Hey! This is the Daily Overpass. My name is Eric and I make apps.
And today, I want to talk about "User Retention".
Okay, so I had a client meeting this morning, I'm just walking back to the office, went home took the suit off
or at least most of the suit, and just heading back to the office. And I want to
answer a question by Multiverse App. So, like almost every video I posted this
week, the first comment is from Multiverse App asking the same question
which is this: "Hi Eric! Please make a video on User Retention. When I see my
installs and uninstalls graphs in the dev console, I noticed that there's a
huge hike in installs. For some reason the number of uninstalls
gets hiked too. And to be honest, at the end of the day, it's not the number of
downloads that matter. It's the number of active users. So, can you please make a
video on user retention. How to maintain a decent amount of user base on your app?
I think a lot of developers would want to see that." Dude, I'd like to see that
too, right? So, the reason I've been dodging this question, is because my user
attention is terrible, right? So, I want to see what you guys think, in terms of what
your user retention is like. And I'm going to go back to the office now and
I'll show you on my Google Play console just how bad it is for me. You see, my
problem is that my apps are not information based, right? They're kind of
some people take them really seriously, to some people take them as like trinkets,
or like, you know, novelty things. So, they're not the kind of things that
people open up and use every day. I mean I wish they were. I was so loved to have
like a news app or something that, you know, it was always there people to get
out of their pocket and they checked it like every day. That would be, God, that
would just be so awesome. But unfortunately, I don't have anything like
that, so I don't have a good frame of reference. So, you guys already know I'm a
slob. I can show you what the office looks like again. Alright, so let me...
... let me boot up the computer, right? And I'll show you.. God, I'll show you
exactly what my Google Play Console looks like for Ear Spy, my biggest app.
Okay, so here we are. Now, first let me start off by saying, even though my user
retention is bad or, you know, it's not as great. I mean, it's bad.
I, really you know there's nothing I could say about that. Even though my user
retention is bad, the revenue is pretty good. I mean, I know if I can get user
retention up, it would be way better right? But so, like to give you an idea,
I'm not going to show you my AdMob. But I'll tell you how much I make yesterday
from AdMob and it's lower than it has been lately.
Yesterday, it was 92 pounds. It was 105 before that. Usually, it stays around the
hundred pound mark at the moment. So, not too
you know, I got in trouble before, well didn't get in trouble, but I took down a
video because I'm not supposed to show rpms and stuff. But to give you, to
give an example of how much I'm making each day, I was like around the hundred
pound mark on AdMob. On Sales, it goes, it fluctuates wildly on Google Play, but
usually it's about 50 and it's about between thirty and forty on iTunes. So,
So, usually it's about, actually uses around 200 altogether. So, taking in AdMob, AppLovin,
Facebook Ads, iTunes payments or iTunes purchases, in-app and regular
Google Wallet and AdMob, then you know it does pretty well. So, this is all with
very, very bad user retention. So, the reason I'm telling you that, is because I
don't want you guys to think I'm a fraud. Like I'm always talking about apps, right?
And when you see my user retention, you know, I guess, I guess I'm just feeling a
little defensive, right? So, just just back off, right? So now, let me just have a look
at my screen here. Now, here's my Google Play console. Oh! By the way, let me give
you another, so I'll go to Ear Spy, that's when it makes most of the money
actually, at the moment. So, let me go into.. I'm sorry, did I say Ear Spy? I mean, Ear Agent
because I changed the name. So, Ear Agents. So, to date, I actually can
see the retention right here, right? To date, we've 4,617,434.... oh yeah.....
.......
434 downloads all together over the past several years.
Currently, current installs were only at 119.. 119,232... which is not bad,
but it's not, you know, I mean, it's a small percentage, righ?t So and again
across the board.. let me just show you some of these download stats. I mean
they're usually that way. I mean you got to talk about when people
the big .. the biggest people, the biggest problem people have with
smartphones is battery life and disk space. So, you know your app is part of
the disk space problem, right? It could be part of the battery problem but
hopefully not. if you have like a memory leak or something. So, let's go into
your agent here, I don't know if there's much more into show. Oh, first of all, I gave
you an update last week on how it's doing since I changed the name, and I'm
saying actually it's not that bad. We're doing okay... Have a look at this, it's
actually, we're down 26% on that up-down on downloads since last month, and that's
not even considering you know everything. So, here you can see this is where I
change the name from Ear Spy to Ear Agent, and we just had consistently lower
downloads. But it seems to be.. seems to be kind of leveling off. I need to start
taking some aggressive action to get that back up again. Start looking for
some alternative keywords to do that, because it's still, you know, there's
still a pulse, it's still breathing, it's still generating revenue, but it's ah,
you know, it's not as good as it has been. So actually, this is all we have to look
at for user retention too. Look, so my.. my installs buy per user over the last 30
days, my uninstalls per user for that last you have 30 days. Now, this is
consistent with everything we hear about apps, anyway. You hear about, you know most
people use apps only once or twice and then they uninstall it. People will try
apps something like that, that doesn't mean you can't make, you know,
decent living from it. But, you know, like you know, those of you who have like
better, who have better retention rates than that. Hey man, I want to hear from
you. Now, some of the things that I've read about and obviously haven't tried
are using push notifications. So if you have an install and people aren't
actually going into it, you send push notifications just to remind them that
the app is there, right? You could have ah, you know, different ways of doing stuff.
But I think about some of the apps I've had in the pas,t which I thought this is
something I'm going to use all the time. And I just did it. I'm one of them. One of
the first apps I ever downloaded with Shazam, and well, have you guys ever use
that where you listen to it, well, it will listen to the music and it will tell you
what song you're listening to. I thought that was so awesome! I thought I can use
this all the time, right? And I never.. I never use it at all. And then when the
first time I ran out of this space, that went, right? So, this is something we're
all susceptible to, right? So, anyway, I guess I don't have a
lot to talk about today. I mean what kind of advice can I give, right? Because my
retention is not great. But let me say something that I read.. not too long
ago. It might be a Tony Robbins thing where they said there's three ways to
increase the amount of money you earn in business. One, is to increase the quantity
of sales. Two, is to increase the value of sales. So, by raising your price, and three,
is to increase your, you know, increase how much people buy from it, right? So you
have you know, either get more clients, get your clients to buy more stuff or
raise your price, right? So. this is kind of the same with apps, right? So, I have my
strategy always then get more clients, you know. Get more downloads, get more
people in, because I know that they're not long-term users. I don't have a lot
to offer them. Some people will keep the app and they used, I mean, I get a lot of
good reviews people use it all the time, right? And I got a lot of bad reviews.
People say this sucks and they uninstall it. That's just.. that's just the way it is,
right? So that's the way I go. What would be better strategy or at least a better
strategy to implement would be, to those current users who go in and use the app
all the time, to give them some upsells. So, I mean, I've got four in-app purchases.
I should add more. right? And this, I'm only focusing on this one app. I mean
there's all the other ones. They do have better retention rates, but still it
seems to be pretty consistent, right? I find, you know, very low retention. So
anyway, this is to answer your question, right? This is the reason I've been
dodging the question all week is because my user retention is terrible. Sorry to
keep going on about that. Basically, but so..this is what I'm asking you
please... This is what I'm asking you. Those of you out there who have really good
user retention, how are you doing it, right? Put it in the comments. What are
some of the things you're trying, right? I'm going to learn from it, other people
can learn from it. If it's a secret, then don't tell us. But you know, message me
privately. Nah, I'm just kidding! So, yeah, if it's a secret, then you know that's
fine. But you know, love to hear what you have to say. Anyway, that's it for this..
That's it for today. That's it for this week. I will talk to you guys next week!