What Is User Acquisition(UA)? A Complete Guide
Getting new users for a platform, app, or other service is known as user acquisition or UA for short. On mobile, user acquisition is a strategy centered around generating installs, which are typically attained through marketing initiatives and promotional deals. User acquisition refers to the process of attracting new users to a mobile app through promotional activity.
The value of and methods for acquiring users will be discussed in this article.
What Exactly Is User Acquisition?
User acquisition represents the literal acquisition of new users, which are to be converted to customers following their initial customer engagement. Putting it into practice is a surefire way to raise your average revenue.
For example, offering a free trial to someone will make them a “user,” while a post-trial subscription will turn them into a “customer.” The general principles of user acquisition change depending on the kind of product or service you want to market and monetize.
Main Types Of UA Activity
Paid Media Marketing
This kind of marketing uses media channels to show direct response ads with creativity that tempt viewers to download apps. Targeted posts, banners, or advertisements that appear on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn or a video ad that appears on mobile ad networks are two typical examples of paid user acquisition.
Influencer marketing, which uses high-profile people’s fame and/or influence to reach potential new users in their networks, is another form of paid media. In all of these cases, marketers must invest capital resources in order to utilize these channels
Owned Media Marketing
Owned media marketing, in contrast to paid media marketing, entails using owned marketing resources to attract users.
Email, SMS, QR codes, and invite communications from rewarded users are a few examples of owned media assets. Using owned media assets, user acquisition campaigns may convert current web users to app users via email targeting or include user invite banners in games to encourage friend sharing in exchange for in-game currency.
App Store Optimization
This type of marketing, also known as ASO, is a crucial undertaking within the marketing budget intended to increase organic installs and, consequently, a crucial component of user acquisition.
An app’s store page’s headline, description, keywords, and other elements are all optimized as part of ASO, which is the equivalent of SEO for the web. This raises the app’s position in search results. The UA manager is typically in charge of ASO, which may be handled internally or by a third-party ASO agency.
What Makes User Acquisition Crucial?
Finding and gaining new customers requires a user acquisition strategy. It assists a business in creating a roadmap that illustrates the series of steps required to attract new users. To raise awareness of an app and encourage downloads, businesses create advertising campaigns and promotional offers. Entrepreneurs can keep track of all expenditures and prevent unforeseen costs by using a user acquisition strategy.
A business uses successful marketing techniques, experts, and user segmentation to create an effective strategy. A platform, service, or app’s potential users must be identified. Once a company’s team completes these tasks, the company can target the appropriate audience with the pertinent message.
It aids in spreading awareness of a new app and its benefits. Installs will rise if marketing campaigns are successful. Owners of companies will consequently see increased profits.
User Acquisition Channels
You must reach a larger audience if you want to expand your business. Utilizing various acquisition channels is one way to achieve this. Choosing the best channels for your business is your main responsibility. You can make a choice after reading this section’s comparison of online and offline user acquisition channels.
Email Marketing
The most efficient channels for acquisition continue to be email campaigns. Emails with branding have high open rates. Reaching new subscribers and enticing them to try out your app, platform, or service is possible with the aid of high-quality and pertinent emails. You can create expert email campaigns with SendPulse’s bulk email service without knowing any code. The platform’s free, ready-to-use templates make the process quick and easy.
Paid Search
You can pay search engines for the privilege of having your ads appear at the top of search engine results pages. As a result, your platform will be displayed at the top of SERPs when potential users look for apps similar to yours. It increases website traffic and brand awareness. This is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to inform people about your app.
Website
The majority of businesses make investments in their websites to benefit visitors and inform them about their products. Your website may attract more visitors if it can offer readers enlightening articles and interesting blog posts.
A good website increases traffic, draws in new clients, and acts as a trustworthy informational resource. Your website should contain subscription forms to increase subscriber conversion. Using SendPulse, you can create unique subscription forms that automatically turn visitors into subscribers.
Trade Show
It is an exhibition where various businesses come together to display their most recent goods. Trade shows assemble the most powerful brands in the sector and generate buzz about their goods. These companies are able to work together, pick up new skills from their rivals, and draw in new clients.
Journalists promote brands by talking about their goods. So it’s preferable to exhibit your product at a trade show if it was made for a particular niche market. You can connect with your target audience in this manner.
Blog
It’s a great strategy for increasing interest in your product and gaining new clients. Search engines will reward you with top positions in search results if you can consistently share blog posts of high quality.
Once you start providing value to blog readers, you can gain their trust and generate interest in your product. You must choose pertinent blog topics, include original visuals, incorporate social proof, and create an eye-catching email capture form if you want to turn blog visitors into customers. Your blog ought to be both fascinating and beneficial.
Influencer Marketing
It denotes an effort to promote a product through collaboration with influencers. Opinion leaders with influence in a particular industry and consumer trust are the ones that brands choose. They advise a specific product to their audience. As a result, they boost sales and brand recognition while also generating interest in a product.
Social Media
Social media networks give businesses the opportunity to communicate with their target audience more quickly. You can post organic content or make ads to target your audience on websites and apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. You’ll get immediate results if you choose the best communication channels with potential customers.
Social media platforms give you the opportunity to interact with customers directly and monitor their reactions to your posts, products, and promotions. The best places to collect customer feedback are on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
From likes, comments, and views, you can learn what consumers think of your product. User-generated content acts as a vehicle for word-of-mouth advertising and aids in the promotion of your product. More people become aware of your brand and its worth.
Event
It gives you the ability to interact with potential customers and present your brand to them. You can more effectively reach the right audience at the right time by making in-person contacts. Look for a gathering that concerns your product and think about attending. To promote your brand and show off your newest product, you can also host an event.
How Can I Make Improvements To Increase User Acquisition?
Continuous optimization driven by data is essential for successful user acquisition. Continuous testing and gradual campaign re-adjustment are what fuel it most. Since the ultimate goal of data in user acquisition is to identify the trends and patterns that are best for your app and goals, failing to create an efficient user acquisition plan will leave you guessing and ultimately result in money being wasted.
With the shift from quantity to quality – that is, focusing more on post-install user engagement to guide future user acquisition – marketers must rely on mobile measurement and attribution tools to pinpoint the sources of the highest quality users and zero in on their strongest performers to allocate future budgeting.
How Can You Measure User Growth?
You should choose the three most crucial metrics in order to evaluate the success of your user acquisition strategy. We’ll go over each one carefully.
Determine The CAC, Or Customer Acquisition Cost
A measure of a company’s costs for acquiring new customers is called the CAC. These expenses cover the fees, travel expenses, and other necessary work that goes into sales and marketing activities. You must add up the costs of sales and marketing and divide them by the total number of customers to determine the measure.
Consider comparing your customer acquisition cost to the revenue these new customers bring to your business to determine whether you are making a profit from the customers you acquire.
Calculate The CLV Of A Customer
CLV is the amount of money a company can make from a new customer over a specific period of time. You must multiply the average sale by the number of repeat purchases and the typical length of a customer relationship in order to arrive at this metric. You must compare the measure you have estimated with CAC in order to determine whether your recurring revenue is high.
Calculate Your Churn Rate
The number of customers who stop interacting with and making purchases from a brand is known as the churn rate. A business will inevitably lose customers. However, this figure shouldn’t be higher than the number of new clients you bring in. You can take significant steps to keep these customers once you estimate your company’s churn rate.
Typically, businesses forecast their churn rate for particular time periods to avoid major issues and resolve problems that lead to unhappy customers. Consider dividing the total number of customers at the beginning of a given month by the total number of customers to determine the number of customers who churn out.