[Huawei Developers] Jack Wu Shenzhen:
When your app user base reaches a certain threshold, you may find it harder to acquire new users continually. In this case, rather than struggling to attract new users, it's better to try to activate your inactive users. Let's take a look at how HUAWEI Analytics Kit can help you activate and win back inactive/lost users.

1. Defining Inactive and Lost Users​

To win back inactive and lost users, the first thing you'll need to do is reasonably define them. To do this, you'll need to take your business characteristics into consideration, and quantify key user behaviors.

For example:

If you have a game app, you can define these users by the number of consecutive days that they do not sign in to your app.

If you have an e-commerce app, you can define these users by the number of consecutive days that they do not place an order in your app.

If you have a video app, you can define these users by the number consecutive days that they do not watch a video in your app.

Analytical models in Analytics Kit are the tools you need to define inactive and lost users accurately and quickly.

Identifying turning points that lead to user churn

Let's use the demo app for Analytics Kit as an example. Its revisit user report indicates that the first turning point appears in day 31–90. This means that there is a small possibility that users who have been inactive for 30 days become active again. The second turning point appears in day 91–180. According to this information, it would be wise to define users whose consecutive days with no app use are greater than or equal to 30 days but equal to or smaller than 90 days as the inactive users, and define users whose consecutive days with no app use are greater than 90 days as the lost users.

Analytics Kit also offers the user lifecycle model, which allows you to customize the statistical scale for each phase of your app's users.

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* This figure shows the user lifecycle analysis report for Analytics Kit with virtual data.

2. Creating Lost User Profiles​

A comprehensive understanding of your users makes it much easier for you to build the best possible app. Implementing an effective winback strategy requires that you create detailed lost user profiles that are based on a complete understanding of past behavior characteristics of inactive or lost users.

To create these profiles, you can refer to:

The number and trends for inactive/lost users

The user lifecycle report offers an intuitive glimpse at the number and trend of users in the inactive and lost phases.

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* This figure shows the user lifecycle analysis report in Analytics Kit with virtual data.

Phases when users become inactive/lost

The user lifecycle report displays the ratios of inactive users converted from beginner users, growing users, and mature users to all inactive users.

From the figure below, we can roughly divide inactive users into two categories: those converted from the users in the beginner and growing phases, and those converted from the users in the mature phase. The ratio of the first category is much higher than that of the second — this indicates that the more dependent a user is on your app, the less likely it is that he/she becomes inactive or lost.

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* The figure shows the user lifecycle analysis report in Analytics Kit with virtual data.

Users in the first category became inactive before they have fully experienced your app. This might have been due to a cumbersome user experience, undesirable product design, or failure to deliver the "Aha!" moment that hooks users to your product. Users in the second category became inactive or lost after they fully experienced your app. This is likely because the product failed to bring them the experience better than their expectation.

Whether most inactive/lost users have similarities

On the user lifecycle report page, you can save inactive/lost users as an audience with just one click on the number. You can then go to the audience analysis report to check whether most inactive/lost users have similarities in aspects such as the model, location, event, system version, or download channel.

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* This figure shows the audience analysis report in Analytics Kit with virtual data.

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* This figure shows the audience analysis report in Analytics Kit with virtual data.

Behavioral characteristics of inactive/lost users

Behavior analysis provides a filter function, in which you can select inactive/lost users. The session path analysis report will then tell you the behavior path of inactive/lost users before they became inactive/lost, and the session step where this occurred.

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* This figure shows the session path analysis report in Analytics Kit with virtual data.

You can save nodes related to user churn as the funnel, and then pinpoint causes of churn by checking the funnel analysis report.

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* This figure shows the session path analysis report in Analytics Kit with virtual data.

Analysis of the value inactive/lost users contributed in the past

It's a good idea to analyze the value inactive/lost users have contributed to your app in the past. By doing so, you can separate them into different groups and formulate winback strategies that have a greater chance of success.

The event analysis function enables you to identify previously paying users among inactive/lost users, and learn more information about them like total top-up amounts, gross merchandise volume (GMV), and top-up frequency. Thanks to this information, you can divide inactive/lost users into different groups according to the priority and difficulty of winning them back.

3. Specifying Winback Strategies​

Determining which group should be won back first

In the previous step, we created inactive/lost user profiles, and separated them into different groups according to the difficulty of winning them back, through such indicators as the previous behavior and value of lost users, whether they have uninstalled the app, and whether they can be reached now. In principle, the users to win back first are those who have become inactive, but have not yet uninstalled the app.

Determining the focus of your winback strategy

Different winback strategies have different focuses, including:

Benefits: For example, you can send coupons to inactive/lost users, or remind them of existing coupons or virtual currencies that will soon expire.

User interests: Let's use a video app as an example. Some of the inactive users are interested in animation. To win them back, you can send them notifications about upcoming new animation series, or about activities related to animations they are interested in.

Emotions: Let's say you have a life simulation game app which features virtual pets. To entice users to open your app to take care of their pets, you can send them notifications about their pets' health or emotional status.

Selecting a winback channel

Ads: In addition to attracting new users, ads can also play a role in activating or winning back users. When you use ads for this purpose, you're likely to get better than expected results.

Push notifications: If you choose this channel, make sure that the time and frequency for pushing notifications are reasonable. Also remember to check the percentages of users who uninstall your app and disable the push notification after they receive the notification.

SMS messages: You should use this channel to reach only target users, since costs associated with SMS messages are a little higher. To achieve better winback results, you can tailor the content of messages sent out to different user groups.

Emails: This is one of the most common channels for reaching users. You'll need to consider how to best impress your inactive/lost users in a short email, in order to win them back.

Those are the three steps for targeting and wining back lost users with Analytics Kit. Though Analytics Kit makes it easier than ever to win back users, it's still better to create mechanisms that warn you about which users may become inactive, and take proactive measures to retain users who have been won back. This will ensure you to keep improving engagement and loyalty of your users.

About Analytics Kit:

Analytics Kit is a one-stop user behavior analysis platform for products such as mobile apps, web apps, and quick apps. It offers scenario-specific data management, analysis, and usage, helping enterprises achieve effective user acquisition, product optimization, precise operations, and business growth.

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For more details, you can go to:

Our official website

Demo of Analytics Kit

Android SDK integration documentation

iOS SDK integration documentation

Web SDK integration documentation

Quick app SDK integration documentation