5 Ways to Increase Mobile App Spending of Users

Mobile apps have different revenue sources such as subscriptions, in-app advertising, sponsorships, referral marketing, etc. Among these methods to make money through an app, in-app spendings have an important place.

Mobile App Spendings in 2020 and 2021

The lockdowns that took place all around the world in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic triggered an increase in users’ in-app spendings. In 2020, smartphone users spent approximately $111 billion on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps, which is 30% more than in 2019. 2021 started with the same uptrend. In the first half of this year, global mobile app spending reached $64.9 billion.

Therefore, every mobile app marketer has a question on their agenda: how to maximize users’ mobile app spending. In this article, we’ll explore five ways that will help you increase user spendings on your mobile application.

How to Increase Consumer Spending on Mobile Apps

In-app spending is a broad concept and cannot be limited to in-app sales. Mobile marketers need to think about how to increase transactions or how to maximize players’ spending money on mobile games according to their app’s vertical. All these will help you generate app revenue.

1) Maximize LTV of Your Users

Users’ lifetime value (LTV) is directly related to their tendency to spend money on your app. Thus, every step taken for the sake of higher LTV will affect user spendings positively. Here are some tips on how to maximize LTV.

• Use deep links: You can take your users directly to the in-app screen where they will make purchases. These deep links allow you to shorten the journey and eliminates the possibility of getting lost on the way.
• Offer a great first impression: Welcome your users with a simple and user-friendly interface that will help them onboard easily.
• Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth: You will promote your app through various channels. Yet, advertising is more efficient when it is not made by you. Leverage influencer marketing and let them spread the word for you.
• Help users share the app: To achieve virality, you need to encourage users to recommend your app among their social circles. You should use social media effectively and make your content easy and attractive enough to share.
• Send push notifications wisely: You don’t want your users to get annoyed by having too many messages from you. So, you need to be careful about the push notifications. Choose the right time and send relevant notifications to your user.

2) Develop an App Monetization Strategy

Monetization strategy lays the foundation for a roadmap that will help you have a profitable business. Hence, you need to have a solid strategy to increase your app revenue. Here are some well-known app monetization methods that you can have a look at beforehand:

• In-app advertising: A strategy to make money by displaying ads on your app. You can also think of it as being an ad publisher app.
• In-app purchases: It is based on motivating people to make purchases on the app. What users can buy depends on the app vertical. This is an in-app sales-oriented strategy.
• Freemium: This strategy is based on providing free access to some features for all users and requiring payment for some additional features. This is quite genius since it gives the opportunity to app owners to show users what they will get when they pay.
• Paid applications: This version requires you to pay a fee to become a user. It is possible to say that these apps address a niche community generally.
• Subscription: In this model, the app charges the users with one-time, monthly, or annual fees.

Develop your monetization strategy based on the function, features, and value propositions of your app. In this way, you can ensure that your users spend money on your mobile app.

3) Increase In-App Ad Revenue

In-app advertising is also a very effective method to increase mobile application spending. Both games and non-game applications have very positive effects on the advertising network for users. Although games are more popular, it is a method that can be used in many applications.

4) Don’t Forget about App Store Optimization (ASO)

To have a maximum amount of app spendings, you need to have the right users who will do the spending at first.

The easiest way to achieve this is by optimizing how your app looks on Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Since these are different platforms, they have varying requirements in terms of character limits and image sizes. Thus, you should individually optimize the icon, video, description, screenshots, and reviews.

A successful ASO work will increase the number of downloads of your app. Therefore, users’ mobile application spending will also increase.

5) Customer Loyalty Programs for Retention

User retention means how many users return to your app during a given period. If you cannot make your users visit and use your app repeatedly, you are doomed to fail.

It is quite simple to calculate the user retention rate:

• Take the number of users who keep returning to the app in a given period.
• Take the number of users who installed the app for the first time within this period.
• Divide the former by the latter.
• Multiply the number you found by 100.

This calculation gives you your retention rate as a percentage.

With retention, you can increase app users, do not lose existing users, and enable them to spend on your mobile application. Sustaining your users and developing customer loyalty programs is a significant factor for users to spend on your app.