APP ANNIE – Sep 22 – There's an art to reducing churn, but there's also a science. Here is a Q&A with two experts in user retention at Match Group: Sushil Sharma, SVP of Product, Analytics and Design, and Ram Reddi, Director of Mobile Product.
Q: What can you implement to improving retention?
A: A features that users will love and want to use every day, also push notifications that bring the user back to the app.
Q: What do you A/B test to prevent churn and increase retention?
A: We thoroughly test every major feature and change. We are constantly testing onboarding and checkout flows, app navigation, profile setup, search features and push notifications.
Q: For your app, what is a "loyal" user?
A: A "loyal" user for us, even though short-lived, is one who rates their dating matches, and responds to interest from prospective dates in a timely way.
Q: How do you benchmark your retention and churn rates? Are there specific external tools, resources or methods you use?
A: We use App Annie Intelligence to measure how we stack against our competition in terms of downloads, engagement and new releases. We monitor downloads, engagement and app releases of our competitors on a biweekly basis.
Q: What are some strategies you think we'll see emerging in the next year for keeping retention high?
A: Artificial intelligence and location-aware notifications. Pokémon GO is a good example of a high retention product that has completely brand new hooks.
Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team