In the bag: Essential KPIs for retail app engagement and retention

Many companies focus on acquiring new app users, but if you’re a retailer, engaging your customers is where the money is. Loyal customers account for up to 78% of all retail app revenue. Without a strategy to measure progress, you’re leaving money on the table and increasing the odds of customers abandoning your app. Below, we recommend four of the most effective mobile marketing KPIs to measure app engagement and retention. Find these and more in the tip sheet, “Shopping the Best Mobile Marketing KPIs: The Most Important Metrics for Retail Apps.”

4 Key KPIs for App Engagement & Retention

1. Retention rate

The percent of users who keep your app over time. If your app has a strong retention rate, users are frequently opening and using your app over a sustained period of time. And the higher the usage, the more likely they are to make in-app purchases. There are a number of ways to increase your retention rate, but sending things like push notifications could increase open rates by 800%.

2. Monthly active users

The amount of users who open your app each month.

3. User lifetime value (LTV)

The estimated net profit from the entire relationship with the users.

4. Average revenue per user (ARPU)

The total revenue for a given period of time divided by the number of active users in an application. ARPU is useful as an indicator of the overall health of the business, or as a means of distinguishing the relative value of different segments of users. For example, comparing the ARPU for a set of users acquired from one partner versus another partner provides insight into the relative value of marketing efforts with these two partners.

How the pros do it

When it comes to apps who lead the pack in engagement, we’re not just partial to Starbucks because it’s our Seattle neighbor. The app is consistently a frontrunner when it comes to engaging users. Starbucks incentivizes users to return to the app by:

• Offering star rewards for purchases
• Pinging users when they’re near a Starbucks store
• Enabling users to save favorite drinks for easy ordering
• Allowing digital drink ordering for faster in-store pick-up
• Remembering credit cards for easy ordering

This adds up to increased lifetime value and revenue per user, not to mention happy (and caffeinated) customers.

Master mobile marketing KPIs across the funnel

Engagement and retention are essential, but they’re just one part of the mobile marketing funnel. Get KPIs for discovery and conversion in the tip sheet, “Shopping the Best Mobile Marketing KPIs: The Most Important Metrics for Retail Apps.”