In today’s hyper-competitive landscape of mobile content, understanding your audience and how to target them isn’t just good business practice– it’s essential to long-term success. Mobile apps, whether they're designed for gaming, productivity, or social networking, face numerous challenges in building and retaining their user bases. The ability to deeply comprehend user behavior, preferences, and expectations and target the right people at the right moment can make all the difference between a thriving app and one that struggles to gain traction.

Mobile app usage is essentially ubiquitous, with approximately 6.95 billion mobile users right now globally. Last year in the U.S., there were 12.5 billion apps downloaded, smartphone users spent 217 billion hours on apps, and total app spending generated $171 billion. Despite skyrocketing popularity and usage, there are a number of circumstances that are making it difficult for mobile apps and games to ensure they are reaching the right people at the right time.

One of the primary challenges across the mobile app ecosystem is steep competition for attention. With millions of apps available across various app stores, standing out and attracting users can be a daunting experience. Moreover, once users download an app, retaining their interest and keeping them engaged poses another set of challenges, especially because all the apps are essentially competing for the same share of attention. Unlike e-commerce, where engagement is mostly transactional, the mobile landscape is fighting for wallet and ongoing attention. The value of these customers (attention over time) is infinite, making it even more important to get in front of the right audiences at precisely the right moments.

Another key challenge mobile apps face is that 100% of their traffic comes from the apps themselves. This is different from e-commerce where there’s a subset of traffic coming from desktop, which in turn, is inherently easier to track.

On top of this, when Apple released iOS 14.5 in 2021, more than 62% of Apple’s users chose to opt out of targeted tracking, which abruptly disconnected the signal between mobile app marketers and their customer data. As a result, mobile marketers had to contend with data that was second or third hand, often recycled from other sources. This loss of access to first-party data led to reduced targeting capabilities and unoptimized ad spend, leaving mobile hurting even more. Finding an iOS audience willing to make big purchases became an even bigger pain point for mobile marketers.

It’s also important to understand that mobile prioritizes lifetime value expansion. It’s not enough to get users to download an app. Mobile marketers need to encourage users to build app engagement into their everyday behaviors. At the same time, apps have to contend with the fact that what users desire today might change tomorrow. Without a firm grasp on changing trends or shifts in user behavior, apps risk falling behind or becoming irrelevant.

Take Wordle, for example. When the word game was first introduced, it was new and exciting, and people were eager to play it. However, as more and more people played the game and shared their experiences, the novelty wore off, and the game lost some of its appeal. Interest has been steadily declining, despite The New York Times purchasing the app in 2022.
Motivating users to engage with your app over and over again starts with understanding who your audience is in the first place. There is no substitute for this, so it’s wise to invest time in answering these kinds of questions:

• What are your users doing?
• How are they behaving?
• Which segments bring the highest value?
• How can you best engage with them?

The better you meet their needs and preferences, the higher likelihood you will retain them and secure the outcomes you’re seeking.

Data Intelligence is Key to Taking Control of Your Audience

Think of data intelligence as the missing link, bridging the gap between the pre and post iOS 14.5 landscape. While the iOS update made audience targeting unavailable for a while, the right data intelligence platform is now giving this access back. By collecting and analyzing user data—such as app usage patterns, in-app purchases, and user feedback—you can uncover valuable insights to help you make more informed decisions to boost customer acquisition, retention and lifetime value.

More specifically, you can regain access to first-party data, build a more value-based audience, inclusive of iOS users, unlock greater ROAS, and increase your scale without having your CPA suffer. And because mobile gamers are an audience set that isn’t yet saturated, opportunities for mobile marketers are ripe for the taking. It’s also worth noting that the right tech can help mobile marketers replicate shoppers’ purchasing behavior in-app, which has been historically challenging to do.

Make no mistake, the success of operating mobile apps and games hinges on your ability to deeply understand and connect with your audiences. By overcoming the challenges of a competitive market and evolving user expectations, apps can thrive by leveraging data-driven insights that will help not only attract users but also retain them for the long term. In this constantly evolving landscape, the mobile apps that prioritize developing differentiated audience targeting will continue to innovate, grow and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Check out the full piece in Mobile App Daily.