5 Best Practices for Acquiring New Users to Your App

The app marketplace is becoming increasingly crowded. With over 1.5 million apps on the Google Play and App Store each, getting your app noticed involves a lot of work. Every company or developer’s worst fear is spending a lot of money on app development just to have no one discover their app.While there are a number of methods that can be used to generate organic installs from the Google and Apple stores, that game can largely be a crapshoot. Most successful apps these days focus on optimizing their user acquisition funnels.My company, AdGate Media, helps apps monetize their users and acquire new ones. Below are the things that I have seen our most successful clients do.Good TrackingBefore you do any sort of promotion, you should set up proper tracking and acquisition attribution. There are a number of very powerful services available that can help you do this. Tracking where your new users come from, how much time they spend in your app, how much money they spend, how long they keep your app installed, etc. are all incredibly informative metrics. This knowledge is extremely powerful and will help you better optimize your user acquisition funnel.Test Different SourcesIt’s never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. The same applies for traffic sources. By testing different traffic sources, not only will you be mitigating your risk (just in case Facebook decides to ban all Find Where You Parked Your Car Apps), but you will also be able to acquire many different kinds of users. Many of our clients run campaigns on our Offerwall, on Facebook, on ad exchanges, and many other traffic platforms.Keep Your Eye on ROIIn my experience, the longest running campaigns belong to companies that have quantified how much each source is worth. If you run a campaign and find that your ROI is negative, don’t give up! Adjust your bids, your CPI, or whatever metric you are using to buy traffic to make your ROI positive. Every user is worth something. Just because your average user has an LTV of $5 and your new source is only backing out at $2 does not mean that the source isn’t useful. The solution is to acquire those users under $2 from that source.Build To Be ViralWouldn’t it be great if you paid for one user but received 2? Almost every successful app has some sort of viral feature built into it. Beat a level? Share your accomplishment on Facebook or Twitter. Want free in-app credit? Refer a friend. There are a few different ways in which you can build your app to grow virally. Make use of viral methods because they are the absolute best way to leverage your acquisition costs.User RetentionAcquiring new users is extremely important, but maximizing the value of your existing users is equally important. Make sure you’re devoting enough resources to maximize your RPU. Increasing RPUs means you can increase your acquisition costs, and ultimately your scalability and overall revenue.These are the best practices you can follow to make the most your user acquisition efforts. Keep in mind that building a competitive app is not just about the user acquisition strategy. In order to succeed, you must focus on the product, monetization, customer service, and marketing.Dan Sapozhnikov is the co-founder of AdGate Media. AdGate Media helps developers monetize their apps through the use of non-intrusive advertisements.Special thanks to Dan Sapozhnikov!You can meet Dan and the rest of the AdGate Media team at NY TechDay!