In today’s constantly changing world a strong app presence is instrumental to your app business’ survival. It’s probably time for an app growth audit if you are looking for the best method to get your app to stand out from the crowd, create an effective app marketing strategy, and not waste the budget on unsuccessful actions, or inept testing of solutions invented on the fly.
In today’s constantly changing world a strong app presence is instrumental to your app business’ survival.
Apps that don’t have a strategic, intentional, distinctive & ROI-focused app marketing strategy will not build a position and stand out in such a competitive market as the app market.
Research shows that there are 80+ apps installed on the average smartphone. But with that said, people aren’t using all of those apps. The average person uses 9 mobile apps per day and 30 apps per month. If the average smartphone user has 80 apps on their phone, this means that more than 62% of those apps don’t get used every month. What does this mean? It’s simple. People are downloading apps and not using them. In fact, 25% of apps are used only once after being downloaded, and then never used again.
It’s probably time for an app growth audit if you are looking for the best method to get your app to stand out from the crowd, create an effective app marketing strategy, and not waste the budget on unsuccessful actions, or inept testing of solutions invented on the fly.
An app growth audit, when done correctly, can give you a lot of valuable insights and a ready-to-implement roadmap into what could be done to boost your current app growth strategy.
Let’s dig deeper into the app growth audit paradigms to solve the puzzle and give your app a quick solution to your growth problems.
In this article
What Is an App Growth Audit?
Areas of Your App Growth & Marketing that Should be Audited?
When Your App Needs an App Growth Audit?
What Should be Done after the App Growth Audit? Implementing The Results And Putting Them Into Action
Benefits of App Growth Audit in AppDNA
Summing Up
What Is an App Growth Audit?
An app growth audit is a business document (typically a presentation or figma file) that summarizes all of an app’s marketing operations and initiatives in key app growth areas. It is a detailed analysis of your app’s current performance across multiple facets such as user acquisition, retention, monetization, and overall user experience. The goal is to identify growth blockers, optimize the app funnel, and create a strategic plan to boost app performance. AppDNA’s App Growth Audit offers a thorough review using a Funnel-First, ROI-Focused framework, ensuring that every aspect of your app is scrutinized for potential improvements.
Rather than describing strategy or plans, it focuses on the implementation and results. App Growth audit is a collection of data that can be used to design or evaluate an app's growth & marketing strategy. It can reveal information about competitors' activity and performance, as well as identify opportunities.
Areas of Your App Growth & Marketing that Should be Audited?
App Growth Audit will support the overall growth efforts of your app. However, there are key elements you should pay particular attention to. Here are a few of the major players in your app marketing effort that should be scrutinized:
User Onboarding
Before you focus on researching and optimizing the methods and channels for getting users to your app, we need to start with a few important points. One of these is User Onboarding & First Time User Experience (FTUX).
A user onboarding audit will give you a clear understanding of the problems your app is having right after you install it. Is the registration process simple and easy to understand? Does the user know about the most important features? Are the benefits of paid subscriptions and functionalities communicated correctly and in a simple way?
Included in this audit is the correct structure of user onboarding and screens, a checklist of all elements, good practices in data acquisition and permissions, presentation of paywalls, gamification of the onboarding process, and much more. Poorly designed user onboarding affects conversions from downloads to registrations, from registrations to trials, and trial conversions to paid subscriptions. If you don’t think through and eliminate mistakes at this stage, your user acquisition costs will be several times higher than they could be with well-designed user onboarding.
Product, UX/UI
Another part of the audit is to check the application for product and interface design i.e., UX/UI. Here it is necessary to emphasize issues such as application crashes, proper display of data, the size and location of buttons, ease of navigation, the quality of graphics and images, and whether forms and other elements of user interaction do not cause problems.
We want to avoid negative opinions and other problems with the product itself before directing users to the application.
App Store Optimization
Once the user onboarding and product and design issues have been audited, we can move on to user acquisition. This topic is complex and in order to approach it properly, we will start with the organic method, i.e., App Store Optimization.
Here we have 6 elements on which we must place special emphasis:
- Keyword optimization: Analyze the title, subtitle, and description of your app. Do your research and find what keywords will get you higher ranks and what your competitors use.
- Graphics optimization: Evaluate if there are changes needed in your visual assets such as app icon, screenshots, or promo banners to attract more users.
- Click-to-install conversion rate: Compare your current ASO indicators, user acquisition channels, and conversion rates with market and app category averages.
- Ratings and reviews monitoring: Examine your ratings and reviews, featured reviews, and competitors’ reviews, and discover how to improve them.
- Uninstall rates (user churn): Understand how and why your users delete the app and what actions can encourage them to reinstall it.
- Final report: Summarize all findings, KPIs to be increased, and steps for ASO strategy improvement.
A well-thought-out ASO strategy is the foundation for successful user acquisition and low UA spending.
Paid User Acquisition
A comprehensive User Acquisition Audit should identify your biggest growth opportunities and help you achieve your business objectives. Using a systematic approach and drawing on extensive experience, with carefully tailored recommendations will help you scale and optimize your user acquisition campaigns.
In a UA Audit, you should take care of the following topics:
• Company objectives and industry overview
• Competitor analysis
• KPIs and campaign structure audit
• Tech evaluation
• User journey taxonomy
• Evaluation of LTV & incrementality
Designing a good paid user acquisition strategy should take into account all the above aspects to be comprehensive and effective.
Analytics
Analytics is very important in the growth process of mobile app marketing. It is crucial to know what you are measuring, and whether everything is well-measured so that you have controls and a good reading of the results of your actions. An analytics audit includes checking all current analytics tools, recommending new ones if needed, and setting them up so that they consistently show all the most important KPIs for each element of app marketing.
Retention & Engagement
Keeping and activating the user in the app is another important part of the app’s growth strategy. What’s the point of acquiring a user if they open your app and then leave it and never come back? This is why the Engagement & Retention element is essential so that your money spent on user acquisition converts into revenue, and the user enjoys using your app.
At this stage of the audit, we will examine your Customer Management tools and recommend improvements in areas such as in-app messages, notifications, user activation, up-selling, feedback loops, and customer support. As a result, user retention will be higher, and the money spent on acquisition will pay off in the form of high lifetime value (LTV).
Monetization
The last important aspect is monetization. We will check current user conversion types and ways to monetize your app, and recommend new methods or improvements to make them even more effective. Key issues include the business model, A/B paywall testing, ways to present pricing and bundling, activating user cohorts, and monetization analytics.
When Your App Needs an App Growth Audit?
Does your app need an app growth audit? If your KPIs are decreasing or you are unsure about any of the app growth areas listed above, you should consider an audit. Feeling stuck on what to do next to increase downloads and revenue? An App Growth Audit will allow you to check all the crucial elements of app marketing. If you want to see what element to optimize for the best results, understand your competitors’ strategies, improve ASO, User Acquisition, Retention, and Analytics, and develop an effective ready-to-implement roadmap with KPI estimation for the coming months, then this audit is for you.
Get an audit if…
• Your app is in a free trial, freemium, or subscription model.
• You have a solid stream of revenue but think it can do much better / or no revenue but you want to start with the right foot.
• You have high growth demands but don’t know how to get there.
• You want to optimize the app growth stack, reduce user acquisition costs, and increase revenue.
• You have reached a certain stage of app development and feel you have reached a ceiling.
• You don’t know what KPIs you can achieve with app growth services implementation.
What Should be Done after the App Growth Audit? Implementing The Results And Putting Them Into Action
Creating an app marketing strategy based on the facts and insights from the app growth audit is crucial for planning and implementing the suggestions. It should be divided into phases and modularized so that work can be moved ahead or backward as needed. Each task on the roadmap must result in an outcome that includes a suggestion based on a key finding from the audit. This method ensures that each item of work is supported and rationalized by a business rationale.
There is a six-step methodology for app marketing projects:
1. Evaluate: Perform a digital audit and present the client with options and recommendations.
2. Define: Establish short, medium, and long-term objectives in your strategy.
3. Design: Work on all aspects of the app marketing campaign.
4. Develop: Implement technical improvements.
5. Launch: Project goes live, and a preliminary audit is performed to assess its short-term viability.
6. Measure: Track key metrics and performance against KPIs.
Benefits of App Growth Audit in AppDNA
If at this stage of reading this article you are considering an app growth audit then I will write a few words about what such an audit looks like at AppDNA.
If you are considering an app growth audit, here are the key benefits you can expect from AppDNA’s comprehensive service:
1.Detailed Insights and Strategic Recommendations: Our audit provides deep insights into every aspect of your app, from user acquisition to monetization. This allows you to understand precisely what needs improvement and how to go about it.
2.ROI-Focused Approach: Our Funnel-First, ROI-Focused framework ensures that every recommendation is aimed at maximizing your return on investment. This strategic focus helps you achieve more with less.
3.Risk-Free Investment: One of the standout benefits is that 50% of the audit cost is deductible from future services if you decide to implement a funnel optimization service with us. This makes the audit a low-risk investment into your app’s future success.
4.Quick Turnaround: We offer flexible delivery options to suit your needs. You can choose from our standard 10-day delivery or opt for an express 4-day delivery if you need results faster.
5.Comprehensive Deliverables: The audit includes a range of deliverables such as a comprehensive video presentation of findings, detailed visual representations in Figma, a concise PDF executive summary, and in-depth data analysis in Excel. These resources provide a clear and actionable roadmap for improvement.
6.Consultation and Support: After the audit, we provide a 1.5-hour consultation call to discuss the findings and next steps. This ensures you fully understand the recommendations and have a clear plan for implementation.
7.Ongoing Improvement: Our process includes implementing a continuous improvement strategy through Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycles. This helps in maintaining and optimizing app performance over time.
8.Expertise and Experience: Leveraging our extensive experience and data-driven insights, we offer competitive benchmarking and a holistic approach to ensure your app is not just optimized but transformed for long-term success.
Engaging in an app growth audit with AppDNA is a strategic move to unlock your app’s full potential, enhance user engagement, and increase revenue. Our thorough and data-driven approach ensures that every aspect of your app is optimized for success, making it a smart investment for sustainable growth.
Summing Up
If you haven’t already guessed, doing a full app growth audit is a time-consuming and difficult task. While you might technically do it yourself, you’re unlikely to get the results you want without the tools and the commitment required to undertake a complete examination of your present app marketing plan. Also, there are numerous advantages to outsourcing your app marketing to an experience partner. (We did over 2000 of them so far) Now you know what a good app growth audit should look like and consist of. You should be able to tell if your app requires such an audit and what it looks like at our agency. If you still have any questions or want to ask something we invite you to a free consultation before.
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