4 Mobile User Acquisition Myths That Startups Believe

Being so concentrated on development stage, there are some common mistakes that many startups make when they are thinking how to attract users and to convince them to download their app. We will help you understand the right side of each problem but keep in mind that every move must be personalized according to users’ preferences and not everything which seems obvious it is necessarily true.

4 Mobile User Acquisition Myths To Correct

There are many misunderstandings regarding the strategies available for acquiring new users, but there are some important ones that we need to put an end to them. These four mistakes can interfere with your good actions and you will not even know why you don’t meet success with your campaigns if you think that the following ideas are flawless.

First Myth: I need to promote my app in all paid channels available for success.

Wow! This is an exaggerated idea, not to mention, really expensive. Compare the situation of promoting through all possible channels (assuming you have a huge budget) but just one is effective and, the other case, when you will adopt only the one relevant solution for your audience. Are you sure that Twitter ads will reach your audience increase your user base? Or are you sure that your audience is in YouTube?
The secret to not throw your money on window is to analyze your target users. If you have some concerns regarding what to choose for the satisfaction of your customers a simple solution is to conduct A/B tests which will make you take the best decision(s). Data is the key in every domain and the more informed you are, the more effective your efforts will be. The condition is to use those resources in a smart way and to connect with your users because they have all the answers.

Second Myth: The most important success metric is app downloads.

Not true! This myth is related in some manner to the previous one. You need to follow all the data that comes to you through detailed reports provided by Tracking Tools because this way you will remain above all the others that are miss leaded by these concepts. Of course, the app installs are very important for your app but, this metric is not the only one that counts for its success. We already covered in depth the importance of Lifetime Value of an app user, which can be measured not only by revenue. The confusion starts from the idea that some apps don’t have in – app purchases. You need to be aware of the fact there are other characteristics that can define the value for an app: pages viewed, the number of shares, tasks completed, etc. Moreover, the retention rate is equally important as the number of installs. For start, you must know it is pointless if somebody downloads your app and he never goes back to it or, even worst, he deletes it afterwards. So, you need to look to both aspects with the same interest. Another useful metric is Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) because you want to acquire users with the highest lifetime value and with the lowest customer acquisition cost. We provided details about The Fundamental Metrics To Measure Your Mobile App Performance in our previous article.

Third Myth: Boost Campaigns are dead.

False! Boost Campaigns can’t be dead since they offer quick results with moderate costs. No other strategy sends your app in top of its category so fast. And if your app is worthy, organic users will start to show up. Then, the success is guaranteed. One more thing, with boost campaigns you have the chance to go viral. To understand this idea better, think about yourself for a moment. You are searching for an app to help you with some tasks. You search on app store and you find many apps that meet your requirements. What app will convince you to install it? The one with 200 downloads or the other with 20k downloads? Yes, the second one, because users bring more users. But, there are two main conditions to fulfill this strategy. We already talked about the value of the app, because no matter how many downloads you have, if your app is worthless then bad reviews will appear and you will lose your money and your users. The second condition is to find respected companies that will help you with your campaign and avoid fraudulent options which will make things worse than before. So, improve your app first and keep your eyes open to well-reviewed agencies.

Fourth Myth: A good app doesn’t need to be promoted, it sells itself.

Nothing more wrong! Wouldn’t be a shame that after you invested so much hard work, time and money into developing and launching your app, now to leave it to fate, just because you did a great job so far? If you don’t know how to do it or you don’t have time to market it then find somebody to help you. But give as much attention to advertising it as you did when you were developing your app, no matter how great it became. If you ignore the problem, it won’t disappear. We already mentioned in each and every of our articles, but it is worth repeating, the fierce competition in app stores and the minimum chances you have that your app to be discovered with more than 5.000.000 apps available on all app markets. The following chart shows the amazing crowded app stores in June, this year. But, there are 6 months from then. So, imagine the situation from current reports.

Moreover, Statista presents the huge number of global downloads of apps from Google Play Store and Apple App Store. As you can see, in the third quarter of 2016, this total reached almost 20 billion downloads.

How can you find your way through these results if you won’t market your app? We can go on and on and highlight for you all the studies and predictions published on the web, but if you continue to keep your eyes closed don’t be amazed if other apps not so good as yours, but with smart advertising efforts are in top of charts and your app is lost in the endless list of mobile apps in app store. Be aware though, because, even if you realize the importance of marketing your app you must do that in a proper way. You can’t choose a random solution and then hoping for the best results. That strategy needs to be tailored to your budget and to your app category. Open your eyes and your mind, study all your opportunities and choose the right one for you.

Final Thoughts

If you take a closer look to the errors listed above you will realize that they all have in common a big consequence: they all make you lose money in one way or another. For those, it is a general solution: avoid them. In the end, we are so glad that we brought a little light into your ideas and now you are about to make some great decisions when it comes to acquire new users. We will continue and we will correct more myths related to other stages in mobile advertising with future articles, because it is nothing worse than starting on the wrong foot and with no clue about your mistake.