 95%!

The graph illustrates the powerful connection between increased user retention and profit growth, emphasizing why re-engaging lapsed users is crucial.

But it’s important to understand that user churn doesn’t necessarily represent a failure on your behalf, nor does it mean that the user isn’t fit for your app. It’s just a natural part of the customer journey! That’s why re-engagement is an integral stage of the Mobile App Funnel, and it can be optimized with a tailored gamification strategy.

Optimize your customer journey! Discover how the 5 stages of the Mobile App Funnel can help your app.

How to approach the challenges ahead and get your users hooked

Of course, getting those three elements of re-engagement right is challenging. A common failure is poor segmentation. Essentially meaning that you’re targeting the wrong audience, or not personalizing the experience enough. In the end, this can come from tracking the wrong user events or vanity metrics. On this front, every app marketeer needs to ask themselves, ‘what is the best sign of a valuable user?’

For example, you could track how often a user opens your app. That could tell you your most active users. But on that metric alone you’d be missing some crucial context. Who is better, ultimately, the daily user with a short session length, or the weekly user with a longer session? The answer depends on your app and the vertical you operate in.

To get your answer, and gain a better insight into your users, you need to interact with them and be constantly optimizing your interactions.

Here are 3 ways you can start re-engaging your users:

The power of email

Email is one of the most cost-effective re-engagement strategies because you don’t have to pay a middle man to send the message or ad. Currently, emails benefit from a respectable 21% open rate, with the finance industry seeing even higher at 23%. Of course, the challenge with emails is that you don’t want to become spam. Ultimately, that means giving your users something valuable in the email, such as a discount.

Use push notifications personalized to the individual user

With an average open rate of up to 18%, push notifications can be a very effective way to reach your dormant users. Even better, case studies show that personalized push notifications see a 54% conversion rate! For example, a fitness app for running like Nike Run Club can track when a user usually exercises. But if the user happens to be inactive during that time, then it could be the perfect time for a reminder to exercise.

Gamification that makes the user experience fun and satisfying

They say that the best defense is a good offense. Equally, the best re-engagement is good engagement! A gamified experience introduces game-like elements to make things more engaging and what is called intrinsically motivating. Intrinsic motivation means that the user is motivated by things like fun, personal growth, and a sense of purpose.

This is in contrast to external motivation, which encompasses things like hard results, prizes, and the need to win. To foster long-term engagement, behavioral science shows that you need both! On that note, gamification examples like challenges, points, and rewards are a fantastic way to make your app intrinsically motivating.

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

3 great re-engagement examples powered by gamification

Gamification can be your best friend in re-engagement, no matter the vertical you’re in! Let these examples across mobility, fintech, and fitness show you the way forward:

Ouibus boosts its revenue with a scratch ad re-engagement campaign

Sales can be great - but ideally, they should target users who weren’t intending to purchase anyway! That’s what makes sales and discounts a great technique for re-engagement, and French travel app Ouibus is proof that it works.

This animated ad from Ouibus demonstrates how a simple game, like a scratch card, can make promotional offers more interactive and appealing to users.

Ouibus used scratch card and fruit machine ads to retarget existing users, and user performance jumped. While the discount was the extrinsic motivational factor, gamification made the ad intrinsically motivating - and therefore successful! People like games, and it shows. At the end of the campaign, Ouibus saw a 27% boost in revenue!

The data from the Ouibus campaign shows a clear 27% increase in revenue, proving the effectiveness of using gamified ads for re-engagement.

Fintech app Revolut finds success with a coffee cashback campaign

Cashback is a powerful re-engagement technique, and Revolut used it to great effect. Over a period of 6 months, selected Revolut users were given 6 days to benefit from 50% cashback on purchases at the Notes Coffee chain in London. The results were amazing!

Revolut's cashback perk for coffee purchases is a prime example of a simple, tangible reward that drives user behavior and boosts transaction frequency.

• A 590% uplift in the number of transactions per user vs Non-Perks users
• A 625% boost to incremental sales over the 6 month campaign period
• A 15% user retention rate, improving visit repetition, and winning back lost customers!

Not only did Revolut improve user retention with this campaign, but they also managed to activate users and upsell to them at the same time. Consider that a win-win-win!

Gamify your app, 1 building block at a time! Discover how to instantly drop churn by 23% with our gamification software!

Fitness app SWEAT leverages social media to bring back users

Essentially, part of re-engagement is reminding users of the value you can offer them. What better way is there for a fitness app, then, but to directly show off this value! To facilitate this, women’s workout app SWEAT integrated features that let users brag about their before-and-after exercise photos on social media, reminding their friends and families of the app’s benefits!

The SWEAT app leverages social proof by allowing users to share their fitness progress, which serves as a powerful, user-generated re-engagement tool.

In effect, this helps existing users track their progress, an important gamification dynamic. But the knock-on effect of incentivizing this behavior hugely impacts lapsed users. Not only is this strategy free, (your users do the re-engagement work for you), social media can amplify your message faster than you can imagine. In fact, SWEAT’s CEO actually says this feature is the reason the app became successful!

Gamification can be the solution for your app too

Seeing users churn is frustrating. In the end, users quitting is a sign that an app doesn’t give them enough reason to stick around. That’s what makes re-engagement so crucial because it means a user churning isn’t the final chapter! It absolutely is possible to re-engage users, and more than that, it’s a necessity - case studies are clear that re-engaged users are more valuable for your business than newly acquired ones.

On top of that, gamification examples like rewards can double your efforts in re-engagement. Of course, developing a re-engagement strategy can be an intensive top-down exercise. But you needn’t make it hard on yourself.

Instead, StriveCloud runs workshops led by gamification experts that can start your journey. We start by looking at your goals & data to send you home with an initial gamification concept & a tailored roadmap to gradually implement it into your app!

With user acquisition costs on the rise, and competition harder than ever, there has never been a more important time to focus on your existing users and make the most of them. That’s why your app needs a re-engagement strategy you are happy with, and gamification can give your plan the power it needs to truly re-engage your users!

Get started on your own gamification journey today! Book a custom gamification workshop!

Wrap-up

Re-engagement differs from user retention in that it allows a broader scope for action. It has three primary purposes:

1. Activation – The top 20% of customers will make up 80% of your revenue.
2. Upselling - A retargeting campaign brings in 37% more revenue events in the first month compared to newly acquired users!
3. User retention - A 5% boost to retention can boost profits by as much as 95%!

So how can you actually go about re-engaging your users?

• The power of email - Email is one of the most cost-effective re-engagement strategies because you don’t have to pay a middle man to send the message or ad. The challenge with emails is that you don’t want to become spam.
• Use personalized push notifications - Case studies show that personalized push notifications see a 54% conversion rate!
• Make the user experience sticky with gamification - They say that the best defense is a good offense. Equally, the best re-engagement is good engagement! There are plenty of gamification examples that make grunt work in apps more meaningful or just improve the overall experience.

How to use gamification to power up your re-engagement strategy? Let’s look at some successful gamification examples:

• French travel app Ouibus boosted revenue by 27%through a gamified re-engagement ad. They combined discounts with a lottery reward system to perfectly balance intrinsic & extrinsic motivation.
• Fintech app Revolut created a reward program for its users & actively pushed it to its userbase. Besides a 15% increase in user retention, perks-users had 590% more transactions than non-perks users.
• Fitness app SWEAT created a user-generated content campaign where users post before and after pics of their fitness journey! The CEO said this feature is the reason the app became successful! And best of all, it’s free!

Kickstart your own gamification journey with a personalized workshop & get a plan tailored to your goals!

17 proven strategies to increase app engagement and retention

This article outlines 17 proven strategies for increasing mobile app engagement and retention through methods like gamification.

There’s one question today that should be on the minds of all app makers & marketeers: How can I increase my mobile app engagement? Numerous studies and research papers show that, without a doubt, user engagement is crucial for your app’s survival and growth. So what are some proven strategies for increasing app engagement and retention? Can an app gamification platform help you? How does a gamified app prevent user churn?

In short, engagement leads to user retention, and retention leads to financial success. Case in point - 90% of new users who engage weekly are retained on Day 30. The alternative, those who don’t engage weekly, see a retention rate of just 23%. And those retained users are more likely to spend - and more likely to spend big!

Slash user churn with app gamification! Check out our definitive guide to app engagement & retention and get ahead of the competition.

But to get your numbers as high as that 90%, you need to take action. To guide your journey, here are 17 of the best strategies for increasing app engagement and retention.

• Why you need an omnichannel customer experience to diminish user churn
• App gamification can incentivize activation and drive user engagement
• An optimized onboarding flow boosts conversions & user activation
• Align product and marketing to cut user churn
• Send a welcome message to boost user activation
• Integrate your user permission requests to limit user churn
• Skip the tutorial and utilize frictionless tooltips to lift app engagement & user activation
• Drive positive reviews with smartly placed notifications & app gamification
• Test, test, test your CX (and boost user retention)
• Personalized push notifications create a better experience
• Chatbots can recover frustrated customers & restore user engagement
• Boost app engagement by creating urgency
• Deep linking removes friction, leading to more user engagement
• Catch your flagging users before they churn and re-engage them
• Measure how app engagement drives growth
• These gamified app dynamics will supercharge user engagement
• Rewards for loyal customers: the advantages of a gamified app loyalty program!
• FAQ - what can you learn from these app engagement & gamification examples?

Why you need an omnichannel customer experience to diminish user churn

An omnichannel customer experience (CX) means having a seamless transition between different channels. In effect, this empowers the customer to interact with you how they prefer - perhaps by researching online, then purchasing in-store or over the phone - without facing obstacles or frustrations like starting over.

But why is it so important? Because brands with the best omnichannel strategies see an average 89% user retention rate - compared to just 33% for those who don’t. This stems from sticking to consumer preferences. Take the banking industry, for example. According to a study by Efma & Backbase, 100% of bankers perceive omni-channel an important aspect, but a mere 1 in 5 banks is implementing this strategy. The importance of omni channel in finance and other industries is only expected to grow, considering that 50% of today's customers regularly use more than 4 digital touchpoints.

App gamification drives user engagement (and leads to a healthier business)

One of the most transformative things you can do for your app is introduce gamification. By implementing game-like elements such as challenges, points, and rewards, you can incentivize user engagement and keep your users hooked.

Gamification makes your app intrinsically motivating - meaning users aren't just motivated by simple factors like prizes and results, but also by fun and the need for personal growth. Some tools like a gamification platform help you build your own gamified app without needing excessive code. Simple features can make a big difference!

Take leaderboards, for example. They fulfill the personal needs of growth and competence when the user feels confident in their own ability. That’s extremely empowering - and users love it! One of the great gamification examples is Fitbit! They found their leaderboard alone led to a 15% increase in daily user engagement!

This graph illustrates how gamification can significantly boost user engagement and activation rates, a key theme in enhancing app performance.

How to get started with app gamification? Book a gamification workshop & kick-start your app engagement strategy.

An optimized onboarding flow boosts conversions & user activation

Some fintech businesses are losing approximately 50% of their potential clients due to an inefficient onboarding experience. But if you’re a gamified app like French fintech Shine, that user activation rate could be 80%!

This drastic increase is down to the strategies for increasing app engagement & retention that Shine implemented. Let’s look at some gamification examples from their app:

• Progress bars give users instant feedback, increasing customer perception of app responsiveness.
• Fun digital confetti to celebrate free, unlimited accounts!
• Colorful and interactive motion design keeps the UX fresh.

Not to mention, their onboarding follows the concept of one screen, one action. Don’t frustrate your users - keep it simple!

Align product and marketing to cut user churn

There is no faster road to user churn than making your user feel like they’ve been duped. When marketing doesn’t reflect the product, it is highly damaging. For one, you waste the money you spent on acquisition. But moreover, you create negative word-of-mouth!

To prevent this, show previews of your user interface in the app store and make sure you’re using the right keywords to describe your app.

HumanForest provides a clear example of aligning marketing with product by showing its user interface directly in the app store, demonstrating key features like renting an e-bike.

Send a welcome message to boost user activation!

You might ask yourself: How can I increase my mobile app engagement without spending much time in product development? Well, a quick welcome email can jump-start the relationship with your customer! In fact, mobile apps are best placed to benefit from this tool. Research by Litmus finds that 56% of emails are opened on mobile, whilst just 19% of emails go through a desktop.

What’s more, a gamification platform can increase the positive effect. Adding a discount or offer increases the value for the customer, as shown by the travel app Ixigo. When they offered a voucher in their first email, Ixigo achieved an impressive 54% open rate!

Integrate your user permission requests to limit user churn

In a world where privacy protection is the biggest security concern, you must be sensitive when asking for user permissions. For example, if your app requires things like geolocation or camera access, integrating requests smoothly into your UI reduces friction and user churn.

In short, nobody wants to feel forced to give away those permissions! The requests need to be asked at the right time with a clear explanation as to why it’s necessary. Contextual messaging is one of the most effective strategies for increasing app engagement and retention.

Skip the tutorial and utilize frictionless tooltips to lift app engagement & user activation

Optimize your onboarding by passing up lengthy tutorials. Instead, sporadic tooltips can introduce quick hints at the very time that the user needs them - and that’s really giving the customer value! Not only do you cut down on any unnecessary text, but well-placed tooltips also help drive user engagement!

Incentivize this desired behavior further with app gamification, such as a badge reward, and you will find app engagement comes more naturally to your users! For example, the wellness app Mindbody has smart tooltips - quick, useful, and clearly highlighted.

The Mindbody app effectively uses smart tooltips to guide users, a great strategy for increasing user activation without overwhelming them with a full tutorial.

Drive positive reviews with smartly placed notifications & app gamification

77% of users check reviews before downloading an app. As such, positive reviews are crucial to acquiring customers and driving user activation! But you don’t need to sit idly by and hope for the best. Event-triggered interstitial ads can encourage positive reviews and massively impact your star rating.

By personalizing the timing in conjunction with your gamification platform & strategy, such as on the high after the user receives a reward, you can make positive reviews more likely.

Test, test, test your CX (and boost user retention)

According to research organization Forrester, just a 10% improvement in a company’s CX score can boost willingness to repurchase by 15%! That means less user churn and more bang for your buck. But testing your CX is an iterative process - you should be constantly testing and optimizing.

Indeed, your customer base is always changing, and you should be too to match them.

Personalized push notifications drive conversions and reduce user churn

Consumers crave personalization. Indeed, 52% of B2C customers say they would switch brands if they aren’t getting a personalized experience! So how can it increase your mobile app engagement?

Helpfully, push notifications are highly personalizable. Because it is an interruptive medium, choosing the right time to send one is critical. Case studies support this - the average push notification has an 18% open rate, conversely personalized messages see a 54% conversion rate! Sending the right message at the right time can instantly slash user churn.

Chatbots can recover frustrated customers & restore user engagement

What does your user do if they have a problem? Ideally, speak to your chatbot! Chatbots reduce user churn by providing instant help, and with recent improvements in AI, nearly 70% of consumers actually prefer chatbots as the best channel for fast support.

Moreover, chatbots will keep frustrated users from leaving your platform, as well as bring down your operating costs! Another one of the strategies for increasing app engagement and retention!

Boost app engagement by creating urgency

Urgency is an age-old tactic in marketing, and app marketers in 2022 will find that it still works today. Case studies show how injecting urgency in your CX can boost sales by an unbelievable 332%! In practice, this means optimizing your marketing copy and even gamification strategy with urgency in mind.

Look at some gamification examples from fitness apps, for instance. They can use timed challenges to promote user activation and engagement. In 2019 Adidas Runtastic organized an 11 day ‘Run for the Oceans’. Through app gamification, they managed to get over 2.2 million people to take part!

The Adidas Runtastic 'Run for the Oceans' campaign is a powerful gamification example, using a timed challenge to drive massive user participation and engagement.

Deep linking removes friction, leading to more user engagement

Deep linking means sending targeted users to a specific page, rather than just your home screen. Why is this important? In short, deep linking enables a seamless, frictionless customer journey free of obstacles.

Moreover, it personalizes a user’s interactions which improve the brand relationship and makes it less likely that you’ll experience user churn.

How can you increase mobile app engagement? Get started with your app gamification journey: Book a custom workshop & go home with an actionable roadmap!

Catch your flagging users before they churn and re-engage them!

Today, 92% of all new users churn within just 7 days. But this can be prevented with a bold re-engagement strategy, using gamification for apps, contextual emails, and push notifications made to achieve three key goals:

1. A second chance at user activation. The top 20% of customers will make up 80% of your revenue - don’t let them go so easily!
2. Upselling. Target cart abandoners and previous purchasers with deals and offers to entice them back. Your efforts will pay double in return - re-targeted users result in 37% more revenue events than organic acquisitions! A great reason to focus on user engagement!
3. Retention. Struggling with user churn? Well, re-engaged users have a higher retention rate. Even a small 5% boost in retention can boost profits by as much as 95%!

Measure how app engagement drives growth

To boost app engagement, your app must be 'sticky'. In short, meaning users are hooked by your app! But you have to analyze the right data to know if you're on the right track. Tracking your daily/monthly users is indispensable for any app engagement strategy.

With those figures, you can find out how sticky your app is! You can then use this to guide your strategy, with higher scores validating your choices and leading to growth. No better way to measure the effectiveness of the strategies you use to increase app engagement and retention!

This formula for calculating the stickiness rate is a key metric for measuring how effectively app engagement strategies are driving user retention and growth.

These gamified app dynamics will supercharge user engagement

An important mechanic behind app gamification is ‘constraint’. This means that certain areas of your app are locked off, and this is powerful in creating customer loyalty and limiting user churn. Push notifications can remind users how close they are to a reward.

Some interesting gamification examples from a Canadian study into the mHealth rewards app ‘Carrot’ found that push notifications linked with loyalty points boosted user engagement and increased the likelihood of users getting the flu vaccine!

Rewards for loyal customers: the advantages of a gamified app loyalty program!

Again, the importance of rewarding your loyal customers cannot go understated. Consumer research finds that 75% of people like to associate themselves with a brand that offers loyalty program rewards. So it’s crucial for getting users in the door.

But app gamification can do even better - consultancy firm Deloitte found that gamification can boost user engagement by as much as 47%.

In turn, a gamified app can expect that engagement to result in a 22% increase in customer loyalty!

Everything you need to gamify your app in 1 solution – check out how our app gamification software can help you!

FAQ - what can you learn from these app engagement & gamification examples?

Increasing your mobile app engagement is a surefire way to boost your business. The more a user engages with your app, the more touchpoints you have to build a relationship. With every interaction, you will create a loyal brand advocate who will advertise for you!

There are many strategies for increasing app engagement and retention. One of the best things you can do is invest in a seamless 'omnichannel' customer experience (CX) across all platforms. This makes user churn less likely! Research shows that omnichannel brands see an average 89% retention rate, up from a much lower 33%.

With the use of tools like a gamification platform you can improve the full user experience and eventually drive more user engagement. You can send personalized notifications, create timed challenges and reward the desired user behavior!

How the Hook Model can give you the benefits of better user retention

Nir Eyal's Hook Model provides a framework for building habit-forming products, essential for improving user retention.

User retention will continue to be a make-or-break metric in 2024. Going through the stages of the customer journey, you can see that retention sits right at the heart of app growth. To begin, you have to acquire and activate your new customers - all in the hopes of turning them into loyal and profitable users. We’ve seen many apps do this with successful gamification examples and the use of Nir Eyal’s Hook Model!

In this article, let’s see what challenges belong to the retention stage of the customer journey, and how the Hook Model and gamification together can boost your numbers.

• Why user retention is such a challenge
• 3 ways to tackle low user retention rates
• How the Hook Model forms habits (and creates a sticky UX)
• 3 gamification examples that enhance the hook model
• How you can get started on boosting user retention

Why user retention is such a challenge

To be successful in the app market, user retention is key. There are two main reasons:

1. Retention affects app store rankings (which will, in turn, improve organic user acquisition - organic installs are 25% more likely to be retained!)
2. It’s vital to achieving financial business goals (and your long-term survival)

However, improving user retention is easier said than done. Scientific research shows that it takes on average 66 days to form a habit. But why is that important?

Well, some of the most popular apps make their usage a habit and this is a highly effective way to boost retention. In essence, a habitual user won’t think about coming to your app, they’ll just do it automatically. There’s a reason that a market exists for mobile ‘detox’ apps which help users break an unwanted habit - habits are powerful!

This graph illustrates the steep drop-off in user retention common for mobile apps, highlighting the challenge of keeping users engaged long-term.

Of course, the big challenge is to form a habit that people actually want to keep. To do this, you need to provide value. Given this, it is no coincidence that the top apps on the market have the best user retention. They are value experts! The king of health & fitness, Fitbit, uses gamification examples like their leaderboard to push daily steps up by 15%, and fintech Moven makes users 50% more likely to save money. That’s real value!

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

So what can you do to tackle low user retention rates?

3 ways to tackle low user retention rates

To be sure, low retention rates are common across all verticals. mHealth apps can expect only 4% of users to stick around after just 30 days, while digital banking does slightly better at 10%. Still, these low numbers should not be taken as a given!

Here are 3 ways that you can boost user retention metrics:

1. A clear onboarding flow with a demonstrable value proposition

Your retention strategy starts right at the beginning! A clear onboarding process, ideally with the least amount of clicks possible, will avoid frustrating and churning users, thus increasing your Day 1 retention.

On the other hand, a straightforward value proposition can help frame the user’s interactions with your app. Take fitness app MuscleBooster, whose onboarding asks users which part of the body they want to focus on. Users will remember this and it will give them an internal goal to aim towards!

2. Personalization features that give the user ownership over the app

Personalized notifications can be crucial to improving retention and habit formation. It’s a way to give feedback to the user. The right notification, in the right place and at the right time can empower and reinforce good user behavior. Or, in contrast, it can be used to give users feedback and help them adjust quickly.

Neobank Moven is a great gamification example in fintech using this to the advantage of themselves, AND their users. Moven uses personalized notifications to install certain healthy financial habits like saving or financial education.

For instance, users are alerted when they’re spending too much or prompted to save more at times when their spending behavior allows them to. CEO Brett King states: “The prompted savings behavior is massive for us.” 40% of users are using it regularly as an avenue for savings.” Those that do are actually 50% more likely to save more money!

3. Introduce unpredictability in the user experience

To make your app truly sticky, the experience needs to be unpredictable. People crave new experiences! Gamification examples like challenges and leaderboards can do this for you. Just the idea that you could win a challenge, or hit the top of a leaderboard, creates an unpredictable event that compels users to stay and find out the answer.

What is this all to say? Ultimately, your app needs to be sticky, and gamification can be a way of achieving that!

Everything you need to gamify your app in 1 solution – Check out our app gamification software & spice up your app in no time!

How the Hook Model forms habits (and creates a sticky UX)

Instead of acquiring new customers, hook in your existing customers and extend their customer lifetime value. It’s more efficient in every way! By using the science-based Hook Model developed by Nir Eyal, you can facilitate the habit formation that will produce loyal users.

The Hook Model outlines the 4 necessary elements for a sticky app:

#1 Trigger

An event that provokes action, whether it be internal or external. An external trigger could be a push notification reminder to meditate, and the internal trigger is the want to meditate to achieve your wellness goal.

#2 Action

A behavior is done in anticipation of a reward. For example, Fitbit users might go for a run, users of the neobank N26 could stash some savings aside, or food shoppers could buy something healthy to earn loyalty points.

#3 Reward

The user gets what they wanted! Points, a place on the leaderboard, or even a prize.

#4 Investment

The user puts something back into the product which improves it for their next visit! Think of things like linking their address book, or uploading their first social post. This is where you can expect your monetization efforts to be successful.

The Hook Model canvas visually breaks down the four key stages: Trigger, Action, Variable Reward, and Investment, which work together to create a cycle of user engagement.

3 gamification examples that enhance the Hook Model

The Hook Model goes hand in hand with gamification. Under the hood, gamification is simply a method of leveraging user data to encourage the desired behavior. It does this by making the experience fun and gratifying! This could mean leaderboards to keep things unpredictable and progress trackers with which users can see their personal growth.

In short, gamification boosts your retention strategy and is often more cost-effective. Users love to be rewarded, and gamification can give you plenty of user reward opportunities that are better for your bottom line than simple cash prizes and discounts. For example, a mere sprinkle of digital confetti to celebrate a user’s achievement is both cheaper AND more motivating than offering cash prizes!

1. Calm uses personalized gamification examples to reduce churn

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

With Calm’s Daily Reminder feature, users receive a motivating message at a time of their choosing. This creates a personalized trigger, which users are more likely to listen to! What’s more, following the user’s meditation session, Calm lets users see the growth of their daily streak of meditation sessions. This is a fantastic reward that prompts investment - as can be seen by the app’s 4 million subscribers!

The Calm app effectively uses features like daily streaks and personalized reminders to encourage consistent user engagement with its meditation content.

2. 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’.

When users buy something, they receive a notification on their CO2 savings! This works as a great external trigger, while the want to be sustainable acts as an internal trigger. As a reward, Banx users have access to progress trackers on their emissions, as well as the chance to earn points that 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%!

This interface from the Banx app demonstrates how financial data can be gamified to provide users with tangible feedback on their carbon footprint.

3. HumanForest incentivizes habit formation with a sustainable in-app currency

E-bike shared mobility app HumanForest wants to make travel in London greener. But it can be hard to make cycling a habit, and that’s why the app uses gamification to encourage their loyal user community of 35,000! Based on users who want to travel sustainably, HumanForest makes sure to reward that initial internal trigger.

By riding, users earn TreeCoins. These show how many trees' worth of CO2 your cycling has saved! This gives users the intrinsic motivation needed to keep going – indeed, knowing that your actions have power is an extremely powerful motivator. This reward creates an investment back into the platform, as users ride more and more because they know they will be rewarded for it!

HumanForest's in-app currency, TreeCoins, provides a rewarding and visual representation of the positive environmental impact users make by choosing to cycle.

How you can get started on boosting user retention

Your journey in improving user retention begins with developing a habit formation strategy. To be sure, gamification is a powerful tool at your disposal to achieve that goal. Of course, developing a platform-wide strategy is an intimidating and time-consuming task. That’s why StriveCloud runs expert-led interactive workshops to lend a hand.

Every app requires a different gamification strategy. Knowing this, StriveCloud specializes in gamification for apps that focus on your chosen key issues, which could be facilitating habit formation and boosting engagement and user retention. We have worked with clients across banking, mHealth, mobility, and many more industries!

In StriveCloud’s custom gamification workshops, we focus on developing your own gamification strategy, tailored to your app, audience, and business goals. Together with our gamification experts, we focus on crafting a user experience that is engaging for your users, while also driving the behaviors that make you grow.

First, we take your user data to pinpoint your biggest levers for growth, for example, retention. Then, we create a concrete plan with tactics and the right gamification examples that you can leverage to achieve your goals.

Finally, after implementing the action plan, you will be able to see how your app has transformed! Our work has led to clients benefiting from huge rewards:

• 58% rise in Daily Active Users
• 23% drop in Churn Rates
• 500% increase in 90-day user retention!

Wrap up

User retention is key. Some of the greatest apps in the world use behavioral design to create engaging & habit-forming products. Here’s why:

1. Retention affects app store rankings (which, in turn, improves organic user acquisition - organic installs are 25% more likely to be retained!)
2. It’s vital to achieving financial business goals (& your long-term survival)

However, installing habits is not easy. Scientific research shows that it takes on average 66 days to form a habit. So what can you do to improve user retention?

3 ways to tackle low user retention

1. A clear & simple onboarding process - Fewer clicks equals less frustration and thus lower Day 1 churn!
2. Contextual notifications - The right notification, in the right place and at the right time can empower and reinforce good user behavior, or quickly adjust bad behavior!
3. Introduce unpredictability - The anticipation for a reward is often greater than the reward itself. Keep surprising your user with fun and exciting experiences!

Form habits with the Hook model

One way to do this is by using Nir Eyal’s Hook model. It’s a continuous loop of engagement. The more a user goes through the loop, the more engaged they will become. It consists of 4 stages:

1. Trigger -The user is provoked to take action by a motivational trigger. It can be external, like a potential reward, or internal, like a lifelong passion.
2. Action - They carry out a small action in anticipation of a reward.
3. Reward - Their behavior is positively reinforced through a variable reward!
4. Investment - The user invests something back into the product, that makes them more likely to return.

Power up the Hook model with gamification

When powered by gamification, the Hook model becomes even more powerful. Not only can rewards be more cost-effective, but also more meaningful. Here are some examples:

1. Meditation app Calm tripled retention and got a ‘daily meditation streak’ going for its users with their ‘Daily Reminder’ feature.
2. Banx, a slow banking app helped users reduce their carbon footprint by up to 50% through their personal CO2 dashboard!
3. HumanForest incentivizes sustainable behaviors with ‘TreeCoins’. It’s their own in-app currency that visualizes the amount of CO2 you reduced by using their electric bike-sharing service!

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

9 app gamification ideas for user retention and growth

App gamification is no longer a secret hack - and for good reason! Case studies show that a gamified app sees increased user engagement and decreased user churn. All while remaining flexible and cost-effective! Is it any wonder, then, that a recent Gartner report found that a whopping 70% of the world’s top 2000 businesses now use gamification? So what are some examples of gamification in apps? And how much does it cost to gamify an app?

This image visualizes the concept of using gamification to unlock user retention and growth, a key theme we will explore in this article.

In this article, let’s review why gamification is so important for mobile apps, how you too can develop a gamified app, and dive into 9 gamification app examples that increase user engagement and loyalty!

• Why app gamification is the next big thing
• How to build a gamified app? 4 tips to get started
• #1 Forest leaderboard incentivizes green mobility
• #2 Emirates NBD gets users moving with financial incentives
• #3 How Nike Run Club drives user engagement & retention with rewards
• #4 BBVA engagement shot up by 50% with their gamified app
• #5 Tiered rewards helped Changers transform a city
• #6 The Headspace reward system is built on behavioral science
• #7 Fintech app Navexa rewards engaged free trial users
• #8 Peleton’s social features are a marvel of user engagement
• #9 The city of Portland spent $50 million on gamified app Biketown
• FAQ

Why app gamification is the next big thing

Today, mobile app growth teams are finding a valuable strategy for in-app gamification. In 2022, the global gamification market hit above $15.3 billion in revenues. Incredibly, this is forecasted to skyrocket to an impressive $53.2 billion by 2028!

But why is everyone adopting gamification with such enthusiasm? The answer lies in how app gamification supports business goals.

Gamification in apps slashes user churn

Without a doubt, the most important part of the customer journey is onboarding. Industry wisdom states that each onboarding step results in a 20% increase in onboarding churn - preventing new users from being activated. To combat the mobile app churn rate, gamification in apps uses a progress tracker.

Take LinkedIn, whose progress bar was built to encourage profile completion led to an amazing 55% boost in conversions.

LinkedIn's progress bar is a classic example of using visual feedback to encourage user onboarding completion.

App gamification drives user engagement

The average person spends 1/3 of their time on mobile! This gives you plenty of room to maximize user engagement, which is hugely beneficial. In short, engaged users create more data you can leverage, which you can use to better sell to them.

Thankfully, gamification uplift user engagement strategies - case studies show that a clever implementation of gamification apps examples can increase mobile user engagement by 47%.

Slash user churn with app gamification! Check out our definitive guide to app engagement & retention and get ahead of the competition.

How to build a gamified app? 4 tips to get started!

Gamification is both a science and an art. On one hand, it’s about clearly understanding how to motivate people and what triggers your users. On the other hand, it’s about making things like progress and achievement tangible through rewards. It is precisely because you can tailor app gamification to your situation it’s so powerful. However, getting it right is not as easy as it sounds.

Here are a few things in mind if you consider adding gamification to your app:

1. Make it competitive and social. Science shows that people are highly motivated by social influences. Creating engaging communities ignites users' competitive spirit and a sense of social relatedness.. Given this, an in-app community with gamification apps examples like challenges, points, and leaderboards goes a long way to creating an active user base that engages with each other!
2. Make progress visible. Leverage achievements, progress bars, and leveling systems to keep users engaged. As well, streaks are a super simple way to illustrate a user’s progress.
3. Reward participation. Reduce user churn by giving users points, badges, and redeemable prizes! Research finds that badge rewards result in a ‘significant positive effect’ on the user, leading to higher user engagement!
4. Make winning easy to understand. A simple digital confetti graphic goes a long way to visualize a user’s win. Indeed, timely positive reinforcement enhances the effects of a reward.

How to get started with app gamification? Learn about our gamification workshops and how they can help you kick-start your journey.

9 gamification apps examples that increase user engagement

#1 Forest leaderboard incentivizes green mobility

More than a generic leaderboard, the shared mobility app Forest ranks users based on how many trees worth of CO2 their e-bike riding has saved! Research already shows that leaderboards motivate users, but combining them with the brand identity of sustainable travel makes the customer experience more authentic, enhancing brand affinity and engagement. It works - since their recent city-wide launch in September 2021, an amazing 35,000 Londoners have become loyal users!

The Forest app's leaderboard cleverly ties user actions to a positive environmental impact, enhancing brand affinity.

#2 Emirates NBD gets users moving with financial incentives

A unique mix of finance and fitness, the Dubai-based Emirates NBD app challenges users to walk 12,000 steps a day. Everyday users hit that target they receive 2% interest on their bank account! How’s that for a reward?

This one gamification feature gave the bank €208,000 in earned media, drove up user engagement, and saved users a cool €4 million.

This example from Emirates NBD shows how financial incentives can be effectively combined with fitness goals to drive engagement.

#3 How Nike Run Club drives user engagement & retention with rewards

Nike’s fitness app recently introduced partnerships with other health apps such as Headspace, ClassPass, and even Apple Music. But not every user gets the benefit. Instead, only users who meet their running goals are rewarded with perks such as free music from Apple or free gym sessions on ClassPass.

Behavioral science justifies this strategy - research shows that missing out is just as motivating as winning. This is a great way to drive engagement in an incentive program. Indeed, the added rewards drove user engagement, increased user retention by 21%, and made Nike Run Club the #1 running app worldwide!

Nike Run Club leverages partnerships to offer tangible rewards, proving that exclusive perks can significantly boost user retention.

#4 BBVA engagement shot up by 50% with their gamified app

BBVA is one of Spain’s oldest banks, which makes it all the more impressive that they’ve earned the right to be called “the digital bank of the 21st century”. In part, they built that reputation with a clever strategy of app gamification.

Seeing that those younger users were not engaging with more complex financial products such as insurance, mortgages, and slow money investments, BBVA developed a gamified app. By rewarding users with known gamification apps examples such as points and discounts for watching videos on financial literacy, they drove both user engagement and sales. After only 6 months, the game had over 100,000 active users!

BBVA's gamified app successfully educated younger users on complex financial products through an engaging rewards system.

Future-proof your app with a custom gamification workshop. Learn more here!

#5 Tiered rewards helped Changers transform a city

Mobility app Changers raised the bar for what user engagement can achieve. The app rewards users to cycle to work with cafeteria perks, fitness vouchers, and bike accessory discounts that can be unlocked by riding. In response to this incentive, users in the German city of Münster saved 80,000 kg of CO2 in just 3 months. That’s the equivalent of planting nearly 2000 trees!

The Changers app demonstrates how a tiered rewards system can motivate an entire community towards a common, sustainable goal.

#6 The Headspace reward system is built on behavioral science

Streaks and badges are great rewards, and Headspace knows just when to use them. Leveraging the motivational benefits of the ‘endowed progress effect’, Headspace drives user engagement. This powerful effect is unlocked when you celebrate a user’s early achievements, which makes them more motivated to hit their target!

To create this effect, Headspace users earn badges early on, and the app notches up the days on a user’s streak. A streak of just 15 sessions earns a month’s subscription for a friend! Headspace is proof that well-placed rewards drive user engagement and can make or break habit forming apps. It can certainly celebrate its successful reward implementation. Remarkably, Headspace doubled both individual and business customers between 2018 and 2020!

Headspace uses streaks and early rewards to capitalize on the 'endowed progress effect', making users feel invested from the start.

#7 Fintech app Navexa rewards engaged free trial users

How do you create an active user base? Fintech app Navexa figured this out with one clever gamification feature. To reward free trial users for completing the onboarding, every completed step of onboarding earns users an extra free trial day! In essence, Navexa is picking out its most engaged users early and getting them to stick around.

Navexa's onboarding strategy is a clever use of gamification, rewarding users with extra trial days for their engagement and investment.

#8 Peloton's social features are a marvel of user engagement

Fully paid-up subscribers can sync up their Peloton bike with live lessons, and this is a huge incentive to subscribe. Indeed, the app has 2.33 million paying users, up 12% from the previous year. Why did this happen? Customers love Peloton’s social integration, where they can attend exercise sessions with friends, and even challenge them to hit the top of the class leaderboard! Gamification apps examples like these show just how powerful adding a social aspect to your app can be!

Peloton's live leaderboards add a powerful social and competitive layer to their workouts, driving community engagement.

#9 The city of Portland spent $50 million on gamified app Biketown

It’s not just private companies getting in on app gamification, but city governments too! The US city of Portland developed Biketown, an e-bike rental scheme intended to get citizens out on their bikes. It’s working - Biketown created 144,000 loyal users with a clever gamification system. Users earn discounts when they end their trips at key locations, such as the top of hills, or city centers at busy times.

The app even has some gamified routes, where users must find flyers with keywords on them. These games encouraged riders to explore new cycling routes in the city, showing how easy cycling can be and encouraging the habit-formation of users! That ultimately led to increased user engagement, which resulted in Biketown’s fast expansion.

Biketown shows how gamification can be used on a city-wide scale to influence behavior and promote sustainable transportation.

How much does it cost to gamify an app?

With all this in mind, how much does it cost to gamify an app? Well, it depends on the solution you pick. If you’re going to build in all gamification features yourself, it will take up a lot of time and resources. However, with gamification software like StriveCloud, you can save tons of time and money!

Most gamification software is priced per (active) user. Prices may vary according to what software you’re using and the different capabilities it has. Some solutions have stand-alone features like leaderboards or in-app notifications, while others offer a full range of reward systems like badges, achievements, and more. Additionally, creating a gamified app is more than adding random gamification features. It’s about truly understanding your user’s motivation and building an experience around it.

Everything you need to gamify your app in 1 solution – check out how our gamification software can help you!

This call-to-action banner is designed to guide users towards booking a discovery session on gamification.

FAQ

What is app gamification?

Gamification means using game-like elements in a non-game context. In doing so, research shows that you fulfill the psychological needs to spark and maintain intrinsic motivation which ultimately leads to more user engagement. Intrinsic motivators are complex goals like growth, purpose, and fun. To foster user engagement, it is essential!

How does gamification help me grow my app?

Gamification increases user engagement by making the customer experience fun and satisfying, which in turn leads to more data for your marketing efforts and creates more engaged, loyal users. Indeed, case studies show that a gamified app has more active and engaged users over the long run!

Why is gamification important for mobile apps?

App gamification helps apps drive user engagement and increase retention- which for many apps represents an untapped growth potential! Indeed, people spend 1/3 of their time on mobile, and that’s something app growth teams can take advantage of.

How to build a gamified app?

To create a gamified app you must make the customer experience competitive, social, and above all make winning easy to understand! In addition, user progress should be visible so customers can visualize their growth, and their participation rewarded with things like badges.

What is the endowed progress effect?

Behavioral science shows that the ‘endowed progress effect’ is an effective way to motivate users. The effect is unlocked when you celebrate early achievements, which makes users more motivated to hit their target! Timely gamification apps examples as badges and perks can create this effect.

How much does it cost to gamify an app?

With all this in mind, how much does it cost to gamify an app? Well, it depends on the solution you pick. If you build the gamification system yourself, it will take up a lot of time and resources. However, a gamification software like StriveCloud can save you a ton of time and money!

Most gamification software is priced per (active) user. Prices may vary according to what software you’re using and the different capabilities it has. However, creating a gamified app is more than just adding random features. It’s about truly understanding users’ motivation and building an experience around it.

The ultimate guide on how to become an expert in app retention & engagement

This guide dives deep into the strategies that transform user engagement and retention for mobile apps.

User retention & app engagement is becoming crucial for apps that want to survive in this market. The rising costs and struggles of user acquisition combined with an increasingly more competitive market make it hard for apps to not only gain new users but also keep them engaged. That’s why StriveCloud is creating the ultimate guide to app engagement! We’ll walk you through some awesome app gamification examples and teach you how we dropped user churn by 23%!

Find out why you need to up your user engagement to combat churn, and how gamification for apps can help you! Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How to increase mobile app engagement & limit user churn in 2022
• The lifecycle of mobile app users, from user activation to loyal user
• 3 app engagement & retention metrics you need to know
• 3 tactics successful apps use to boost user activation & engagement
• 5 gamification examples from apps that reduced user churn
• 3 gamification examples from apps that skyrocketed user engagement
• FAQ - the quick answers to your biggest questions

How to increase mobile app engagement & limit user churn in 2022

Why is user retention and engagement so important for apps in 2022?

Simply put, today’s consumers crave engagement - the average person spends 1/3 of their waking hours on mobile! And that number is still rising, along with consumer spend and app downloads. In short, app engagement is key to achieving your app business goals.

To create engagement, your app has to be sticky, meaning users can’t help but return! For product growth managers, stickiness tells you how valuable and habit-forming your app is - essential traits to reduce user churn. You can achieve this with app gamification.

The lifecycle of mobile app users, from user activation to loyal user

The first step in making your app sticky is optimizing the customer journey. Sure, the task is intimidating when viewed from the big picture, but the mobile app funnel can help clarify the process and the actions you need to take.

This diagram illustrates the user lifecycle funnel, from initial acquisition to becoming a loyal, engaged user.

1. User acquisition and the need to increase your user base

In 2021, it cost on average $1.22 to acquire a user - and that number is still rising. Moreover, you'll waste that money unless you segment your audience right. Of course, that's given your app store page is optimized and you appear in searches.

2. User activation and app engagement

User activation is the ultimate bottleneck for apps. Today, 75% of users quit on Day 1 after installation! Instead, you must show users your value proposition or how they benefit from your app. For one, this means developing a user-friendly onboarding.

But the benefits to your business are clear - a 25% uplift to user activation results in a 34% revenue boost!

3. User retention and habit formation

Moving down the line, Day 30 user retention sits at a meager 3.1%. The solution here is to create a sticky, habit-forming app. A gamified app has an advantage because app gamification makes the UX more fun, rewarding, and unpredictable. In other words, it keeps users coming back for more!

Gamify your app, 1 building block at a time! Discover how to instantly drop user churn by 23% with our app gamification platform!

4. User re-engagement to slash churn

To win back those lost in the retention stage, you need a re-engagement strategy. This means giving your users value once more, but without adding clutter to their lives. Returning users don’t just cost less to re-engage, they also purchase 37% more than organic acquisitions!

5. User engagement & monetization strategy

The success of your monetization strategy depends on which model you choose. Some apps use freemium models and try to convert those into paying customers. Others are free or paid off the hook! Whether you earn through subscriptions, adverts, or in-app purchases, it all depends on what your audience prefers and the frequency at which they use your app.

3 app engagement & retention metrics you need to know

There are many ways to measure your success in user engagement and retention, but you need to understand how to utilize them all together to get a clear picture:

1. Active users

Activate users are the people actively engaging or interacting with your app. This can be on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis depending on the usage frequency of your app. Knowing your active users can tell you a lot about the state of your app engagement strategy. Daily usage could indicate successes, whereas monthly users might show shortcomings.

2. App session length

App session is the length of time a user spends on your app and can clearly indicate individual engagement levels. A related metric - and one you want to keep as low as possible - is bounce rate, when users quit fast after opening.

3. App session intervals

App session intervals track the time in between consecutive sessions. The lower these get, the better your app engagement is. In fact, tracking the intervals between app sessions can tell you if your user is hooked. This is crucial in knowing where to place them on the customer journey!

With these metrics, you can measure product stickiness. This is an important indicator of app engagement and product health. Subscription-based businesses especially need to pay attention to this. If you fail to create a habitual experience, user churn will eventually happen.

3 tactics successful apps use to boost user activation & engagement

1. How an in-app community maximizes user retention

In-app communities have an incredibly powerful effect on user retention. By encouraging users to interact, you fulfill the need to socialize and create customer motivation. In fact, communities can increase customer loyalty by more than half!

2. How contextual notifications drive app engagement

Personalizing your interactions with each user can transform your app engagement strategy. Engaging with users in a way suited to their habits, needs, and activity creates customer value - and can lift your push notification conversion rate by 40%.

3. Why gamification for apps is the ultimate retention strategy

App gamification augments your strategy from activation to monetization. Studies show a 54% rise in free trial usage when it’s a gamified app. If we look at other successful gamification examples, we learn features like leaderboard, progress bars or daily streaks make the UX really exciting - and harder to quit.

5 gamification examples from apps that reduced user churn

Without a good user engagement strategy, you’ll have a small chance of achieving the level of user retention you want. But app gamification can help:

1. Challenges empower user activation

Enhancing user engagement: The role of gamification in mobile apps - "Gamification examples such as challenges have been shown to evoke feelings of freedom in users and, thus, perceptions of higher autonomy"

In short, challenges empower your users by fulfilling their need for personal competence. As a result, you reward them with a self-confidence boost leading to higher user activation! The instant feedback paired with social interaction makes users more likely to engage again in the future.

2. Gamified onboarding reduces user churn

Let’s face it, long onboarding procedures are frustrating and it shows its effect on user churn more likely. In fact, user retention rates can jump 50% with gamified onboarding. Progress bars are a huge part of this. The visualization of progress provides users with instant feedback and clearly tells them what’s expected next. Another advantage that gamified apps have.

3. Badges reduce user churn through positive reinforcement

Badge reward systems are a form of feedback called positive reinforcement, and they motivate users to continue! For sure, seeing that your efforts are recognized in the community goes a long way. Indeed, research shows that ‘status feedback’ positively influences user retention.

4. Points fuel app engagement & user retention

Points act as a powerful reward for simple actions a user takes on your app. These points can serve as the fuel for your gamified app. You can exchange points for rewards, and base other gamification features around it like leaderboards, raffles, and even leveling systems!

5. Leveling systems elevate user retention through a feeling of ownership

Give users a sense of ownership and progress by introducing a leveling system. This gives a wide range of opportunities to personalize your experiences and spur user engagement. For instance, let your users choose their own profile pictures or create their own avatars. A 2021 study showed that avatars satisfy the needs for competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, in turn influencing reuse intention. Put simply, avatars provide a sense of ownership.

3 gamification examples from apps that skyrocketed user engagement

1. An in-app community gifts Insight Timer the best user retention of all wellness apps

In the US, Insight Timer makes up a whopping 63% of all time spent on meditation apps! How do they do achieve such high retention and user engagement rates?

Insight Timer limits user churn by building a global community of meditators. Right away, the home screen is a world map of users meditating that very moment, making customers feel a part of a bigger movement. Studies show that socialization is a powerful motivator since people naturally want to belong to something greater than themselves.

Insight Timer effectively shows a global community of users, which fosters a powerful sense of belonging and social connection.

Get started on your own gamification journey today! Book a custom gamification workshop & create your own roadmap!

2. Users of fintech app Qapital can set targets to save

Let your users set financial goals and time targets, and you will give them ownership over their personal journey. By personalizing the app, you provide customer value. Moreover, case studies show that adding a deadline greatly helps goal pursuit!

Qapital's goal-setting feature empowers users by giving them direct control over their financial journey, making savings more tangible.

3. How HumanForest’s gamified app rewards app engagement

HumanForest is a sustainable, shared e-bike service that aims to reduce carbon emissions! They have a gamified app where users earn TreeCoins every time they ride an e-bike. This in-app currency represents the number of trees saved in CO2 emissions, and can buy discounts and free rides! It’s a brilliant gamification example (and here’s why!)

HumanForest's app demonstrates an effective use of in-app currency to reward sustainable behaviors and keep users engaged.

FAQ - the quick answers to your biggest questions

Why is user engagement and retention so important for apps in 2022?

The average person spends 1/3 of their waking hours on mobile - illustrating not just the potential opportunities for your app, but also underlining how worthwhile and valuable app engagement is to users in 2022.

How can you increase user activation & limit user churn?

There are many challenges in the customer journey. From getting noticed in the app store to activating new users with free trials (that won't bankrupt you!). Building a sticky experience that prevents user churn is not easy!

How do I measure success for my user retention and app engagement goals?

Using metrics like the number of daily, weekly, and monthly active users, you can see who interacts with your app, and importantly when they do so. In further detail, data on app session length and intervals can show how engaged users are.

What can you learn from these gamification examples?

App gamification works for any vertical, whether you're in fintech, health, or mobility. Leaderboards fulfill a user's need to grow and experience competence. Next, badges act as a form of motivational instant feedback. Finally, points can serve as an exciting reward but also fuel unpredictability through things like raffles!

15 App engagement strategies (to make your mobile app sticky in 2025)

This article outlines 15 key strategies for boosting mobile app engagement and user retention in 2025.

Did you know that the average person has 80 apps on their smartphone but only uses 30 each month? If you want to break through the noise and make your app stand out, you should focus on user engagement. After all, the more engaged users are, the longer they stick around! However, figuring out how to improve engagement on apps requires a big-picture approach since it takes into account everything a user does. That’s where the following 11 mobile app engagement strategies come in. From gamification to personalized messaging, these techniques will make your app sticky and keep users coming back for more.

In this article, learn how to increase user engagement and build a user engagement strategy that will help you reach your metrics.

• What is mobile app engagement?
• What does user engagement mean for your mobile app?
• Why you need a mobile app engagement strategy?
• How to develop a mobile app engagement strategy?
• Want to increase user engagement? Learn to track your success.
• 15 app engagement strategies to create a sticky user experience
• Gamification
• Share your app’s story, mission, and vision
• Decrease onboarding friction (and user churn)
• Optimize the moment for registration
• Focus on action, not information
• Increase feature discovery with a tooltip or spotlight
• Build an in-app community
• Tiered loyalty systems reward engagement
• Custom avatars make the experience personal and fun
• Want to excite your users? Try competition!
• Optimize your empty states to increase user engagement
• Chatbots provide fast support (and get users engaging again)
• Upsell, activate and re-engage existing users
• Boost user referrals and take advantage of the Network Effect
• Update and optimize your app regularly
• FAQ

What is mobile app engagement?

Mobile app engagement is the interaction between the user and an app. Building mobile app engagement is crucial because of app users, 90% who engage with an app tend to stick around. To measure the engagement of individual users, you can use metrics such as daily, weekly, or monthly activity to see how ‘sticky’ your app is. Additionally, you can gather insights from the length of user sessions and the intervals between them.

Knowing how to utilize these key metrics will help guide your mobile app engagement strategies – and having a clear strategy is invaluable.

What does user engagement mean for your mobile app?

In reality, user engagement encompasses everything. Every click, view, and interaction a user has is user engagement. And the more they engage, the more they get out of your app. In other words, higher levels of user engagement indicate a successful app. That’s because engaged users make your app more profitable!

• 8 in 10 people will pay extra for a more engaging experience
• Engaged users are 63% less likely to churn
• Top 10% of engaged app users spend 3x more
• 82% of engaged users will promote your app

STOP LOSING DISENGAGED APP USERS! TRY GAMIFICATION INSTEAD.

Why you need a mobile app engagement strategy?

A sticky app will get users talking, and 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations over any adverts you could ever send. The user engagement tactics you choose must be clearly defined. After all, if you are going to thoroughly test new features and strategies – which you are, right? – then you should know what you want from the very beginning.

You might get lucky with your tactics, but if you’re serious about learning how to increase user engagement, then you need a clearly defined strategy. Only then can you gather the important data to support your experiments to improve user engagement:

• Does the user come back and use the app frequently or not? How often?
• How much time do users spend on your platform?
• Are they utilizing the full app or just a few features?
• What are the most popular features?

GET 3X MORE MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS WITH GAMIFICATION. FIND OUT HOW!

How to develop a mobile app engagement strategy?

Key to developing your mobile app engagement strategy? Create an action plan based on customer needs, direct feedback, and user data. It sounds intimidating, but only a holistic approach will result in a streamlined plan that creates a seamless user experience.

Importantly, you must analyze your strategy both before and after monetization. A complete strategy does not ignore existing users. It is 50% easier to do business with an engaged user than with a newly acquired one.

Want to increase user engagement? Learn to track your success.

Tracking your mobile app engagement strategy requires regular analysis. In effect, as your audience evolves, so should your app! To inform your analysis, use these 3 metrics:

#1 Daily/Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU rate)

Daily active users / Monthly active users = DAU/MAU rate

Briefly, the DAU/MAU rate shows how sticky your app is. The more daily users you have, the more engaging your app is!

#2 Churn Rate

(Users who left in time period / Total users) * 100 = %

A churned user is a user who can’t engage anymore! Keep track of this metric to ensure that you are heading in the right direction.

#4 Feature usage

(Feature users / Total users) * 100 = %

You might want to increase user engagement on certain features. For this, you can also work out the DAU/MAU rate of a feature, and the time intervals between feature usage. To be sure, these metrics will produce exact and actionable data for you to optimize!

15 mobile app engagement strategies to create a sticky user experience

1. Gamification

How to increase user engagement? Look no further than gamification! Gamification uses game-like features such as leaderboards and challenges to hook users. Based on behavioral science, these features unlock powerful motivators by making the CX fun, social, and easy to use. In short, there are four big mechanics behind gamification:

1. A competitive and social UX. People are highly motivated by social influences!
2. Progress that is clear and visible. This fulfills the user's need for growth.
3. Rewards for participation. Studies show this leads to user engagement.
4. Winning is easy to understand. Simplicity is engaging.

Implementing gamification can be difficult and overwhelming. However, some tools like a gamification platform help you shape your own gamified app experience without needing excessive code. Let’s look at some examples:

Duolingo badge reward system

Look at Duolingo for instance! Their badge reward system saw an impressive 116% jump in referrals, and with friends on the platform, users are more likely to engage!

Duolingo's badge system is a prime example of how gamification can dramatically increase user referrals and social engagement.

CREATE A STICKY APP EXPERIENCE WITH GAMIFICATION. LEARN MORE!

Forest’s CO2 leaderboard

How did Forest stop 220 tons of CO2 from entering London’s air? With their e-bikes powered by gamification! As a pillar of their user engagement strategy, Forest ranked their riders by the amount of CO2 they have saved. Since they implemented the leaderboard, Forest has hosted a record 150,000+ trips monthly.

The Forest app uses a leaderboard to tap into users' competitive spirit, encouraging them to ride more by tracking saved CO2.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO GAMIFY YOUR APP IN ONE PLATFORM - CHECK OUT HOW STRIVECLOUD CAN HELP YOU!

2. Share your app’s story, mission, and vision

To build brand trust, and develop an intrinsically engaging app, your users must believe in what you do and why you do it. This is especially important for Gen Z, those aged 16-24, and that means it’s important for you!

These 3 statistics tell you all you need to know:

1. Gen Z is an over-represented group. They make up 40% of mobile users!
2. They care deeply about social responsibility. 85% of Gen Z say that trusting a brand is critical in purchase decisions.
3. And finally, they are also the most engaged! Winning over Gen Z and the benefits to user engagement is clear. Gen Zers spend an average of over 4 hours every month on non-gaming apps, 10% longer than any other demographic.

Look at Adidas Runtastic for example.

Adidas challenges users to run further

In 2019, Adidas Runtastic wanted to show off its environmental chops with a challenge that incentivizes users to run and fundraise to clean up plastics from the ocean. They wanted to increase user engagement! So they issued the ‘Run for the Oceans’ challenge! Basically, for every 10 minutes a user ran, Adidas cleaned up the weight of a plastic bottle from a beach. All in all, 2.2 million people took part!

Adidas' 'Run for the Oceans' campaign effectively connects user activity with a greater social cause, boosting engagement through shared purpose.

3. Decrease onboarding friction (and user churn)

A lot of companies user engagement strategies fail as early as the onboarding process. Indeed, every added step of onboarding results in a 20% increase in user churn! For a more effective onboarding, keep tutorials to a minimum and demonstrate your value proposition as soon as possible. Of course, you can use gamification to improve onboarding. Research shows tutorials on a gamified app increase user task completion by 135%!

LinkedIn onboarding gamification example

You can combat onboarding fatigue with a gamified progress bar! LinkedIn is one app that made a great success of this approach. After they implemented a progress bar to encourage profile set-ups, conversions increased by 55%!

LinkedIn's gamified progress bar provides a clear and motivating path for users to complete their profiles, significantly improving onboarding conversion.

MuscleBooster onboarding gamification example

MuscleBooster is another good example of gamification in user onboarding. The fitness app lets users select their personal goals and targets during onboarding. Out of the elements of the onboarding process, account setup is very important, because it lays the foundation for how users will interact with the product or service. Letting the users personalize their journey takes advantage of the ‘endowed progress effect’, which means users are more likely to complete a task they have begun.

MuscleBooster personalizes the onboarding experience, allowing users to set their own goals, which leverages the endowed progress effect to increase completion rates.

GAMIFICATION IS KEY TO ENGAGEMENT. START YOUR JOURNEY WITH OUR ACTION-PACKED WORKSHOP!

4. Optimize the moment for registration

The make-or-break moment of every mobile app engagement strategy is when you ask users to commit to your product. However, asking too soon can cause the user to churn. Conversely, asking too late fails to capitalize on the user! So what do you do?

Look at the example of the graphic design tool Snappa. At one point, 27% of all signups never activated their email. But after some experiments, Snappa delayed the request to verify and monthly revenue rose by 20%!

5. Focus on action, not information

In reality, people are overloaded with information every day. And often, we don’t know what to do with any of it! An overwhelming experience triggers 2 major effects:

• Paradox of choice. The more choices a user has, the less likely they’ll choose!
• Hick’s law. Where decision time rises with each additional choice.

And this decreases user engagement! To avoid this, create an action-focused UX. That way, users start with action in their minds and are more likely to take the next step. This approach is how the French fintech Shine achieved an 80% onboarding conversion rate! Arnaud Babol, Shine’s growth engineer, shares a tip for your mobile app engagement strategy:

Arnaud Babol, Shine’s growth engineer - "Keep it simple: one screen, one action."

The French fintech app Shine demonstrates how a 'one screen, one action' approach simplifies the user journey and boosts onboarding conversion.

6. Increase feature discovery with a tooltip or spotlight

In reality, just 12% of a product’s features attract the majority of user engagement. And nobody wants to pay for things they don’t use! Given this, your mobile app engagement strategy should improve feature discovery. In short, this means analyzing certain features and making them more discoverable, as well as easy to use.

To highlight underused features, use a tooltip or spotlight. For instance, few people used the live streaming platform Kumu’s search bar. But with a simple spotlight, Kumu achieved a 54% click-through rate, and the feature’s user engagement increased by 38%!

By using a simple spotlight to highlight an underused search feature, Kumu successfully increased feature discovery and user interaction.

7. Build an in-app community

Out of all app categories, social apps attract the most weekly engagement. But you don’t have to be the next Snapchat to engage users socially, any app can do it. Engaging communities can be simpler than you think. Specifically, gamification features alone such as leaderboards, challenges, and forums can increase social influence.

Research into the fitness app Nike Run Club confirms that social features have the greatest positive effect on long-term mobile app engagement. Curiously, Nike Run Club’s space for socializing is almost an Instagram look-a-like.

Nike Run Club's social feed shows how integrating community features can have a powerful, positive effect on long-term mobile app engagement.

8. Tiered loyalty systems reward engagement

Give your users something to strive for! A tiered loyalty system shows that the more they engage, the better things will be. To be sure, your loyal customers expect to be rewarded.

For instance, e-scooter operator Voi. has a loyalty program called Voialty. In it, customers level up from Rookie to Pro by taking more rides. In turn, users of higher levels get bigger discounts on their rides!

Voi's tiered loyalty program, 'Voialty', rewards frequent riders with better discounts, giving users a clear incentive to increase their engagement.

9. Custom avatars make the experience personal and fun

If you want to tell a story, custom avatars are a must-have. In short, avatars let the user feel more personally involved, which boosts the user’s sense of ownership over the app.

However, there is more you can do than a simple profile photo. Take the fintech app Nestlings for example! The app uses colorful animal avatars to personify your financial personality! By cleverly visualizing animals ‘squirreling away a nest egg’, as Nestlings puts it, they also enhance the story and experience of saving money.

The fintech app Nestlings uses creative, personalized avatars to enhance the user's sense of ownership and make the experience of saving money more engaging.

10. Want to excite your users? Try competition!

Competition helps frame tasks and give users purpose. This is especially important for tracking apps, where their very point requires lots of repetitive tasks. To be sure, studies show that a competitive element makes users more likely to complete tasks!

Any app can do this - right now shared mobility app Forest is rewarding users who save the most CO2 by riding their e-bikes. By giving away prizes for winners, HumanForest is incentivizing user engagement, as well as avoiding 20 tonnes of carbon emissions in just 1 week!

This leaderboard showcases how HumanForest successfully uses competition and prizes to incentivize user engagement and achieve real-world environmental impact.

FIND OUT HOW THE WORLD'S LEADING APPS USE GAMIFICATION TO INCREASE USER ENGAGEMENT! GET YOUR FREE GUIDE HERE!

11. Optimize your empty states to increase user engagement

While only an estimated 5% of users ever see an empty state, they’re still a great opportunity to drive user engagement. How? Based on a blog about empty states by Chameleon, 3 key principles have been formulated:

1. Education.
2. Motivation.
3. Direction.

For a great example of how to improve user engagement on apps with empty states, look at the note-taking app Notion. When users create a new page, they see instructive demo content and features like a get-started checklist. As well, they are motivated by action-focused copy: “Press enter to continue with an empty page or pick a template”.

12. Chatbots provide fast support (and get users re-engaged)

With improvements in AI, 70% of consumers now prefer chatbots for fast support. Why? It’s simple, users want their questions answered as fast as possible! Given the advantage in response time, studies show that chatbots can provide a 400% engagement boost compared to human support.

Mastercard uses chatbots to increase customer engagement

Mastercard is using chatbots to increase customer engagement. Far from being used only for complaints, Mastercard customers can converse with the bot to ask just about anything!

Mastercard's chatbot demonstrates how AI-driven support can vastly improve customer engagement by providing quick, conversational answers to user queries.

Here’s another great example. Slush, a tech events organization, implemented the chatbot “Jenny”. In no time, the bot took on a whopping 67% of all support requests and created 55% more conversations! In short, one simple chatbot can show you how to increase user engagement!

13. Upsell, activate, and re-engage existing users

Rather than focusing on a user acquisition plan, focus on a clear re-engagement strategy! Achieving high levels of user engagement is impossible without one. By day 90, chances are 71% of acquisitions will churn! You can prevent this by activating cart abandoners with discounts and upselling to existing customers with personalized offers. The benefits of re-engagement are huge: re-targeted users result in 37% more revenue events than organic acquisitions!

Let’s take the example of the French travel app Ouibus. Offering the chance of a discount, they used scratch card and fruit machine game ads to retarget existing users. As a result of the campaign, Ouibus saw a 27% boost in revenue!

Ouibus effectively re-engages users and boosts revenue by using gamified ads like scratch cards to retarget existing customers with special offers.

14. Boost user referrals and take advantage of the network effect

Leverage the ‘network effect’ and you'll multiply user engagement! So, the effect says that an app becomes more useful with more users. Undeniably, gamification can be one of the best options for community growth and create WOM to make the app more dependable.

A great example of this is the fintech app Revolut. Revolut invests in gamified referrals because bill-splitting features and fast transfers are more valuable if the user's friends use their app too.

To sum up, if you by incentivize user referrals with prizes, you’re directly investing in your growth!

Revolut leverages gamified referrals to take advantage of the network effect, as the app's value increases when more of a user's friends are on the platform.

15. Update and optimize your app regularly

Your customers change - and so should your app. With regular testing and optimization, you can stay on top of every new challenge that comes your way. For sure, this will keep your app unpredictable and exciting to use.

Ready to apply these strategies to your own app? Our team can help you get started on your gamification journey.

FAQ

What is app engagement?

Put simply, app engagement is the interaction between a user and a mobile app. Without a doubt, it is what makes an app successful - engaged users spend 60% more, generate more data you can leverage, and provide more touchpoints to capitalize on.

What does user engagement mean for mobile apps?

In reality, user engagement encompasses everything. Every click, view, and download a user performs is user engagement. And higher levels of user engagement indicate a successful app. That’s because engaged users increase profitability — engaged users spend as much as 3x more!

Why do you need a mobile app engagement strategy?

If you are going to the effort of thoroughly testing new features and strategies, then you should know what you want from the very beginning. Indeed, 90% of experiments fail. So without a clear plan, a few failed tests can easily diminish the motivation you need to achieve your goal.

How do you develop a mobile app engagement strategy?

To start developing your app engagement strategies, you need to analyze and create an action plan based on your entire operation. It sounds intimidating, but only a holistic approach will result in a streamlined plan that creates a seamless customer experience.

How does gamification help increase user engagement?

Gamification hooks users by incentivizing engagement with features such as badges, points, and rewards. Based on behavioral science, these features unlock powerful motivators by making the CX fun, social, and easy to use. For example, Duolingo’s badge rewards boosted referrals by 116%!

Top tips on how to build a successful app gamification strategy

This article cover illustrates the core concept of creating a winning app gamification plan.

App gamification doesn’t conform to a one-size-fits-all model. In fact, that’s what makes it so powerful! When done right a gamified app is built to drive and reward specific user behavior. For instance, you can use it to boost user activation and increase user engagement! But before you create a great UX and reap the benefits, you need to learn how to build an app gamification strategy. Let’s look at some tactics & gamification examples you could use for your goals!

• What is app gamification?
• Why you need a gamified app
• How do you increase user engagement with mobile app gamification?
• 4 tips on how to build an app gamification strategy
• 6 effective features to start your gamification journey
• How to successfully implement your mobile app gamification strategy
• FAQ - How to build an app gamification strategy

What is app gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements like badges, points, and levels in non-game contexts. In short, app gamification leverages the data mined from user behavior to incentivize desired user actions. Essentially, it’s a way to persuade and motivate!

Why you need a gamified app

Gamification works on a very human level. Recently, behavioral psychologists have studied how gamified apps tap into the deepest parts of human psychology to create a powerful motivation. For example, gamification fulfills innate and complex needs like fun, personal growth, and belonging.

And when you meet these needs, users gain intrinsic motivation. This means that users are motivated not by external drivers such as rewards or prizes, but through enjoyment and personal fulfillment. To be sure, this is crucial for retention and user engagement.

Supercharge your user engagement with app gamification! Check out our definitive guide to app engagement & retention and get ahead of the competition.

How do you increase user engagement with mobile app gamification?

When your app is gamified, it becomes fun and satisfying to use and that creates user engagement. Take gamified in-app communities, for example. Studies show that in-app communities make customers 60% more loyal! And higher retention means more opportunities to engage! Gamified communities increase engagement because of competitive features like challenges that make the UX more exciting, not to mention the social elements that fulfill the need to belong.

You can also increase user engagement with features like goals and deadlines. Case studies show that adding a deadline greatly helps goal pursuit - making it more likely users will engage to hit their targets. Of course, any app can do this! Whether you’re a fintech app encouraging users to save money, or a mHealth app letting users set exercise goals, you can customize your use of gamification to align with your strategy.

4 tips on how to build an app gamification strategy

To effectively create a gamified app, you need a consistent and integrated strategy. Indeed, today's mobile app users expect this! Especially since the age groups with the highest levels of user engagement are Gen Z and Millennials - the ‘digital native’ generations. Given this, your strategy must create a coherent user experience.

So how do you build an effective gamification strategy?

1. What does your app do? Analyze your app’s key features and user actions.
2. Who are your users? Learn more about your users and what motivates them.
3. Identify the touchpoints. These interactions are what you can leverage. Think about what the ideal user behavior at these points should look like.
4. Learn from the best! They say that no ideas are original, just their executions. To be sure, it is smart to learn from other gamified apps, especially if they have the same goals as you.

Get started on your own gamification journey today! Book a custom gamification workshop & create your own roadmap!

6 effective features to start your gamification journey

Progress bars make your UX easy (and boost brand trust)

Progress bars fill up as a user advances through a task. At its base, the feature is a clear way to provide instant feedback, which increases the perception of app responsiveness. Likewise, research shows progress bars reduce the ‘cognitive load’, in other words taking a weight off of your user’s mind. In short, the user knows they can rely on you! That’s an essential step in building brand trust and more user engagement.

Streaks are an incentive for daily user engagement

While they are simple, research shows that streaks are effective in boosting daily user engagement. Streaks incentivize engagement by keeping count and rewarding those who notch up high numbers. It works the other way too, nobody wants to lose a streak!

Hotzones keep the UX unpredictable and exciting

Everyone remembers the all-important boss battles they played as a kid. Hotzones work in the same way, acting as flashpoints where users can earn double points. These tests of competence are unpredictable and add variety to the challenges your UX should provide.

Challenges are a focused way to drive user engagement

On that note, a great way to incentivize user engagement is by challenging your users! Studies show that challenges positively affect the ‘sustained use’ of apps. Even better, your challenges can also align with your business goals and drive desired user behavior.

Levels are fun and customizable progress trackers

More than another way to display user progress, levels are uniquely powerful because they are both easy to understand and customizable. Levels can reflect your brand identity, act as a clear goal that justifies engagement, and also be an effective reward touchpoint!

Rewards like badges and points are indispensable

Badges and points are highly motivating, especially when timed right. Received after completing a task (and the dopamine hit that comes with it), the effort expended suddenly feels worth it! Indeed, timely positive reinforcement enhances the effects of a reward.

Gamify your app, 1 building block at a time! Discover how to instantly increase daily active users by 58% with our app gamification platform!

How to successfully implement your mobile app gamification strategy

Tips & gamification examples for mHealth apps

mHealth is diverse, from specialized trackers to general fitness, but gamification works for both! Diet trackers, like mySugr for diabetes patients, can greatly benefit from gamifying their repetitive tasks. Badges, streaks, and levels can be a great way to incentivize user engagement and make the tasks fun and intrinsically motivating.

But beware - when dealing with such sensitive health information, user privacy is paramount. Indeed, many mHealth app users are concerned about privacy. So while it can be effective to compare users to their peers, putting sensitive data on a public leaderboard might be counterproductive. MySugr challenges users to keep an eye on their diabetes and it clearly works. The app recently received an investment of $4.8 million!

The mySugr app provides an excellent example of gamification in mHealth, using challenges to motivate users with diabetes.

How finance & fintech can build a gamified app

Done right, fintech and gamification can do great things! For example, China’s Alipay gave points to users with CO2-friendly habits like using cycling or buying bio-friendly products. Currently, those points have gone towards planting over 600 million trees!

However, as you are dealing with people’s money, a gamified finance app should be responsible for its application. Finance expert Bjorn Cumps shares his insights on how to build an app gamification strategy in fintech:

Bjorn Cumps - "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."

The success of Alipay has prompted inspiration across the world, like Banx in Belgium.

This dashboard from the Banx app shows how fintech can gamify eco-friendly behavior by tracking CO2 impact.

How to create a gamified app for the education sector

Education is the second most gamified vertical, behind only retail. An important aspect of gamifying education is learning how to give feedback. Research shows that students are motivated by the positive reinforcement provided by points and badges, but also by negative reinforcement!

When it comes to negative reinforcement, it is highly effective only if the user failure can be easily and quickly repaired. To be sure, you don’t want to negatively reinforce a user if, for example, they can not immediately re-take the failed test. In addition, if users feel that your feedback is nudging them on a preordained trajectory, you can induce the ‘boomerang effect’. Essentially, the student will adopt the exact reverse of what you want! To avoid this, make every task matter - and make it obvious why it matters!

Kahoot is a gamified education platform that allows for more interaction during classes. Teachers can share a code in class & students get to compete with their classmates to rank on the leaderboard! With 50 million monthly users Kahoot is popping up in classes around the world. Gamification features such as leaderboards, points, and visual rewards like digital confetti all work to boost user engagement.

The Kahoot! platform uses leaderboards and points to make classroom learning more competitive and engaging.

How fan apps should approach gamification

Fan apps are ideal for gamified communities and benefit uniquely from higher engagement. Any app can leverage the data mined from user engagement, but fan app users start off with more brand affinity. As such, boosts to your marketing efforts are doubled! Indeed, the more data you have, the more effective your personalized and contextualized offers will be.

The Real Madrid app has such an active community that fan profiles grew by nearly 400% in the past two years, engaging millions of users!

The Real Madrid fan app illustrates how gamified communities can dramatically increase user profile creation and interaction.

Want to build a gamified app but not sure where to start? Get in touch with our experts & discover your next steps!

FAQ - How to build an app gamification strategy?

What is app gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements like badges, points, and levels in non-game contexts. In short, app gamification leverages the data mined from user behavior to incentivize desired user actions. Essentially, it’s a way to persuade and motivate!

Why do I need a gamified app?

Gamification works on a very human level. Recently, behavioral psychologists have studied how gamified apps tap into the deepest parts of human psychology to create a powerful motivation. For example, gamification fulfills innate and complex needs like fun, personal growth, and belonging.

How do you increase user engagement with mobile app gamification?

When your app is gamified, it becomes fun and satisfying to use which helps to increase user engagement. To provide just one example, competitive and social in-app communities boost user retention by nearly 300%. And higher retention means more opportunities to engage!

What are examples of gamification features?

Gamification requires an integrated strategy and several features can create this. Progress bars make the experience easier to understand. Levels, badges, and daily streaks incentivize user engagement with rewards. In addition, unpredictable hotzones and challenges test user competence and drive user behavior.

How to increase app retention? Use these 8 proven gamification features!

This article outlines eight key gamification tactics designed to boost mobile app retention and reduce user churn effectively.

Mobile app retention is a make-or-break metric for product growth teams. Put simply, retention is the first step in creating loyal customers, and that’s crucial - the top 20% of your customers make up 80% of your revenue. But of course, cutting user churn is easier said than done! Indeed, it requires a holistic user engagement strategy that puts customers at the heart of your product. To achieve this, one of the best-proven tools you can implement is app gamification. So let’s answer the question: how to increase app retention?

• What is mobile app gamification?
• Why app gamification is crucial for user retention
• Rewarding user engagement leads to customer loyalty
• Levels clearly conceptualize user milestones
• Challenges motivate users - win or lose!
• Lotteries are rewarding and unpredictable
• Competition makes winning meaningful
• Leaderboards help build an app that is sticky and social
• Progress bars create an app that’s easier to use
• Badges are not just rewarding, they are a status symbol to slash user churn
• FAQ

What is mobile app gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements like badges, points, and levels in non-game contexts. In short, app gamification leverages the data mined from user behavior to incentivize desired user actions. Essentially, it’s a means of persuasion!

But what makes it so persuading? To start with, gamification is based on behavioral science. Research shows that app gamification taps into the deepest parts of human psychology, and in doing so results in something powerful. Namely, gamification can fulfill innate and complex needs like fun, personal growth, and belonging.

When you realize those inner cravings, you create what is called intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivators make your app naturally satisfying to use, in turn, enticing users to return to your app! Indeed, studies show that while extrinsic motivators - based more on simple, transactional concepts like prizes and hard results - push users through the discovery phase, intrinsic drivers sustain long-term user retention.

Why app gamification is crucial for user retention

It was only recently that mobile apps became so integrated into our daily lives. In 2017, mobile apps grossed an impressive $178 billion globally. In 2025, that figure is predicted to hit a whopping $613 billion - a 71% increase! This growth is affecting every sector:

• Finance is experiencing a 36% decrease in bank branch visits, while at the same time a 121% increase in mobile transactions!
• Fitness app sessions are on the rise, with a 31% jump from 2020 to 2021
• Shared mobility is taking advantage of the power of mobile apps to grow by diversifying its offerings beyond e-hailing services like Lyft

But what is the consequence of all this? Essentially, the old ways of working have been thrown out the window!

Gone are the days of product, marketing, or customer success teams working in silos. Today product-led growth is now the #1 driver of acquisition and retention for mobile apps. Here, the go-to-market strategy relies on your product experience as a way to acquire, activate, and retain users. In fact, 65% of consumers say they would become loyal to brands with a consistently positive user experience!

Given this, mobile apps with the best and most exciting user experiences will dominate today’s user churn success stories - and that’s where app gamification comes in! A gamified app comes with a host of CX benefits, from increases to perceived levels of usefulness, social influence, and enjoyment. To be sure, when you boost these triggers, you unlock a powerful user motivation that makes retention less of a challenge!

Like the sound of that? You too can boost mobile app retention, with these 8 gamification examples.

Slash user churn with app gamification! Check out our definitive guide to user engagement & retention and get ahead of the competition.

Rewarding user engagement leads to customer loyalty

Face it - why should users bother to become loyal customers, if they are treated the same as a new customer? They’ve put in the work, and so should you! This idea is actually called the Lucky Loyalty Effect, which says that loyal customers feel more entitled to prizes and gifts than customers who are not loyal.

To fulfill the expectations of loyal customers, provide the opportunity to earn prizes, perks, and freebies. Try using a tiered reward system, where the value of the reward increases depending on the user’s activity. The results? Less user churn and higher loyalty! Uber’s tiered reward system is a great example, which encouraged 20 million sign-ups in just 6 months!

Uber's reward system effectively uses a progress bar to visually represent user advancement, encouraging continued engagement to unlock new tiers.

Levels clearly conceptualize user milestones

Levels are a powerful tool because they are easy to understand. Essentially, rack up points and you will hit important milestones. These milestones represent not just a clear goal and an engaging challenge, but they also indicate progress and social status.

Finally, and useful for product growth teams, levels can be leveraged as timely and relevant reward touchpoints to spur engagement and, in turn, increase mobile app retention. Sustainable e-bike app HumanForest rewards users with on-brand levels like the novice status ‘Bonsai’.

The HumanForest app uses themed levels to show user progress, making milestones feel both achievable and rewarding.

Challenges motivate users - win or lose!

Challenges work because they’re fun. It’s as simple as that! Looking closer, behavioral studies show that challenges are a great way to test user skills, or ‘perceived level of user competence’. This is highly motivating and positively affects ‘sustained use’ for apps.

Moreover, whether users win or lose a challenge doesn’t matter - research demonstrates that both winners and losers crave the feeling of winning!

Everything you need to gamify your app in 1 solution – check out how our app gamification software can help you!

Lotteries are rewarding and unpredictable

Lotteries are a great example of unpredictability, a core gamification mechanic. For one, unpredictable elements keep the CX fresh and exciting, giving users a reason to stay. Moreover, not everyone can win a lottery, and this fear of missing out is motivating! Fintech app Revolut has a weekly lottery that rewards users with the most referrals, a clever way to boost retention. Customers will stick around if their friends use the same app!

Revolut's lottery system for referrals demonstrates how unpredictable rewards can drive social sharing and user acquisition.

Competition makes winning meaningful

The research is clear - competitive game mechanics have a significant positive influence on app usage and reuse. So if you want to decrease user churn, competitive elements like challenges and leaderboards can help by not only making the UX more exciting but also giving users opportunities to have meaningful wins they can celebrate. In turn, you can use this as a focal point for rewards.

Competition is especially effective for apps that feature repetitive tasks, like health or financial trackers. When competing, users are more likely to complete their tasks!

Leaderboards help build an app that is sticky and social

Through user competition, leaderboards become a social anchor. On a leaderboard, users are driven by something called ‘upwards social comparison’. In short, that’s being motivated by seeing someone doing better than you! This actually helps form user relationships and fosters a community. As a result, you fulfill the ‘the need to belong’ - which social psychologists describe as an “extremely powerful motivation”.

What’s more, the social attachments that come with an in-app community “produce positive emotions”, which will affect reuse intention, and reduce user churn! Fitness app Fitbit found that their leaderboard gave users a place to connect, and alone led to a 15% increase in daily user engagement!

Fitbit's leaderboard is a prime example of how social competition fosters community and motivates users to engage more frequently with the app.

Progress bars create an app that’s easier to use

Progress bars fill up as a user advances. In tracking the user’s progress, this feature provides a clear and visually stimulating way to give feedback. Users can easily follow their growth, one of the basic psychological needs that leads to intrinsic motivation.

To sum up the effect of a progress bar, it influences the perceived ease of use of your app. By decreasing the ‘cognitive load’, your CX is smoother and less abrasive. To be sure, this is a must-have if you want to increase mobile app retention!

Badges are not just rewarding, they are a status symbol to slash user churn

Badges are prizes given after passing a successful activity. They are both a form of instant feedback and a powerful reward system for loyal users! When users collect badges, they become a sort of status symbol that they can publicly show off.

Completing the collection, and removing those pesky greyed-out achievements, plays on the super motivating constraint mechanic, which says that some features should be locked off for all but the most loyal users. This can be super motivating and give users another reason to keep your app installed.

The tasks that users must complete to earn badges can even align with your business goals. For example, the mobility app Waze awards badges for users who drive out of their way and increase the system’s coverage. Studies show that badges increase user engagement, and in turn, retention.

This graph illustrates the correlation between employing gamification mechanics, like badges, and a notable increase in user engagement and long-term retention.

Get started with app gamification & slash user churn by 23%! Book a gamification workshop & kick-start your app retention strategy.

FAQ

How to increase mobile app retention?

The answer to how to increase mobile app retention seems simple: create a better experience! Why? Well, the better your experience the higher user engagement will be. In return that will lead to higher retention and finally help you get rid of user churn!

What is mobile app gamification?

Gamification is the use of game-like elements like badges, points, and levels in non-game contexts. In short, app gamification leverages the data mined from user behavior to incentivize desired user actions. Essentially, it’s a means of persuasion! With features like points, you can literally reward user engagement & keep them coming back!

Why is app gamification is crucial for user retention?

Today, 65% of consumers say they would become loyal to brands with a consistently positive user experience. A gamified app is one that focuses on a positive user experience, by making it rewarding, fun, and easy to use.

Why do I need a gamified reward system?

Consumer research shows that customers expect a gamified reward system! This is a concept called the Lucky Loyalty Effect, which says that loyal customers feel more entitled to prizes than customers who are not loyal. Given this, gamified rewards are a must-have.

What gamification features increase mobile app retention?

Competitive features like leaderboards and challenges make your app social, which studies show positive influences on reuse intention. You should also make the customer experience unpredictable with fun mechanics like lotteries and badges - this will keep things fresh and decrease user churn.