CompleteGuideToMobileSuccess

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO
MOBILE SUCCESS
Everything your
business needs to know

INTRODUCTION
If we followed convention, we’d start this document with some observations around the
growth of mobile and the scale of the mobile opportunity. But here’s the thing: mobile isn’t
‘on the horizon’ or enjoying ‘explosive growth’ - it’s here and now.
Consider the bare facts.
So let’s make it clear from the off - being ‘on mobile’ or having a mobile app is no longer
enough. Mobile needs to be at the center of your business, and probably deserves the lion’s
share of your investment both in terms of time and money.
But of course that’s easy to say and harder to do. We sometimes forget that the smartphone
is less than 10 years old. For too many marketers, it is hard enough to keep up, never mind
take a leading role in the move to mobile.
We’re here to help. At Swrve we’ve worked with some of the world’s leading app companies
to deliver outstanding engagement, retention and revenue on mobile. We’ve run thousands
of A/B tests and delivered thousands of campaigns. So we know what works.
In this eBook we share that knowledge. It’s a practical guide to what you have to do to make
mobile a success for your business.
We hope you’ll find it useful.
Over 7 Billion
152 Times A Day
More Internet Traffic
smart devices in the world.
A typical user who checks that device
carried by mobile apps than mobile
internet and desktop combined
A global mobile commerce market of over $75 Billion
1@swrve_inc sales@swrve.com

WHAT MAKES A
SUCCESSFUL APP?
There are all sorts of mobile apps, meeting a variety of
purposes - from those that are the business, and the sole
source of revenue, to others built to advance the brand in
more indirect ways.
So perhaps it is wise to get our disclaimer in ﬁrst: we can’t
tell you how to build a great app. So how can we promise
to help ‘make’ a successful app?
It’s like this: creating a great app is necessary. But it isn’t
enough. There’s no substitute for that creative spark or
business idea, but it won’t get you all the way. In fact
we’ve seen countless examples of great apps or games that
simply failed to take oﬀ.
Or worse again, despite being installed and used by
hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of users, they
failed to deliver on their business objectives. And to our
way of thinking, there’s no greater crime than that.
This guide aims to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.

Acquisition:
how to cost-effectively bring new users into the app
Analytics:
the data you’ll need to drive performance
User data:
what you need to know about your mobile users
Retention:
how to keep users sticking around during the first key
sessions
Conversion:
how to drive purchases, revenue - or whatever matters to
your business
Collectively, by focusing on these topics any mobile business
is in a significantly improved position when it comes to
delivering a real return on their investment in app
development. And in each case we will take care to include
practical examples of campaigns or projects that can make a
difference.
Let’s start with acquisition!
Assuming your app is in development, or perhaps is
already published, we’ll share key secrets relating to:
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ACQUISITION
How to cost effectively bring new users into
the app

5
ACQUISITION
It’s fashionable to play down the signiﬁcance of
acquisition in mobile apps these days. As a reaction to
an overwhelming obsession with the subject, that
might be fair enough. But in the real world the
situation is unchanged. If nobody installs your app,
you don’t have a business.
So there’s no getting around it, you need an
acquisition strategy.
In the most simple terms, there are three main ways
to deliver installs on mobile:
You can pay them
You can deliver them organically
You can migrate them from other
channels
Let’s look at those three categories in turn and
discuss some key ideas that will help you get the
most bang for your buck.
@swrve_inc sales@swrve.com

Success Tip
Remember that what works today may not work tomorrow! Keep an eye on
acquisition spend and constantly adjust your campaign strategy
~ Cathal Cooney, Swrve Success, San Francisco
“
It’s a simple fact of life - in one way or another most
app installs are paid for. So even if it’s not part of the
plan, you’re likely to ﬁnd yourself paying for people to
install your app at some stage.
When you do, bear the following in mind:
Don’t assume you HAVE to pay.
The economics of the blockbuster app don’t
necessarily apply to you. Think carefully about
whether your strategy really requires paid installs,
remembering that they are usually less loyal (and
proﬁtable) than their organic cousins.
Investigate multiple channels and
techniques
Smart mobile businesses consistently explore every
angle available to them, and never more so than
when it comes to acquisition. Acquisition options
include advertising within other apps, social channels
such as Facebook, app promotion services and
indeed above-the-line advertising such as TV. Each
can only be measured in context - so put them all in
play and turn them up or down based on their
comparative performance.
6 sales@swrve.com
PAYING
“

“
Track the value of your new users.
The golden rule - make sure paid acquisition delivers
ROI. And don’t make that calculation based on an
average user value - make sure to treat users from
each source individually and establish that any given
investment pays for itself. To do that, you’ll need to
have a clear idea around how much revenue is being
delivered by users, and you will want that data
delivered in real-time. There’s no point manipulating
the acquisition mix based on data from six months or
even six weeks ago.
Track revenue and
ROI from all your
acquisition sources
in real-time - ready
to adjust spend in
response
7@swrve_inc sales@swrve.com@swrve_inc

ORGANIC
If you don’t want to pay, there’s always the organic
approach. But let’s get the bad news out of the way
first: ‘discovery’ - the process through which users find
apps they may be interested in - is not particularly
effective. Most of us know that ourselves as consumers.
So for app developers, relying on organic acquisition
alone is a risky strategy.
So how about the positive? Well, organic acquisition is
certainly worth more to you in terms of average customer
value, or at least it usually will be. And there are ways to
encourage it. Most obviously, you can indirectly pay for
organic installs via activity such as PR. Take the time to
establish whether some positive coverage isn’t a more
cost effective way to deliver new users than paying for
them directly.
8#swrve_inc sales@swrve.com
A smart way to
ensure better
ratings, put into
practice by travel
app Hipmunk. The
first message asks
users to deliver
feedback on the
quality of the app.
Only those who
confirm that they
‘love it’ are then
sent to the
standard invitation
to rate the app
publicly
8 sales@swrve.com

Most importantly of all, don’t forget word of mouth.
Ultimately, it’s one of the most powerful weapons in
your armoury. And you can work on improving how
hard it works for you:
Make sure to encourage ratings (which are,
after all, a sort of digitized word of mouth). To
do that, test when the right time to ask for
ratings is, and establish who to ask for ratings.
A simple way to do that is simply by asking
whether users are enjoying the app before p
rompting those who are to go on and provide
a rating
Take a similar approach with social shares.
Social can be a very powerful tool in your
word-of-mouth crusade - but make sure you
give users the opportunity to share their
achievements or opinions rather than simply
the fact that they ‘like’ your app or game.
That’s likely to be more eﬀective - but don’t
take our word for it, test!
Lastly - remember the basic truth that nobody
recommends something they don’t like! If you
want word-of-mouth to work for you, make
sure your initial user experience is outstanding,
that your app performs as it should, and you
are generating delighted users.
Clear, effective social
sharing options in
evidence on Evernote
9@swrve_inc
Success Tip
You need to deliver the best possible experience on mobile - and that typically means
the native app rather than mobile internet. The latter may be easier to implement - but
you are leaving yourself open to superior experiences being oﬀered by competitors
“
~ Jason Turbin, Swrve Success, San Francisco
“
sales@swrve.com@swrve_inc

Success Tip
Use A/B testing to establish how best to prompt social shares. In tests with
entertainment app Beamly were were able to increase shares by over 500%!“
“
~ Aoife Crowley, Swrve Success, London
MIGRATING EXISTING
CLIENTS
For some lucky organizations or businesses, adding
new users to mobile is largely a case of encouraging
existing customers (usually online, but potentially
bricks and mortar also) to install and use a mobile app
as an alternative way to access their service.
In this situation, the single most important piece of
advice is “take nothing for granted”. When users
switch technology, they are also more likely to switch
brands, and the migration to mobile represents a key
bridge that your customers must be guided across.
If you sit back, deliver a poor quality app some time
next year, and hope to succeed: forget it. Your
customers will go elsewhere, or ﬁnd another way to
meet their needs on mobile that doesn’t involve you.
By way of analogy, consider the move to digital music.
The established industry sat back and did little or
nothing. Eventually Apple stepped in and provided a
solution to digital music distribution that solved the
consumer problem and simultaneously made large
chunks of the existing music industry redundant.
10 sales@swrve.com@swrve_inc sales@swrve.com

So take action. The following suggestions might
help:
Create something worth moving to.
Your app should deliver the highest quality
initial experience possible. You can’t afford
your existing customers to look elsewhere
when making the transition to mobile. Give
them no excuse, and ensure that as soon as
they install your app, they’ve no reason to look
elsewhere.
Promote mobile to your existing
user base.
You have a ready-made communications
channel through which you can promote the
existence (and the benefits of) your mobile
app. Make sure you do it - before a competitor
takes the initiative. Remember this is not just
offline - visitors to your mobile site can also be
prompted to switch to the app.
Incentivise first time transactions on
mobile.
All research suggests that multi-channel
customers are more loyal, and more valuable,
to a business. With that in mind, make every
effort to ensure your customers start using
mobile rather than just downloading an app.
Incentivize the first purchase, transaction - or
whatever activity matters to you.
Ensure your mobile experience is
as seamless as possible.
Most existing users will be aware of the
conventions you use online. As far as
possible, maintain consistency in the mobile
environment - make the app feel like ‘home’.
And in addition, ensure that any account is
centralized and can be used from any channel.
Sounds obvious - but isn’t necessarily always
put into practice!
Take every
opportunity to
promote your app,
such as this message
TripAdvisor shows to
visitors to their
mobile internet site

We’re all aware that mobile is changing
retail in multiple ways. Most obviously,
in multi-channel retail mobile is fast
becoming the most popular and
proﬁtable channel. All those billions of
smart devices, that we look at 150
times a day, have to add up to
something in the end!
But mobile is also set to change the
bricks-and-mortar retail landscape
completely. It is important to
understand that consumers now see
mobile as providing instant access to
the information about products and
services that helps them reach a
purchasing decision.
In the retail context that’s why you’ll
see people take out their mobile
in-store to check user reviews of a
particular item, or compare prices. So
it might be an idea to ask yourself this
question:
“do I want users turning to MY app, or
a competitor’s app, when they look for
that information?”
MOBILE AND THE REAL
WORLD
12
Smart multi-channel
experience at
Whole Foods

When you’ve chosen the former option(!), here’s a few
ways you might consider to make that happen:
Connect the in-store and mobile
experience.
iBeacons enable you to trigger in-mobile campaigns as
customers enter different areas of the store - from
large spaces to quite specific small areas relating to
individual products and brands. That opens up a world
of possibilities, from notifying users about current
promotions via push campaigns, to in-app messages
and content that provides more information on nearby
items. Consider them all!
Bring digital data to the in-store party.
Digital channels have one huge advantage: they offer
the ability to collect data relating to almost every
aspect of the consumer. You can turn that to your
advantage in store. Whilst you may be running
multiple promotions on any one day, it is possible to
ensure that each individual sees only those relevant to
him or her - based on their prior behavior in the
mobile app or online. That means more effective
marketing - and it also cuts down on irritation!
Build in-store companion apps.
Don’t make the mistake of believing that just because
you are a retailer, any app you build has to sell directly.
A store companion app can provide valuable loca-
tion-sensitive content and campaigns, and can be
integrated with the in-store experience by, for
example, supporting a ‘call a sales assistant’ function.
Remember that behavior in store can also
be shared with other channels.
Beacon technology now enables retailers to have a
complete ‘map’ of user behavior within the store, and
can even report ‘dwell time’ in front of specific
products or product categories. If a specific user has
spent 15 minutes browsing Versace dresses, that
information can be used to personalize mobile and
online experiences (and campaigns) in the future.
Think of it as offline to online retargeting!
#swrve_inc 13 sales@swrve.com13
Digital channels have
one huge advantage:
they offer the ability to
collect data relating to
almost every aspect of
the consumer. You can
turn that to your
advantage in store.

ANALYTICS
the data you’ll need to drive performance

sales@swrve.com15@swrve_inc
ANALYTICS-
OR KNOWING WHAT TO MEASURE
To succeed on mobile, it is essential to measure what matters.
Only by doing this can you really identify where improvement
needs to be made, and how successful or otherwise your
mobile marketing eﬀorts are. In other words - it is vital.
sales@swrve.com
It’s essential to track user performance in real-time

Start from your business objectives, which could be focused
on user base, revenue, or indeed any number of factors.
From here, it should be relatively straightforward to identify
the key metrics that function as building blocks for those
objectives - and watch them like a hawk.
Conversely, if you ﬁnd yourself watching numbers that are
only tangentially related to the ultimate goal, step back and
ask yourself why.
Meaningful analytics allow you to model the user journey

Here’s a brief overview of the key numbers you’ll
almost certainly need to watch:
Revenue Speaks for itself - make sure you can
track revenue from all sources.
New Users Yes, acquisition matters!
Day 1 Retention Specifically - what % of new users on
any given day are active in the 24
hours following. A vital number.
DAU
Revenue Per User
Daily active users. Alongside revenue
per user, the key building block when it
comes to revenue.
A key indicator - if revenue matters to
your business
First-Time Paying Users
Average Session Length
The % of users who are actually
delivering revenue (rather than trialling
the app or using for free) is, of course,
a significant indicator.
It’s important that your app is engaging
- so in most cases a large number is
better. However, in task-driven apps
you may want to see this number
decrease rather than increase - showing
that efficiency is improving
Number of Sessions
Per Day
Push Notification Opt-In
An easy way to get a feel for how
‘compelling’ your app or service is
A key stat that has a great influence on
the success of your marketing activity.
Everyone wants to push this number as
high as possible

There are more - many more - numbers that may
matter to you. The important thing is that they are
measured consistently, reliably, and in as close to
real-time as you can manage. Data is the foundation
stone of a mobile strategy.
THINKING ABOUT THE USER
JOURNEY
These are the basic numbers that matter. But on their
own they won’t tell the full story and they won’t
necessarily help diagnose where your app is
performing - and where it needs help.
To do that, you need to consider the user journey.
Think of bucketing your users in the following ways,
of course using definitions that work for you:
New Users
For example those users in
their first three sessions, or
perhaps their first 20
minutes of app time
Engaged Users
Those users who have made
it through those first three
sessions (or 20 minutes) and
are now more active and
committed
Converted Users
Either those who have
started spending money
in the app, or have
subscribed or upgraded
when relevant. The
definition of conversion
really depends entirely
on you: it could even be
simply users who meet
a further engagement
target, such as 20
sessions.
Lapsed User
Those users who have ceased using the app - within a
particular time frame. Of course it is never possible to know
who has definitively left never to return, but it is usually
possible to reach an approximation.

Success Tip
““
Why do these buckets matter? For the simple reason
that your business depends on moving users along
this journey - turning new users into engaged users,
and then on to converted users. Then keeping those
converted users engaged and bringing back as many
lapsed users as possible.
With that in mind, it is important to have a clear
understanding of the percentage of your new users
converting to engaged, and so on for each category.
It is in those numbers that true success lies: to give
one obvious example, if you can move the percentage
of engaged users developing into converted or paying
users from 5% to 8%, that’s a huge and signiﬁcant
shift.
Make sure you are set up to measure what really matters to you on mobile. Create a
clear, unambiguous conversion event so you can consistently track the migration
from ‘engaged’ to ‘converted’ users
~ Gordon Glauser, Swrve Success, San Francisco
“ “

USER DATA
what you need to know about your mobile users

USER DATAWHAT YOU NEED TO COLLECT
The ultimate goal of mobile marketing could
ultimately be considered an ‘interaction engine’ - a
way to speak to our customers or potential
customers, something that has of course always been
the aim of the marketer.
But great conversations and interactions start with
listening. If you don’t know your customers, you’re
likely to talk to them in an ineﬀective and (for the
customer) plain irritating manner. The goal is to
ensure mobile conversations don’t become simply an
updated version of email spam.
So get your listening gear on: ensure you are
recording every event that matters, in relation to each
user, is collected, stored and acted upon. For the
avoidance of doubt, that means billions of events for
most apps, and includes:
~ Claire O’Regan, Swrve Success, London
Success Tip
It's vital to gather, process and distribute user data in one action. Make sure to close the
loop between analytics and action so you're able to change user experience in real-time
“
“

Demographic Data The basic stuff - age, gender, location,
language preference and so on
Engagement Data For how long, and at what times, the
user has been using the app. Cumulative
time in app is of particular significance
Event Data The heart of the interaction engine.
Event data relates to page opens, clicks,
purchases, opens - every possible user
activity
Device and OS Data Of particular importance when it comes
to delivering campaigns optimized for
specific devices
Test Events If a user has been exposed to a
particular test variant, it is important to
record that event in order to, for
example, deliver appropriate further
campaigns
Message Events Similarly, it is important to record when
user receives, opens or clicks on a
message (whether a push notification or
in-app conversation)
There are others - including data relating to the acquisition
source associated with the user, but these headings cover
the key data that will be required to deliver truly effective
mobile marketing.

The purpose of listening is to talk with greater relevance and effectiveness. Collecting data
enables the marketer to build highly sophisticated, targeted campaigns.
We’ll talk about the form those campaigns might take later in this document, but a few
examples here might demonstrate how the collection of user data can help create truly
powerful, memorable interactions:
SEGMENTATION IN ACTION
A subscription offer can be delivered to users who have been active for at least 20
minutes in the app, promoting improved access to a feature they have accessed at
least 3 times during a trial, in their local language and optimized to their particular
device.
A specific help page, showing users how to find a particular feature in the app, can be
shown to users who have spent a specific length of time in the app, but have not
already used/found the feature in question. In turn this allows initial app onboarding
to be slimmed down - improving early life retention.
An interactive survey can be delivered to users that propensity analysis (see over)
determines to be likely to become ‘app VIPs’. By identifying their likes and dislikes,
app experience can be customized to ensure these users are retained as effectively
as possible.
This is only a small selection of the types of targeting possible. The possibilities are, in fact,
literally endless. But the lesson should be clear - to target and market effectively, you must
first listen.

BREAKOUT
PROPENSITY ANALYSIS IN MOBILE
Propensity is the next big thing in mobile.
If you’re asking what exactly ‘propensity’ is, you probably don’t work in a B2C digital
business. Most people who do understand just how important it is to know - or at least be
able to guess - what users will do in the future, rather than basing all marketing activity on
what users have already done.
It’s easy to demonstrate why that matters. Just imagine being able to identify:
In all of those cases a propensity analysis can help identify these users. But of course, what
happens next is the truly significant part of the equation.
Taking each case in turn, a mobile marketer approach can then:
Users more likely to stop using your mobile service in the
near future
Mobile users more likely to make a first purchase or
subscribe - if currently using a service for free
New mobile users who are likely to become high-value
customers in the future
Deliver in-app messages highlighting features that a user
about to churn has not yet discovered - which in turn
increases the value they receive from the app
Send relevant subscription offers to users ready to
convert - ensuring they get over the line
Deliver the best possible user experience, perhaps
including random acts of kindness, to future VIPs - to
ensure they stay put
@swrve_inc sales@swrve.com24

@swrve_inc
at Swrve we’ve seen
push notification
engagement rates
increase by over
200%when they are
sent at the right time
for the user
One of the benefits of a typical mobile marketing
platform is the sheer insight it gives you into mobile
users. In some cases billions of events are collected in a
day, but that insight doesn’t just have to look
backwards. By examining historical data a propensity
engine can determine - for each individual app - what
different types of users looked like before key
moments in their journey.
By creating these profiles, we are then able to look at
current mobile users and identify those who are more
likely to make a first purchase, churn - and so on. In the
best case scenario that will be done automatically, and
so effectively the marketer is simply exposed to these
groups ready to be used as campaign target groups.
Having this technology available to mobile marketers
can increase marketing effectiveness in a significant
way. Even at the most basic level, at Swrve we’ve seen
push notification engagement rates increase by over
200% when they are sent at the right time for the user
(in other words, when past history tells us that
individual is most likely to use the app).
In the same way, predictive is set to move the metrics
that matter right across the board. From engagement,
to retention and (of course) revenue.
sales@swrve.com25

RETENTION
how to keep users sticking around during the ﬁrst
key sessions

RETENTION
We mentioned earlier the critical importance of
retaining new users. But it is worth re-stating here: if
there’s one lesson app developers need to learn, it is
that installs do not equal revenue.
That seems obvious, so why the need to spell it out?
Well, simply because in too many cases ‘acquisition’ is
seen as a goal in itself. Too many app businesses pay
more attention to initial user acquisition than they do
to the retention and revenue they deliver from those
users.
That’s a mistake. So let’s talk first about how to get
the best possible value from our acquisition strategy -
starting with retention.
THE CURRENT LANDSCAPE
Unfortunately, in all too many cases, new users for
any given app disappear rapidly. Around a quarter of
apps installed are used precisely once. And long term
retention figures don’t make for much better reading
either. In most cases apps are not used AT ALL after
the first 30 days.
So when it comes to retention work clearly needs to
be done, because without long-term, engaged users,
app publishers really have very little opportunity to
deliver on their business objectives. No retention: no
business, or at least that’s certainly the case if your
app is free to install.
We don’t have the space in this document to cover
every angle when it comes to retaining users. But first
and foremost, it is important to measure retention
rates and focus on changing those rates for the
better. Here’s a couple of examples of ways to make
that happen that neatly demonstrate how to think
about retention and change your numbers for the
better.

When so many users leave apps after just one or two
sessions, it should be obvious that onboarding matters
- a lot. It’s how you educate your users and make sure
their initial experiences are as positive as possible. It
also helps ensure they discover all the great things that
your app can deliver. Get it wrong and you’re in
trouble.
FOCUS ON ONBOARDING
Simple, clear
onboarding at
Pinterest gives the
user information on
the app capabilities
as they sign up or log in
28 sales@swrve.com@swrve_inc

Follow these simple tips to get it right:
Make sure you know what is happening, where users are having difficulty, and what effect
any changes you make are having. That’s easy to do by building funnels which track how
successfully users move through the onboarding flow. Where you see a drop off - you’ll
know you need to take action.
Balance discovery, education - and frustration. Be clear about what you need to tell the
user, and for the time being go no further. Each additional onboarding step adds to the
burden of getting started quickly and entering ‘free use’ of the app. In many cases discovery
can wait until later: there are alternative ways to highlight specific features to users who
have not yet found them
organically.
Use funnel
analytics to
identify sticking
points in your
onboarding
flow

Success Tip
Remember to test your changes. There are any
number of ways in which you can attempt to
improve onboarding performance. Clearer
language, more prominent visual prompts,
alternative information ﬂows. But one thing
remains constant - you’ll need to A/B test, with
real users, before you know for sure what is
working.
Keep in mind that it’s not necessary to show the
same onboarding steps to each user. In fact, in
most cases this would be a mistake: some users
need more help, others less. Providing a
personalized experience is key. And similarly - do
remember to test whether you need a tutorial at
all! The results might surprise you.
Users are asking three questions when they open your app for the ﬁrst time: “What does
this app do, how do I use it, and what else is there in here?” Make sure you answer
all three!
“
“

DRIVE PUSH NOTIFICATION
OPT-IN
One tried and trusted method of building the
engagement - and making sure that users return
to your app (as opposed to a competitor) is the
push notification. Smart, targeted push
campaigns can be a great way to improve reten-
tion.
But to send great push, you need to be able to
send push in the first place. That can be tough.
With opt-in rates now down below the 50%
range for a number of app categories, too many
app businesses are out there attempting to drive
engagement and retention with one-hand tied
behind their backs.
What causes such low opt-in rates? Well, the
single biggest issue in this context is asking for
push opt-in before the app has fully launched,
without providing any information around how
push will be used, and most importantly without
making it clear what’s in it for the user.
To use a direct analogy, this is equivalent to
visiting a website for the first time only to see a
pop-up obscuring your view and asking for
permission to send you email. Would you agree
to that? Precisely!
Uber’s push opt-in
message
communicates the
benefit of push to
the user - rather
than to Uber
themselves

The good news is there’s two relatively straightforward
ways to combat this issue and drive your opt-in rates
upwards:
Wait until users are familiar with your
app before requesting a push opt-in.
The reasons to do this are obvious: it’s when
you are a trusted entity and the user feels
comfortable with your service that they are
more likely to say ‘yes’ to push. But of course
exactly when to ask isn’t simply a matter of
delaying as long as possible. App attrition
being what it is, the longer you delay the fewer
people you are asking! Ideally you would test
alternatives: we’ve found the start of the third
session to be a good starting point.
Deliver a ‘two-step’ opt-in process.
Users are significantly more likely to opt-in to
receive notifications if you first show an in-app
messages that explains why you are asking
them and what’s in it for them. Look at the
example from Uber below. It both explains
why you should opt-in, but also appears at a
relevant point in the app - when the user is
being asked how they would like to receive
confirmations. The result is some of the
highest opt-in rates in the business.
1
2
32#swrve_inc sales@swrve.com@swrve_inc

You’ll notice this document often suggests ‘testing’ areas of the mobile app experience. While
we’ve attempted to share some observations and recommendations that we’ve gathered over
many years working with the world’s leading app companies, there remains no substitute for
finding out what really works with your own users.
A/B testing, in essence, simply refers to the serving of competing variants (including a control) to
randomly generated user groups, and identifying the effect of those variants on the behaviors of
the groups. But within that simple enough definition is a world of detail! In a nutshell: all A/B
testing is not the same.
In more detail, consider the following before embarking on your testing program:
Too often A/B testing is seen as a tool for
making decisions around the more
superficial aspects of mobile apps. The
colors of buttons, or the language used to
describe a particular action. But almost
anything can be tested, and your initial
efforts should be focused on the areas that
make the biggest difference to your
performance - whatever they might be
It’s easy to test dropping the price of an
item and determining that not only did we
sell more, but that we made more revenue
from that item in total. Great. But what
happened to overall revenue? Did we
simply cannibalise revenue from other
sources? Always make sure to note how all
the KPIs you care about were influenced by
the change in user experience that you
tested - and examine that effect over time
as well.
BREAKOUT
A/B TESTING
Focus On What Counts Check All Impacts

Measure Engagement Not Just Conversion
Simple A/B testing defines success as a conversion from one state to another. To use one
obvious example: the migration from the ‘not purchased’ state to the ‘purchased’ state. Fine as
far as it goes - but testing should be able to tell you about the intensity of a relationship (or how
many times something was bought, rather than simply whether it was bought at all), and it should
be able to do so in a mathematically valid way. If it doesn’t, you’ll get interesting results,
sure - but they won’t necessarily tell you much about what’s good for your business
You don’t have to show any given test to a
cross section of your entire user base. In
fact, you really shouldn’t: in most cases it’s
correct to exclude existing users from any
tests that show significant changes to UX,
as their familiarity with what already exists
will bias them towards the control. But
along the same lines, if you’re introducing a
new feature specifically for an audience
(high spenders for example), test it against
that group rather than the population as a
whole!
It should go without saying - but
unfortunately that’s not an option. Unless
you apply rigorous statistical analysis to
your test results in order to establish that
one variant is truly outperforming others in
a significant way, your results are worthless.
Worse - you may walk away believing you
have ‘solved’ a problem when in fact you’ve
learned nothing.
�
Target Your Testing Do The Math!

CONVERSION
how to drive purchases, revenue - or whatever
matters to your business

CONVERSION
In most cases, mobile apps today are free to download.
What that means is that revenue relies on turning those
users into paying customers. The moment that happens is
what we call ‘conversion’.
A quick aside - in some cases you don’t want to collect
revenue at all. And that’s ﬁne! But you probably still have
certain actions you’d like to encourage. Everything you
read below applies in exactly the same way to making
those events happen.
It should be obvious that conversion is incredibly
important. And the % of your users that you successfully
convert to a ‘paying’ status is perhaps the most important
number in any mobile business. It is vital. So let’s look at
how to move that number.
Success Tip
Combine changes in user experience - like new prices - with campaigns promoting
those changes for maximum eﬀectiveness
“
~ Lucy O’Dwyer, Swrve Success, San Francisco
“

A target audience
A desired outcome
An offer or incentive
(the ‘content’ of the campaign)
A chosen channel of communication
CAMPAIGNS
Nobody knows more about conversion than the games
industry, where the wholesale move to free-to-play has
required the development of a whole set of skills and
techniques designed to get those playing the game for
free to pay for a better experience.
What those techniques typically have in common is the
use of in-game messages or ads, usually delivered as
interstitials. After all, if you have an oﬀer, or are making
an incentive available, you need to tell people about it!
Of course you can do this by making changes to the
UX - but when you really want to get the message
home the interstitial is the most powerful weapon in
your arsenal.
But rather than simply pepper the app with multiple
ads at random intervals - an approach that isn’t going to
make anyone happy, and won’t do much for conversion
rates - it is vital to think in terms of campaigns. From a
marketing perspective, a campaign has:
if you have an offer,
or are making an
incentive available,
you need to tell
people about it!

When you think in this way, you’ll be delivering regular,
targeted, relevant marketing campaigns that continually look
to take users along a journey - from new installs to engaged
users, and from engaged user to payers: or whatever form of
conversion you are interested in (and remember this also
applies to subscription as well).
Here’s two examples of the types of campaigns we’re
talking about:
PROMOTING PURCHASES TO
ENGAGED NON-SPENDING
USERS
If you want to drive mobile users to spend real-money in
your app, the single dumbest way to go about it would be to
send the same offers, at the same times, to you entire user
base. That is not just ineffective marketing, it is also
inefficient.
If you are offering a 25% discount on a specific purchase, for
example, the worst possible approach is to offer that
concession to users who were going to purchase anyway.
Instead, such campaigns need to be delivered to those users
that our data or propensity analysis tells us are unlikely to
make a purchase without an incentive.
When delivering these campaigns, it is possible to customize
content and creative based on observed user preferences
during the time they have been engaged in the app. You can,
for example, feature items that have previously been looked
at in the store or even added to a shopping cart that was
then abandoned.
campaigns need to
be delivered to those
users that our data or
propensity analysis
tells us are unlikely to
make a purchase
without an incentive.

We can also ensure we deliver such campaigns at precisely
the right time - whether we are sending a push notification
at a time when the user has historically shown a propensity
to use the app, or an in-app message at the exact moment
in time that makes sense to the user - for example
promoting a specific item at the moment in a game it would
help them.
It is campaigns of this type that move users to the ‘paying’
state that pays the bills!
A SMART SUBSCRIPTION
CAMPAIGN
Some media organizations offer their content free for life, or
at least most of their content. They either fund this model
through advertising or have some long-term plan for
monetizing the many millions of eyeballs they might attract
with a free service. But others earn revenue direct through
subscription.
For these companies, everything boils down to a rather
simple challenge: within a certain amount of time, or page
views, the user has to be convinced to pay a certain
amount of money to subscribe.
The campaigns that do this convincing need to include
messages that are persuasive, relevant to the individual, and
perhaps most important of all, well-timed. They certainly
cannot be delivered on a ‘one size fits all’ basis.

40#swrve_inc sales@swrve.com
A smart subscription offer does many things, including:
Features content already enjoyed by the user
and promotes the improved experience after
subscription. So if I’ve read sports stories -
talk to the sports coverage.
Is well-timed - perhaps appearing at several
stages during the trial period but always in a
way appropriate to that moment in the user
experience. One great technique, for example,
is to offer a very compelling subscription
offer very early in the process, when we have
the largest possible addressable audience.
Communicates the value clearly. What is in
it for the user is the question all marketers
should ask themselves when creating
campaigns to drive subscription. Talk to the
specific benefits rather than assuming the
user will understand why subscription is a
good idea for them.
Provide options. Smart subscription
campaigns support giving users a choice
around the terms of their engagement.
@swrve_inc
Great subscription
offers from the
New York Times

There is a huge amount more that could be said about the challenges of running a
successful mobile business, and the campaigns we have shown are only a tiny subset
of those that can and should be run using the various interaction channels now avail-
able on mobile.
Hopefully, however, the principles involved are clear. Here’s a recap!
Acquisition is only the ﬁrst step - success on mobile requires actively
working to retain and engage users over the long-term
Campaigns should be targeted, relevant and personalized to the user
Collect as much data as you possibly can - it is the secret to effective
mobile marketing campaigns
Test everything - and continue to optimize on the basis of your
results
CONCLUSIONS

San Francisco New York London Dublin
The Swrve Mobile Engagement Platform is designed
for digital marketers who are focused on transforming
the way brands connect and interact with customers in
an increasingly mobile-centric world.
Understanding how to engage users quickly and maximize
revenue is a core competence of Swrve’s, and recognized
by our partners - including Sony, The Guardian, Condé Nast,
Warner Brothers and Microsoft. Swrve customers have
delivered more than one billion mobile messages,
and every single day the Swrve platform processes
over six billion events.
visit us at swrve.com
Follow us!
Grow your mobile business with Swrve
@swrve_inc SwrveTVswrve_inc
https://www.facebook.com/SwrveInc https://www.linkedin.com/company/swrve

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