Marketers are doubling down on channels they can count on to drive ROI, and apps are at the forefront. More businesses now turn to advanced app strategies, because they drive better business outcomes, like improving customer loyalty and lifetime value. As consumer expectations increase for omnichannel experiences and more apps become available, how can you ensure that your brand cuts through?
At Google we’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of advertisers to accelerate their business growth with apps. Through years of experience, we’ve learned what works. Here are three areas to prioritise as you formulate (or reformulate) your app strategy to delight consumers and drive profitable growth.
1. Grow ROI with seamless omnichannel experiences
Consumers now use apps to do things that used to require a laptop, a phone call, or even a trip across town. Remember waiting in line at the bank? Today many financial institutions have created apps that put the bank branch in the customer’s pocket. Several newer banks have foregone branches altogether, choosing instead to make their app the centre of the customer experience.
Increasingly, customers also turn to apps as a valuable in-store shopping companion. In fact, 78% of customers in the U.S. who own a smartphone have used a retailer’s app while shopping in-store over the past 12 months.
What’s driving this behaviour? Apps can provide customers with unique value to make their in-store experiences better, like offering inventory and price checks, enabling quick coupon searches, or even automatically sequencing items on a shopping list to help people navigate store aisles efficiently. So as consumer expectations rise and online and offline experiences blur, marketers should adapt by breaking down internal organisational silos.
Shopee directed customers to compelling content right inside the mobile app, providing a seamless experience that increased checkouts by 126%.
Marketers are also leaning on new technological solutions to create better experiences across brand touchpoints. Web to App Connect, for example, helps ensure that customers who already have your app installed will land on the most relevant in-app content after clicking your ads. This improves both customer experience and campaign performance. On average, Web to App Connect delivers a 2X higher conversion rate for clicks that land in-app versus a mobile website.1
Leading e-commerce platform Shopee is a powerful example of how Web to App Connect can improve the bottom line. Recognising that its mobile app users have 20X higher conversion rates than its web customers, Shopee used Web to App Connect to direct customers to compelling content right inside the mobile app, providing a seamless experience that increased checkouts by 126%.
As Kevin Guan, Shopee’s regional online marketing manager shared, “Deep links enabled us to connect our users to our app, where they could enjoy a better mobile shopping experience, which helped boost our traffic to the app and improved app conversion.”
2. Grow loyalty — and profits — through existing and new customers
When a user downloads a brand’s app and places it on their home screen, the brand has a rare opportunity to build a direct, one-to-one relationship. Retailers do this well by providing app users with added convenience through features like in-store wayfinding, faster checkouts, and exclusive discounts.
It appears to be working. Retail brands that design app journeys to drive customer loyalty have a Net Promoter Score that’s 32% better than retailers that do not. The vast majority of retailers also derive incremental business value from app users. Moreover, a recent study in APAC by Google and AppsFlyer found that re-engaged users are 1.5X more likely to become paying customers. And for shopping apps, the likelihood of re-engaged users becoming paying customers is 1.9X greater than those who were not re-engaged.
Now that there’s seemingly an app for everything, it’s critical to ensure that customers know your app is available. A great way to do that is through a promotional push using App campaigns in Google Ads. Powered by Google AI, App campaigns allow you to provide your creative assets and goals to promote your app across Google’s largest properties, all from a single paid campaign.
These campaigns are effective at reaching new customers quickly and at scale, and can even help drive better organic performance.
But here’s a reality check: Getting users to download your app doesn’t guarantee they’ll use it. It can be difficult to notify the vast majority of app users about discounts, features, and other news.
Fortunately, overcoming this hurdle is possible. One way to do it is through a re-engagement strategy, which is also available through App campaigns. Using this approach, you can re-engage specific customers — such as users who made a purchase right after they downloaded your app but then churned — by serving them an ad with a new offer available inside the app.
3. Grow first-party data for long-term success
As access to cookies, ad IDs, and other personal identifiers deteriorates, the future of marketing requires a strong foundation of consented first-party data. It will be essential to effectively measure conversions and reach consumers with relevant ads.
Apps are a valuable tool that can set you up for success by creating a compelling value exchange with customers.
Apps are a valuable tool that can set you up for success by allowing you to create a compelling value exchange with customers. One powerful example of this is an app that offers users a seamless and efficient shopping experience.
Collecting this information, however, requires a strategy. We found it’s important to follow three common best practices.
First, be transparent with users about how their information will be used in your app. In a recent research study, we learned that more than 80% of consumers feel that transparency on their data is a must-have for a meaningful value exchange. Second, show users how you will deliver a better experience for them when they share information with you through your app. And finally, in exchange for the value provided to your users, encourage them to create an account in-app and sign in.
As consumers spend more time on apps, successful marketers will unlock new opportunities to build direct relationships between their brand and their customers. Ultimately, those who prioritise superior app journeys and app solutions will be positioned to delight consumers and drive ROI for their business over years to come.
