Your Complete Guide To Conversion Rate

Let us tell you one little truth. In the subscription-based business, having a great product isn't enough. You must build an efficient marketing strategy to convince your target audience that your product is precisely what they need. They must know that it's excellent, functional, and incredibly user-friendly. They should ask themselves, how could I even live without it. That's why today, we'll focus on conversion rate.

This essential metric can give you all the hints to make your marketing campaigns work. And trust us, by the end of this article, you'll get one step closer to enhancing your app and increasing sales. So, shall we?

To know more about growing your app, check out our last article about the retention rate!

So, what is the mobile app conversion exactly? In a nutshell, it's a percentage ratio of users on your app that perform an action. To have a better understanding, let’s take a look at the practical case. 

Imagine that you have 100 users who downloaded your app, ten of them signed up and two of them bought a subscription. In that case, the conversion rate from download to registration will be 10% (10/100*100%), and from registration to subscription 20% (2/10*100%).

For marketers, conversion is an indicator of an app's effectiveness, and here are the reasons you should also track it. First, it allows you to compare different marketing campaigns and understand why they succeed or fail. Second, conversion helps to identify valuable users and adjust the targeting strategy. And as you know, the more people you convert, the higher your revenue will be.

And last but not least, if your conversion rate declines, there is obviously something wrong with your product. So, it allows you to keep an eye on your app's technical performance and immediately fix unexpected issues.

You also need to know that there is no good conversion rate because every industry has its specifics. Let's say games with their addictive features can reach 10%, while travel apps have 1-5%. Overall, you have a strong conversion rate if your index is around 2%.

If you're wondering how you can increase your conversion rate, let us share with you some useful tips.

• First and foremost, make sure that your app's first impression is flawless! When people see it for the first time in the store, three seconds is all you have to encourage them to download it. It's not much, but during this time you have to explain to them why your app is great and worthy. So, use this single moment for your benefit.

• Second, keep in mind that App Store and Google Play aren't the same and you should have a unique strategy for each one of them. They have different designs, traffic, charts, and users. That's why what may work in one store, won't work in another. So, customize your app to satisfy both Apple and Android users.

• Third, don't forget that the user experience must be smooth! As nobody likes to wait, users should be able to install your app with just one click. Remove any possible obstacles like sending a notification asking for additional information in the beginning. Remember that the installation and sign-up process must be easy. Otherwise, people will leave your app immediately.

Besides, test your app on all devices to reveal possible technical issues and solve them. And remember to send push-up notifications to delight your users and optimize your processing speed.

In Apphud, conversion is represented as funnels based on conversion events. Like trials, regular subscribers, paid intro, promo offers, or non-renewing purchases. If your app offers a free trial, then the trial conversion rate among new users is extremely important.

We use cohorts to calculate new users and group them by the initial event date (i.e. users, who have installed the app on a particular date). For instance, if we have a row with a date of January 28, then trial conversions are summarised by users who had installed the app on January 28 and then converted to regular subscribers any day after installation and trial start.

Please note that all conversion events are grouped by new users. And if your app allows two simultaneous subscriptions (for example, with a trial period), then it will be counted as the single user who started a trial (not two trials).

The same works for trial conversion events. If there are two trials that were converted to regular subscriptions by the user within the app, we'll show this as a single user who converted from the trial(s) to a subscriber.

And now let's have a closer look at how we calculate conversion based on different events.

Trial Conversion

When we calculate trial conversion, we take into account only new users, who after a trial transformed into regular subscribers. We don't count those who converted without a trial period.

To calculate the trial conversion, we follow these two formulas: 

Install-to-Trial Conversion Rate = # of trials started / # of users who downloaded your app * 100%

Trial-to-Subscription Conversion Rate = # of trials converted / # of trials started * 100%

Trial Conversion, Apphud

Regular Subscribers Conversion

For calculating regular subscribers conversion, we leave out trial conversions and focus only on new users, who converted to regular subscribers.

To calculate the regular subscribers conversion, we follow this formula: 

Regular Subscribers Conversion Rate = # of users who started paid subscription / # of users who downloaded your app * 100%

Regular subscribers conversion, Apphud

Paid Intro Conversion Rate

To measure paid intro conversion we include only new users, who after a paid intro offer converted to regular subscribers.

To calculate the paid into conversion, we follow this formula: 

Paid Intro Conversion Rate = # of users who converted to standard price / # of paid introductory offers started * 100%

Paid Intro Conversion, Apphud

Promo Offer Conversion Rate

The same works for the promo offer conversion. We calculate only new users, who after a promo offer turned out to become regular subscribers.

To calculate the promo offer conversion, we follow this formula: 

Promo Offer Conversion Rate = # of users who converted to standard price / promo offers started  * 100%

Promo Offer Conversion, Apphud

Non-Renewing Purchase Conversion

And last but not the least, non-renewing purchase conversion includes only new users, who purchased a non-renewing in-app product.

To calculate the non-renewing purchase conversion, we follow this formula: 

Non-renewing Purchase Conversion Rate = # of non-renewing purchases / # of users who downloaded your app * 100%

Non-renewing Purchase Conversion, Apphud

And now, as you know everything about conversion rate, it's time to bring your app to a higher level. And if you're still wondering where you should start, Apphud is here to help.

We track more than 20 metrics, including conversion rate. You'll have an access to all this data stored in one place that we'll constantly update. You won't have to code or worry about missing crucial notifications. We want you to save your precious time. So, you can be sure that we'll let you know about every update. And did we tell you that you can sign up for FREE? Try it out!

Nataly

Head of Marketing at Apphud

7+ years in product marketing. Nataly is responsible for marketing strategy development and execution. Committed adherent of the agile methodology.