What is retention rate?
Being an essential KPI for especially gaming apps, retention is related to user loyalty. Retention rate is the percentage of users who keep engaging with your app over time. You can track retention at 1 day, 7 days, 21 days, or 30 days. The latest data from Adjust shows that, over a 30-day period, 6% for Android and 7% for iOS are the averages.
Due to the increasing competition of apps, and the decreased attention span of users, retaining users is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve and will continue to be a key metric. The retention rate is calculated as:
Retention = number of monthly active users/number of monthly installs
Why is retention rate important?
Retention rate provides valuable insight on exactly when users stop engaging with your app. Using this information, app developers are able to associate certain actions with the decrease and find out why users are churning.
Ways to increase your retention rate
Optimize user onboarding: An informative and engaging onboarding process elevates the user journey.
Push notifications: Sending notifications directly to the user’s device is a compelling way of bringing users back to your app.
In-app messaging: Communicating with your users in the app is an effective way to keep people engaged. Be careful about not overwhelming users with heavy messaging.
Retention rate in gaming apps
There are unique ways of increasing the retention rate of gaming apps:
Rewarded Engagement: Encourage your users to complete certain tasks for rewards, and increase engagement.
Rewarded Playtime: Also called play-to-earn, rewarded playtime campaigns aim to attract new users by rewarding them for gameplay.
Check out AppSamurai for games to learn more.