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Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

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Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#1

Post by alanz1223 »

About three weeks ago I launched my app as a solo dev and without any marketing or buzz I've been able to convert paid subscribers and sell products. I know its an app with a viable market, and has potential. However I have a high churn rate (install/uninstall ratio) of about 70-80% that I know I could improve. Just to put into perspective I am getting an average of 150 installs/day and about 115 uninstalls. So I gain about 20-30 users/day and of those I am getting 3-5 free 3 day trial signups.

Currently my app has a couple of issues with a few crashes a day which I am working to resolve but I don't think that is the culprit. My design is decent, it performs decently and its not too convoluted. I use google analytics to track events but they are more of a way to report how much activity my app gets rather than reports on how people feel about my app.

I have about 500 active users and about 1,300 accounts. I used mail chimp to retrieve feedback about two weeks ago when I had about 200 active users and 400 accounts and I received only a couple of responses from people saying they really liked it, with just a few minor suggestions but nothing really enlightening. Just today I used to the new search keyword feature in the play console that allows you to see by which terms your users found the app. I have two keywords which I am targeting and have a very nice 50% conversion rate but mostly all of my installs come from keywords that are not listed and get placed in the "other" category. So I am a bit lost since I feel like the app could be optimized right now as its still very new before I try scaling out and just churn through more potential customers.

I am looking for advice in general since I work alone but more specifically are there any tools/methods that could aid me? I came across https://www.appsee.com/ which looks great to be able to see how users interact with my app but I was unable to get a response? (maybe they don't like the little guys)

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#2

Post by verganileonardo »

Do you demand a registration? Or users can try before giving your their email address?

Do you have a mini tutorial (3~5 'swipes') for the first time users?

Did you try sending a personalized email to users that created an account and then stopped using?

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#3

Post by alanz1223 »

verganileonardo wrote: post #2

Do you demand a registration? Or users can try before giving your their email address? Do you have a mini tutorial (3~5 'swipes') for the first time users? Did you try sending a personalized email to users that created an account and then stopped using?

yes I have a registration page prior to the main content page. No tutorial animation but I have a button inside the menu. and the emails were not really personalized since I don't have much other than their emails

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#5

Post by saghm »

> Currently my app has a couple of issues with a few crashes a day which I am working to resolve but I don't think that is the culprit.

How sure are you about this? Speaking personally, if I installed an app that was otherwise good but crashed that often, I'd likely uninstall it.

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#6

Post by social_quotient »

Consider using some tools like google analyticsz they actually have bindings for apps like .Net

https://github.com/maartenba/GoogleAnalyticsTracker

You can also detect the uninstall event and try to launch a browser to a quick optional survey

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.configura...

I’d say try to treat the desktop app as much like a We app as possible from a metrics perspective. Unlike web people have a general disdain for tracking so with all of the info above I’d consider making it opt-in only.

Finally as mentioned above. Post on LinkedIn for some honest reviews of the app, offer some money for their time. At low volume this is easy to manage manually. At scale consider something like https://www.giftbit.com/

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#7

Post by TACIXAT »

Doesn't this statement:

>I have a high churn rate (install/uninstall ratio) of about 70-80%

Contradict this statement:

>I know its an app with a viable market, and has potential.

Other suggestions:

>I am getting 3-5 free 3 day trial signups

You are giving it away for free, charge people up front, then you will know if it really solves a problem they are willing to pay for. That is when you will know you have product / market fit.

>I use google analytics to track events but they are more of a way to report how much activity my app gets rather than reports on how people feel about my app.

Use Mixpanel or something similar (idk what the Mixpanel equivalent for apps is) to get a more detailed view of what people are doing.

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#8

Post by physcab »

So a few things jumped out at me:

1) It’s going to be a grind and the fact that you increased from 200 actives to 500 actives is a good sign!

2) 10-20% trial signups conversion isn’t terrible until you’ve found the right type of customer you’re targeting. Bigger companies might be getting close to 40% but that is for a product that already has market fit.

3) second other suggestion...email and get in front of your users. Or when users file support tickets (make it super easy for them), use that as opp to get educated.

4) don’t spend money on ads to increase traffic until you are getting more of the type of customer you want and consistently converting them

5) don’t spend more time insrutmenting analytics. You already know what’s up. Just talk to users more and iterate based on their feedback

Re: Ask HN: What methods and tools can I use to decrease my app churn?

#9

Post by ryanmerket »

alanz1223 wrote: post #3
verganileonardo wrote: post #2

Do you demand a registration? Or users can try before giving your their email address? Do you have a mini tutorial (3~5 'swipes') for the first time users? Did you try sending a personalized email to users that created an account and then stopped using?

yes I have a registration page prior to the main content page. No tutorial animation but I have a button inside the menu. and the emails were not really personalized since I don't have much other than their emails

Maybe try sample content that leads them into registration? You can also try to get them to register after they’ve tried to engage with the content. Users are moser likely to register after they’ve engaged.
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