(Evgeny Yanovskiy, Senior Customer Success Manager at AppsFlyer)

It’s been a tough couple of years for the global economy and in the past year there has been a global economic downturn. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down many economies and took away a lot of manpower and funding from businesses. Many countries are currently trying to recover from this downturn but according to the IMF, global economic growth will still slow down from 3.4% in 2022 to 2.9% in 2023 and most economies won’t start to properly recover until 2024. This economic crisis has caused rising inflation rates and in Nigeria, headline inflation increased to a whopping 22.41% in May 2023, a significant 4.70% increase from the previous year. The global downturn in funding has also affected startups in Africa, with funding for tech startups declining by 57% in Q1 of 2023.

Fintech startups are not spared from this funding decline and funding has become more competitive. In Nigeria, the recent Naira redesign and resulting scarcity caused a surge in fintech adoption. Mobile penetration and internet usage are also increasing on the continent and as the younger tech-savvy population grows, banking is becoming increasingly tech-centred. For traditional banks, profitability is often measured long-term but most tech solutions and fintechs specifically, have to prove profitability from the start to survive. The companies that will come out on top will be those that can show a clear path to profitability with their strategies. One way for fintechs to increase adoption and use is to meet the population where they are and in Africa, this means improving mobile app solutions and better ROI on mobile ad spending. According to Irina Malkina, Partner Development Manager at AppsFlyer, when it comes to mobile apps, profitability means lowering acquisition costs, increasing return on ad spend (ROAS), and driving up lifetime value (LTV) for customers as efficiently as possible. The question for fintech mobile app marketers now is, how do they improve profitability despite this global downturn?

To answer the above question, AppsFlyer, a leading mobile marketing and attribution platform hosted a panel to lay out strategies for finance apps to succeed during this time. In attendance at the event was Evgeny Yanovskiy, Senior Customer Success Manager at AppsFlyer who laid out AppsFlyers strategies for finance apps to drive LTV and increase ROI.

How to create UX that drives LTV, return on experience (ROX), and ROI: insights from Evgeny Yanovskiy, Senior Customer Success Manager at AppsFlyer

Growth professionals have a very specific job; taking users from wherever they are (website, social media post, text message, or email), to their desired destination (a specific spot within the app). The challenge here is making sure users get to the desired destination as much as possible and with the best experience. This experience is what ROX is all about. ROX is a holistic approach to understanding and increasing the value of your investments across customer experience (CX). ROX allows the team at AppsFlyer to measure the business impact of the customer experiences they build. Better CX = Higher return, so by building good CX for passengers/users they increase customer conversion and ROI.

What is the impact of being ROX-driven?

Based on global AppsFlyer data, we have found that generic user acquisition journeys—ones that are not contextualised or personalised—usually generate a 5.8% click-to-install rate. On the other hand, when brands create contextual, personal, and smooth experiences, we see amazing results from a 13% to 33% click-to-install rate. Fintech app trends from AppsFlyer indicate that without contextualised user acquisition journeys, only about 23% of apps are installed organically. Click-to-install rate for web-to-app is about 7% and referral-to-app is about 15%.

So how do you measure ROX?

ROX is similar to ROI and measured in similar ways. 

Divide the incremental revenue attributed to the experience by the cost of creating the experience and then multiply it by 100%. The cost of experience includes human resources  and external services, and also the cost of tools/ software.

ROX in action

The finance industry suffers from about 75% abandonment rates. This means that most customers get distracted along the way to registration and abandon the process. Financial institutions are constantly leveraging various tools and methodologies to both reduce such abandonment rates as well as win-back abandoned users. The ultimate goal is to transition customers from the website when they start their registration, to the app. By enabling a process with very little friction, customers are more likely to start using the app instead. So how do you do this? This unique customer experience must be coupled with the right communication channel. Here’s one example:

A bank creates a QR code on its homepage allowing users to scan the QR and continue on the bank’s app. By using OneLink’s technology the bank’s users can continue that same journey on the app from that same page where they scanned the QR. When a user takes out their phone and scans the QR code on the screen they are easily redirected to the relevant app store, given their device. After installing the app, users can log in on their app and get accustomed to using it rather than log in on the desktop as they have been using all along. To do this, the bank also needs to be able to:

  • Configure a new deep link template with simple ruling to take the user to the app. 
  • Generate a QR code redirecting users to the app (from the template created above).
  • Place the QR code on their home page + a CTA.

In this example, a QR code is used but AppsFlyer offers deep linking tools across all marketing channels from sms to emails. * more examples can be found in the video above. These deep linking tools are what enable the above banking scenario to function smoothly. With these tools customer journeys from web to app become seamless and there’s less chances of abandonment.

About AppsFlyer

AppsFlyer is a holistic approach to marketing. AppsFlyer exists to help app marketers make smart decisions on how to grow their apps profitably. They do this by; giving marketers the tools to accurately measure whether their strategies are actually working. They give marketers the tools to measure UA campaigns and make informed optimisation decisions. In terms of remarketing, they provide deep linking, QR codes, and audience segmentation tools to offer seamless user journeys to app, boost retention rates, and increase LTV. 

To see a demo of the platform in action, please reach out to AppsFlyer here.

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