The 48 App Conversion Tactics.
文章目录
Recently I've been working directly with app founders doing anywhere from $5k/mo to $150k/mo. My own app also got to $13,000/mo 💸
I've learnt many conversion tactics. Some niche and not spoken about. I'll split these into 3 categories...
✅ Allowed 🤔 Grey Areas ❌ Banned
✅ Allowed Tactics
1: Dynamic Paywalls. Rare sauce. You can change the paywall based on ad attribution. Or, based on referrer platform: different paywalls for TT, IG, etc.
This is allowed, but it has to be done in the right way. More on that later.
2: Marketing Notifications. The big apps all do this, but I rarely see indie app founders using this conversion tactic. A user downloads your app, goes through onboarding, doesn't finish and/or convert.
How do you get them back into the app? 👇
# Automate your marketing notifications.
- User closes app.
- Hasn't subscribed.
- Wait 5 minuets.
- Send a follow up offer.
- Wait 4 days.
- Still not subbed?
- Send a follow up.
Reception Automated Flow. Disclaimer: This is my SaaS.
Note: to do this you need the user to opt-into marketing notifications, make sure you disclose this when you prompt the user for permission. You also need an in app option to opt out!!
3: Onboarding / Paywall Optimisation Personalise everything to the user. Use their name as an input to make it feel more unique. Measure and AB test everything to see where the users drop off and fix it.
4: In App Support. One of the easiest ways to make more money is to fix churn. You already did the hard part in converting the user. Keeping them around is in everyone's best interest!
Start with making a good high quality, high value app, and finish with providing in app support. We built Reception for this exact use case. Fix your users issues before they churn!
5: Win-back Campaigns. User churned? But kept the app? You can win them back by sending a tasteful discount.
Reception Automated Flow: Disclaimer this is my own SaaS.
When the user cancels their sub, we receive that webhook message, and can then trigger actions off the back of it!
# Automate Win back Offers
- sub_cancel / trial_cancel
- wait 30s
- send a discount offer
6: Apple Retention API. There's good data suggesting the retention API can cut churn by 20%. Apply for it, it's a no brainer!
RevenueCat Examples.
Many don't have access yet. If not, you do a similar win back flow as mentioned above: send notifications to users who's trial ended or subscription expired.
7: Price Localisation. I used to be lazy and not bother doing this. But you should. Especially if you're running organic and get users from everywhere across the world.
This means scaling your subscription price according to the country: A $10 subscription in the US becomes a $4 subscription in the Philippines, for example.
Have your agent do this using the App Store Connect CLI.
8: Web-to-app Funnels. Web2App is somewhat new. But it's growing fast for a reason. All the big apps are adopting it in order to not pay 30% fees. We can also do it as indie devs, testing alternative acquisition and checkout flows. Generally speaking these have lower completion rates, but the users who do convert you get more $$$ from.
A general web2app pattern:
- User sees ad or reel: taps on link -> Redirected to website.
- User pays with Stripe on website, we store email.
- User redirected to app, logs in with email.
🤔 Gray Areas
These tactics are a gray area, meaning they are subjective and down to the reviewer. When adding these to your app, mention them in your review notes, and get explicit approval from Apple.
1: Multiple paywalls during onboarding. It's possible to show multiple paywalls during onboarding.
Obviously this can get extremely annoying for the user. So you need to do this extremely tastefully!
2: Abandon Transaction Offers. This is extremely effective but it is a gray area.
This is when the user goes to start a transaction, they open the apple pay screen, and then exit out of it. It's likely that your entire app is taken into account when making the decision.
Here's how you can increase your chances:
- Have a good, high quality, app.
- The offer must be simple, tasteful, compliant and clear.
- Never mislead the user.
2: Close Paywall Offers. Similar to the above pattern, only triggered when the user dismisses the paywall, rather than abandons a payment transaction.
❌ Not Allowed
These tactics are explicitly not allowed. You should not ship them in your app, as you may face an app rejection, or worse. I'd advise taking these out of your app today, if you have them!
1: Live Activity Marketing* *You are explicitly not allowed to use the live activity feature for marketing purposes. This means showing a discount offer there, or a timed offer etc.
2: Spam Notifications. You are not allowed to send users lots of notis. Even if they're not marketing ones! But especially if they're marketing ones. The guidelines are a bit vague, but as a general rule 1-2 marketing notis a week should be fine.
Again: make sure the user knows about this when asking for notification permission, and opts-in!
3: Limited Time / Random Offers Any offer that pressures the user into making a decision, or misleads the user (i.e fake random ones) is not allowed.
4: Charging for features Apple provides for free. A little known one, you're actually not allowed to do this. So for example, charging for camera access, or just seeing the screen time. You are, however, allowed to add functionality to this and monetise: a camera app that adds custom cinematic looks and features.
5: Fake testimonials or fabricated reviews. Testimonials and/or social proof is a great way to increase conversion, but it must be real! This is also a legal thing for websites, not just apps. A good way is to just reach out to your network and ask them to use and objectively review the app. That way you get real user feedback and some social proof.
6: Rewarding users for positive App Store reviews. Better reviews generally result in better conversion. However, you're obviously never allowed to submit fake ones. Doing so is a real risk. Never do this.
7: Tracking users without ATT permission. Tracking is how apps convert a lot more users via ad networks. However, you must add ATT in order to remain compliant. Implementing tracking without ATT is not allowed!
All of these depend on implementation, transparency, applicable law and regional payment rules. Source: Apple App Review Guidelines ~ primarily §§ 2.3, 2.5, 3.1, 3.2, 4.5 and 5.1.
