The average person's attention span is now just 8 seconds, even shorter than that of a goldfish, which is 9 seconds. Given the multitude of apps and websites available, new resources must work hard to capture even a small portion of the user's attention.

In this article, we will explore several strategies you can implement in your custom software solution to make your product more enjoyable and habit-forming, thereby improving both user engagement and retention metrics.

Key metrics of user engagement

User engagement is the measurement reflecting if customers pay interest to applications, services, and goods your business offers. In terms of mobile and web applications, user engagement shows how frequently users interact with your digital product, how much time they spend on it, what features they use frequently, and other aspects.

There are several metrics that reflect the level of user engagement. They can be tracked with the help of analytical applications such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Adobe Analytics, Heap, and others. Here's the list of the few essential metrics that need to be tracked to understand if your app or website interests users:

Active users. This is a number of unique users who engaged with the app within a specific period of time, typically one month. Check this metric to track the interest of the users toward your product. The high numbers mean that the app is solving users' needs and demands, while low numbers mean that the app doesn't solve any user problems or lacks promotion.

Session length. This engagement metric reflects the average time users spend on your application or website. The session length measures the amount of time from the moment a user launches the app to the moment one leaves it or becomes inactive. The long sessions mean that the users are engaged by the content and that it either entertains them or fulfills their needs.

Retention rate. It reflects how many users visited the app multiple times within a certain period. Retention rate is one of the key metrics helping to analyze customer engagement in a mobile app. It shows how useful the app is for the users and how closely it meets the users' demands.

On-page time and depth of the page view. On-page time measures how much time a user spends on each page. As soon as the user clicks away, the analytical tool tracks it. With this metric, you can find out what content engages users most and what app features might require more attention and need to be highlighted. By tracking the depth of the page view, you can find out at what point the user stops being active and optimize the content accordingly.

Conversions. App engagement can be measured by the number of conversions. The metric shows how many times users accomplished the action that you marked as a desired one. These actions can be purchases, form submissions, sign-ups, button clicks, creating an account, etc. A high conversion rate is an indicator of a product with good UX and a clear user journey, where most of the users understand how to navigate the app and accomplish the desired action.

Bounce rate. This app engagement metric is one of the most important to track during marketing campaigns. It reflects how many users left your app or website immediately after they entered it. If the bounce rate is high, it means that some part of your product turns the user away from using it. The parts of your marketing campaign can also be optimized incorrectly, so users don't get what they expected inside your app or website.

You can stick to both qualitative and quantitative approaches when measuring app engagement. Tools for quantitative research are ones that help to count the key numbers and track them day after day. These tools include Google Analytics and Mixpanel. You can also run qualitative analytics of your interface and track the entire journey of the user across the interface with tools like UXCam.

Why engagement metrics are worth keeping an eye on

Working to increase user engagement is a long way that requires the constant attention of the product owner and tech specialists. There are several major advantages in tracking and increasing all engagement metrics for your digital product:

• Better customer retention — it's generally more cost-effective for a business to retain existing customers than attract new ones. When you increase user engagement within your mobile or web app, users return, scroll, and interact with it more often. The more the customer interacts with your product, the bigger the chances of the conversion. Consequently, the business gains more loyal customers, leading to an improved overall return on investment (ROI).
• Boosted revenue generation — engaged users are more likely to make in-app purchases, subscribe to premium features, or consume content more regularly. Measures taken to increase user engagement directly affect your application's revenue streams, whether it's through direct payments, advertisements, or any other monetization strategy.
• Increased user loyalty — when users are attracted to your app and find it useful, they also become more loyal to your business. Loyal customers are the best advocates of your brand as they are ready not only to use your services again and again but also to advise their friends and family members, fostering organic growth.
• Valuable feedback — engaged users provide actionable feedback that highlights what features work well and what needs improvement. Frequent interactions help identify bugs and feature requests quickly, enabling timely updates and enhancements. Actively addressing user feedback builds trust and fosters a sense of community, helping your app stay relevant and competitive.

As you can see, increasing user and customer engagement helps you build a healthy and profitable business that people love and are willing to use frequently.

How to increase user engagement and make your application hook its visitors?

You can improve app engagement and bring traffic to your application by means of marketing. For instance, post content on social media, run pay-per-click campaigns, or send email newsletters. Another thing you need to take care of is providing outstanding user and customer experience the moment users touch your application for the first time. Our team has arranged a list of ideas to attract users to your digital product and improve app engagement.

Outstanding UX design

The impact of good UX on customer experience is large. A good UX ensures that the app is intuitive, meaning users can quickly understand how to navigate and use its features without requiring a steep learning curve. Clearly labeled buttons, logical layouts, and clear calls-to-action make the app easier to use, reducing frustration and improving overall satisfaction.

There are a few ways to make your interface intuitive. For simpler products with basic features, you may implement existing in-app navigation patterns that users are already familiar with. For complicated products with many unique features, you'd better create a user journey map that would help you put yourself in the user's shoes and understand how the app takes the user from the first touchpoint to the goal they are trying to achieve while using the product.

If you are targeted at increasing user engagement, you'd better keep the minimum number of steps for users to reach their goal. This rule is reflected by the e-commerce apps that try to keep the checkout procedure to only 2–3 steps, so users can reach the desired results within just a few clicks. Understanding all the ins and outs of UX design is hard and takes much time. That's why you can ensure an intuitive interface by finding a UI/UX design professional to create the interface or consult you on the topic.

Gamification

Another way to increase user engagement is to implement gamification within your app. In 2023, gamification was known to improve customer engagement by 48%. Gamification is the incorporation of game-like elements into non-gaming contexts, such as mobile and web applications, to engage and motivate users. It involves using various game design techniques such as point scoring, leaderboards, achievement badges, and challenges to enhance the user experience and make activities more engaging and enjoyable.

When thinking through your gamification, you can make any of your boldest ideas real. One example is a sports application Zombies, Run! It provides users with story-driven workouts where users are tasked to accomplish tasks in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombies. The runners are challenged with collecting supplies, rescuing survivors, and defending themselves from scary creatures. You can implement such an unusual gamification in your product to achieve better app engagement.

Emphasizing the mission

Another valuable method for your customer engagement strategy is emphasizing your attitude and mission. Users start showing true brand loyalty when they trust and believe the brand makes the world a better place. This strategy helps to attract people from several generations and works especially well for new coming Generation Z for whom trust is the critical factor when making purchase decisions.

There are several sports brands that raise customer engagement inside their apps by running eco-friendly challenges. For instance, in 2023 Strava arranged a running challenge, where the users needed to accomplish several in-app tasks. As a reward, participants earned badges and had the opportunity to donate towards tree planting. Those who contributed received a special certificate verifying their donation and the planting of a tree in their name.

In-app community

Additionally, you can increase user engagement by developing an in-app community. By incorporating social media features such as chats or discussion boards, users will naturally begin to interact with each other, form groups, and recommend your brand's products to one another. With these features in your app, users are likely to return regularly for social interactions, eventually making it a habit to engage with your platform. This method of increasing user engagement works well for apps in industries including sports, social media, beauty, food, and many others.

Some applications are formed entirely around in-app communities. One striking example is Reddit which is centered around ”subreddits,“ which are user-created communities focused on specific topics. Users can post, comment, and vote on content, facilitating active discussions and knowledge sharing across a wide range of interests. Users cherish the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions on Reddit, this feature is exactly what raises this resource's app engagement.

In-app competitions

Incorporating in-app competitions is another effective way to boost user engagement. By organizing challenges and leaderboards where users can compete against each other, you create a dynamic and interactive environment. This not only motivates users to be more active within the app but also fosters a sense of achievement and community. With these competitive features in place, users are likely to return regularly to check their rankings and participate in ongoing challenges, making it a habit to engage with your platform and improving app engagement.

Our team has some experience in designing interfaces for in-app competitions as a part of the Oddscrowd project. This is a betting mobile and web application, whose plan was to increase app engagement with the help of competitions. Users can create their own competitions and invite their friends to participate. They can add games to the competition, make bets and finally see who made the best results.

Loyalty programs

Apart from the features mentioned above, try implementing loyalty programs for better user retention. This activity works well both for businesses with online presence and with brick-and-mortar branches. You can provide users with incentives for engaging with the app frequently or making purchases across a brand's branches. Give users points and rewards providing further discounts. The user who received a reward or a discount is more likely to return and engage with your app again.

Starbucks constantly updates its loyalty program to keep the app users involved as well as enhance its customer experience. In the Starbucks app, users earn stars for every dollar spent. They can use these stars to customize their drinks and add extra espresso or flavor shots to their coffee. To take part in the activity, Starbucks customers need to sign up for the reward program.

Loyalty programs and discounts work effectively in the e-commerce field. Large companies can build huge reward systems, install many features and UI elements in them, and connect these reward systems to large databases. However, for smaller businesses loyalty programs can be implemented easily as well.

For instance, at our Noah farmer marketplace project, we have installed loyalty system management features, so the admins and retailers at the marketplace could manage discounts without the help of the development team. The Noah team got a convenient customer engagement tool within a short timeline.

Memorable UI

Not only convenient navigation and in-app activities can improve customer engagement. The recognizable UI creates a special in-app atmosphere that users want to engage in. The component that creates the special app feel can include custom illustrations, unusual icons, on-screen animations, branding elements, high-quality photos, minimal typography, and much more. The combination of useful functionality and beautiful UI is definitely the thing that would increase user engagement.

Our team has much experience in creating vivid and unusual designs. One example is a redesign of the MindEasy meditation mobile app. During the design process, we tried to implement the animation for the onboarding, added beautiful illustrations to create a soothing in-app atmosphere, and adapted the design to the requirements of app stores for seamless verification.

No-friction onboarding

More users would be willing to use your application if it has short and clear onboarding. Some researches prove that about 20% of users leave your app at each step of the onboarding process. That's why the shorter it is, the more the user engagement would be. Ensure that your onboarding gathers all required registration data from the user and provides them with the most valuable information to start using the app effectively.

Canva's onboarding is the one that can be called no-friction. It takes users only 2 steps to complete registration. After that, Canva introduces users to editing tools, so the newcomers could easily find the needed template, type the text, and download the image. All in all, the onboarding tells how a user can quickly achieve the main goal — create a pic and download it.

Clues and tooltips

Although onboarding is better to be short, the additional tools and tooltips won't spoil your user engagement metrics. On the contrary, they can help users find unobvious features and explain how to use them.

Even such popular products like Gmail provide their users with tooltips and spotlights to enhance the overall customer experience for their app. This email service provides a short tooltip for each icon reminding users about the features. It also reminds users about unobvious features like scheduling sends.

Push notifications

According to Statista's research, about 25% of apps are opened only once after they have been downloaded. That's why when making up your customer engagement strategy, it's worth thinking through some tricks to re-engage users who forgot about the app. One way to do that is to enable push notifications.

The owners of the e-commerce apps can increase customer engagement by reminding users about the items left in the cart. Other types of apps can send push notifications to engage users with their interests or just make pushes humorous and memorable. Here are a few examples of push notifications that platforms like Netflix and Tinder use to increase user engagement.

Custom avatars

The IKEA effect suggests that a purchased item becomes more valuable to a buyer when they invest effort into it. This is why IKEA customers often assemble their own furniture. You can apply this principle to your app by incorporating customizable avatars. This makes the interaction process more enjoyable, as users invest time and creativity into personalizing their avatars, thereby becoming more attached to the app and increasing user engagement. This idea is also worth trying since 80% of consumers are more likely to do business with a company that offers personalized experiences, so personalization is a trend.

Duolingo is a popular language-learning app that uses avatars to represent each user. Users can customize their avatars with outfits and accessories unlocked as they progress through the lessons. This adds a fun, gamified layer to the learning experience. Such a strategy would increase customer engagement across different platforms including social networks, mobile games, fitness apps, and many more.

Chatbots and personalized customer support

Incorporating chatbots and personalized support is another effective way to boost user engagement. By providing instant, 24/7 assistance, and tailored interactions, you create a more user-friendly and satisfying experience. This not only reduces user frustration but also makes them feel valued and understood. With these support features in place, users are likely to return regularly for help and recommendations, making it a habit to engage with your app.

Domino's integrates its chatbot, Dom, to keep users engaged and enhance the customer experience. In the Domino's app, Dom helps users place orders, track deliveries, and access special offers. Users can interact with Dom to customize their pizzas, find the nearest store, and apply discounts. To take advantage of these features, Domino's customers simply need to start a chat with Dom within the app.

Tech issues closely concerning user engagement

User engagement is not only about cool activities and creativity, it's also about outstanding performance and solving tech issues. We have decided to mention a few things you need to take care of when you want your resources to have a high engagement rate.

Mobile responsiveness

Mobile responsiveness ensures that your app or website displays correctly and functions smoothly on various devices, enhancing the user experience and making navigation easy. This accessibility increases the likelihood that users will engage with your platform, regardless of their device. Additionally, mobile-friendly designs are prioritized by search engines like Google, improving your search rankings and driving more organic traffic. As a result, ensuring mobile responsiveness can lead to increased user engagement and lower bounce rates. To develop product design optimized for both mobile and PC screens, find the designer to provide you with a responsive design.

Quick loading times

Quick loading times are crucial for ensuring that users don't abandon your app or website due to slow performance. Faster load speeds enhance the overall user experience, making it more efficient to browse and interact with your platform. When users can quickly access content and features, they are more likely to stay longer, explore more, and return in the future. Additionally, speedier loading times contribute to higher conversion rates by reducing friction during user interactions, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service. Google research shows that visitors will leave a mobile page if it doesn't load within 3 seconds, underscoring the importance of quick loading for maintaining user engagement and improving user retention rates.

Wrapping up

Achieving high user engagement and a smooth customer experience requires a combination of successful marketing campaigns, engaging in-app features, and exceptional product performance. For example, the creators of the running app *Zombies, Run!* turned bold ideas into reality with innovative in-app activities. Implementing features aimed at increasing user engagement necessitates technical expertise. You can either hire in-house design and tech specialists or outsource the development to a third-party software development company.

By the way, our team specializes in developing mobile and web apps from scratch and can incorporate various customer engagement features to meet your needs.