Strategies to expand your mobile app user base

By Ashley Taylor Anderson|6 min read|Updated Oct 31, 2024

An illustration of a mobile phone with a game on the screen and people icons indicating customer acquisition

You’ve spent years developing your mobile app. You’ve poured your heart and soul into creating a game or utility you know your audience will love. You’ve told the market about your exciting new offering, and when you go live on app stores, you immediately drive a bunch of installs.

Your team is riding high as your user base grows and positive reviews stream in. But a few months later, you start to see it: the dreaded dip in new downloads.

No matter how amazing your mobile app is, it’s challenging to attract new users.

A strategic acquisition strategy can help you target the right audience for your app and keep installs flowing post-launch.

Users are at the heart of any mobile app’s success. Games like Roblox, Minecraft, and Stardew Valley continue to top the mobile app charts because they continuously bring in new users month after month.

User acquisition (UA) is a set of activities designed to attract new users for your product or service. In the world of mobile apps, UA is focused on generating new downloads and building an engaged group of users who stick with your app over time.

All businesses wrestle with customer acquisition challenges, but acquiring mobile app users involves a unique set of considerations.

While the barriers to mobile app adoption are typically low — 92% of iOS apps and 96% of Google apps are free — the competition for mobile app installs is fierce. Today, the Apple App Store hosts over 1.8 million apps and 472,000 games, and the Google Play Store is home to over 2.3 million apps all competing for users’ attention.

Attracting new mobile app users requires an omnichannel marketing approach that brings together organic, paid, and earned tactics to reach the right people in the right places. Let’s explore some of the most effective strategies for mobile user acquisition.

While organic discoverability is the holy grail for mobile app marketers, paid advertising is a necessary tactic to get your app in front of relevant users.Once you’ve identified your ideal user demographics, you can tap into various paid channels to reach them across web and mobile touchpoints — and retarget users who’ve shown interest but haven’t installed your app yet.

Some common paid media and retargeting channels mobile app marketers tap into include:

App store ads: Paying for featured placements on app store category pages or search results can be a great way to reach an already engaged audience at the exact moment they’re looking for apps to download.
Google ads: Tapping into Google’s network of paid search, YouTube, Google Play, and display ads can give you access to relevant users across a wide range of sites and ad formats. Google also supports sophisticated retargeting to help you convert users who checked out your app without downloading it.
Paid social ads: Reaching consumers on mobile-focused social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok continues to be an effective marketing tactic for mobile app developers who want to reach a broad audience.
Programmatic mobile ads: Leveraging ad units on the mobile apps consumers already have installed can be a great way to attract new users. Programmatic mobile advertisers like Applovin and IronSource offer in-app rewards to users who engage with ads, ensuring your message is actively received.

Already invested in building a social follower base? Social media isn’t just a great place to engage existing users — it’s also an effective channel to acquire new ones.

Followers can spread the word about your app through reshares, tags, and hashtags, and app developers can post tips, user-generated content (UGC), and behind-the-scenes (BTS) content that increases your discoverability through social media search features or content recommendations.

Social media is also an effective channel for running sweepstakes. Let’s say you’re a fitness app developer who wants to boost app installs for a running app. To drive downloads, you could run a two-week sweepstakes on Facebook where anyone who downloads your app, comments with a screenshot of their recent run summary, and tags a friend is entered to win a $250 Nike gift card.

The best part? You can achieve a measurable impact on user acquisition with even small-denomination marketing incentives.

Word-of-mouth marketing is still king when it comes to mobile app adoption. People trust recommendations from friends, family, and peers more than any type of advertising. Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know compared to 42% of respondents who trust search ads or 36% who trust paid social advertising.

Influencer marketing can help you tap into the power of word-of-mouth marketing through individuals and groups your audience already knows and trusts.

Mobile gaming company PONOS Corporation recently crossed the 92 million download mark for its game “The Battle Cats” thanks to influencer marketing. PONOS partnered with Cloudboost on an influencer collaboration with FASH, an animated pop culture content YouTube channel, and Caylus, a YouTube gamer with a massive following.

Through a set of sponsored videos, PONOS drove over 410,000 views, and “The Battle Cats” experienced a surge in downloads and active users during the campaign period.

Rewarded marketing platforms offer users incentives like in-app currency or exclusive benefits in exchange for completing specific actions. They’ve proven to be a highly effective way to drive new mobile user acquisition because they create a win-win situation for users, advertisers, and app developers.

Platforms like Gamelight use AI-powered recommendations to ensure games are shown to the right users at the right time, resulting in high engagement and long-term value. When users engage with in-game experiences, they receive virtual currency or in-game items. This rewarded model significantly boosts UA by encouraging users to interact with new games, leading to higher conversion rates.

For example, game developer JOYCITY partnered with Gamelight to promote their mobile game “Gunship Battle” in Japan and the United Kingdom (UK).

By leveraging Gamelight’s advanced AI algorithm and open targeting strategy, JOYCITY achieved impressive results.

In Japan, JOYCITY saw 213% growth in ROAS between days 7 and 30, exceeding targets by 48%. And in the UK, they saw 143% ROAS growth over the same period — 35.78% over target.

An app discovery platform is an online marketplace that helps users discover, download, and use new mobile applications. The Google Play Store, Apple’s App Store, and the Microsoft Store are the largest app discovery platforms for mobile.

Users can explore options based on their interests, categories, and ratings, making it easy to discover and download new apps. Additionally, these platforms use personalized recommendations to guide users to apps similar to ones they’ve installed already.

Listing your apps on these platforms, and optimizing your app store listings for maximum discoverability (more on this in the next section), can help you attract new users.

According to a recent SEMRush survey, 48% of users discover new mobile apps by browsing app discovery platforms — which means a compelling app store listing can have a huge impact on user acquisition.

App store optimization (ASO) is the continuous process of improving your app listings to increase ranking and visibility on app discovery platforms.

Just like search engine optimization (SEO) for websites, the goal of ASO is to help new users find and engage with your mobile app.

Some of the elements you can optimize in your app store listings include:

App name and subtitle
Keywords (Apple App Store only)
App description
App icon and screenshots
Reviews and ratings
App updates

If you’re seeing a dropoff in new installs over time, chances are you may need to optimize your app listings to help users find you more easily.

70% of consumers trust feedback left on review sites. Customer reviews can make or break your user acquisition strategy — especially on app discovery platforms where reviews and ratings appear as part of your app listing.

Positive reviews provide a strong signal to new users that they’ll have a good experience, while negative reviews can delay or deter new users from installing your app.

Great reviews are earned by delivering a great experience, but there are a few steps you can take to make sure customer reviews support your user acquisition strategy:

Ask users for reviews at the right time: Happy users are more likely to leave a review after a positive milestone. Whether it’s clearing level 1 in your game, completing a first task in your app, or placing an initial order, think about what milestones make sense for your users and then build your review request process around them.
Feature reviewer feedback in your marketing: Reviewer quotes and ratings can be a compelling marketing tactic to appeal to new users. Instead of explaining how awesome your app is, let your current customers do it for you.
Listen to negative reviews and improve: Negative reviews aren’t always enjoyable, but they are an opportunity for growth. While you’re celebrating positive feedback, take time to read the less glowing reviews as well. This critical feedback can help you learn how to improve your app functionality, design, and customer service to attract and retain users. And responding empathetically to negative reviews can go a long way toward building loyalty with new and existing users.

With thousands of new mobile apps launching every month, attracting new users is no easy feat. A user acquisition strategy tailored to your audience’s specific interests, preferences, and digital hangout spaces can help you reach and convert new customers into active mobile app users.

The next time your mobile app installs start to decline, don’t despair. Tap into the following user acquisition outlets to rev up your download numbers:

Invest in paid marketing tactics such as digital advertising, influencer marketing campaigns, and rewarded marketing to surface your app to relevant users where they already spend time online.
Optimize organic marketing channels such as your social media accounts and app store listings to provide app updates, showcase tips and easter eggs, and spotlight your current users.
Manage earned marketing channels such as customer review sites to capture positive feedback from existing users and improve your offerings by addressing critical feedback.