Engaging users during major events: How The Guardian used innovative notifications

Posted By Tamzin Taylor, Partner Development at Google Play

Major sporting, cultural, political events present an opportunity to re-engage
users if you can find a relevant and unique way to serve them information. For
example, The
Guardian was able to substantially increase user engagement with its mobile
app during the recent US election by using new notifications functionality in
Android 7.0 Nougat. While notifications themselves are nothing new, The Guardian
used innovative techniques and design elements to give their users a rich, real
time update on the election results as they happened.

How The Guardian innovated with notifications

Users who opted-in received a single, continuously updating notification which
was persistent on their lock screen as results came in on election night. The
notification used avatars of the candidates and a progress bar to bring the
information to life.

The notification showed the most up-to-date numbers of electoral votes won and
states called, an indication of which swing states have been called, and the
breakdown of the popular vote between the two leading candidates.

"Having the ability to have a constantly updating notification on screen,
allowed us to keep our users engaged throughout election night".

� Rob Phillips from The Guardian

Another important feature was the ability to notify users of major updates with
a link to detailed information and analysis. In order to do this, the Guardian
allowed the newsroom teams to push notifications of major events, such as when
the 270 vote mark was passed.

"Our newsroom could let our readers know in real time when there was a
serious milestone, and we were able to deliver 101 unique notifications during
the course of the evening. The clear menu options acted as key drivers
to our journalism as the news unfolded, and meant we could get our readers
connected with our content when they were most receptive".

� Rob Phillips from The Guardian

Results and next steps

The engagement results were impressive:

• 170K people signed up to see the alert, with 122K users interacting with the
  alert
  


• The average number of interactions was around 620K, or 5.1 per user
  


• 74% of users who saw the notification tapped through to the main live blog
  


• 25% of users who saw the notification tapped through to our full results
  content

Finally, perhaps the most impressive statistic is that promoting live updates
(via the notification) resulted in 103% increase in daily
installs during election week.

"By providing our users with the ability to quickly and easily check
information, to highlight major moments and to direct people to where to find
more information, we can deliver value to our readers, helping them make sense
of the events wherever they are, quickly and succinctly. After all, that's what
we're here to do as a news company, and we're delighted that the new
functionality on Nougat lets us do that"

� Rob Phillips from The Guardian

On the back of the success of using Android
N capabilities for live notifications, the Guardian plans to test the same
approach with sports content, and explore how it could be applied more
extensively to other major events like The Oscars and the Super Bowl.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

                                                                              

Android Developer Story: Wallapop improves user conversions with store listing experiments on Google Play

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Developer Marketing, Google Play

Wallapop
is a mobile app developer based in Barcelona, Spain. The app provides a platform
to users for selling and buying things to others nearby in a virtual flea market
by using geolocalization. Wallapop now has over 70% of their user base on
Android.




Watch Agus Gomez, Co-Founder & CEO, and Marta Gui, Growth Hacking Manager,
explain how using store listing experiments has increased their conversion rate
by 17%, and has allowed them to optimize organic installs.

Learn
more about store listing experiments. Get the Playbook for
Developers app to stay up-to-date with more features and best practices that
will help you grow a successful business on Google Play.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

                                                                              

Tips from developers Peak and Soundcloud on how to grow your startup on Google Play

Posted by Francesca Di Felice, Developer Marketing at Google
Play

At Playtime 2016, Google Play's series of developer events, we met with top app
and game developers from around the world to share learnings on how to build
successful businesses on Google Play. Several startups, including game developer
Peaklabs and audio platform SoundCloud, presented on stage their own best
practices for growth, which you might find helpful.



Testing for growth, by Peak



Hear from Kevin Shanahan, Product Manager from Peak,
a brain training app, on how to grow sustainably.

• Test lots of ideas: You can't be sure of what will work and
  what won't, so you need to test lots of ideas. Peak ran four different tests to
  try to increase conversions to Pro (their subscriber offering):

1. Made the ability to replay games a Pro feature
   


2. Reduced price of Pro by 25% in top 2 markets
   


3. Bundled add-on modules from partners into Pro
   


4. Showed a preview of Pro-only content
   

          One of these tests resulted in a 50% increase in conversions.

• Get the basics right: Start with a great product and have a
  data-informed culture. Don't only test app features, experimenting your store
  listing using store
  listing experiments is also important.
  


• Build a robust A/B testing process: Having
  a well-defined A/B testing process and a system for tracking your experiments is
  key to testing quickly and effectively.

Improving user retention, by
SoundCloud



Andy Carvell, former Product Manager at SoundCloud,
an online audio distribution platform that enables its users to upload, record,
promote, and share their originally-created sounds, explains how they focus on
retention to improve growth.

 

• Design your retention strategy: Apps with poor retention
  grow slowly. To increase your retention you should:
  
  
  • Convert new users to repeat visitors by providing a strong onboarding
    experience for new users and taking a high-touch approach during the first days
    and weeks.
    
  
  
  • Increase visit frequency within this group by providing frequent, timely,
    and relevant messaging about content or activity on the platform.
    
  
  
  • Target returning users who were not seen over the last period, who are 'at
    risk of churn' users, by giving them reasons to come back for another session
    before losing them.
    
  
  
  • Re-activate lapsed (long-term churned) users with campaigns to remind them
    about your app and offer an incentive to return.
  
  
  
  

• Build 'growth machines': Create repeatable processes that
  testing has proven to positively impact retention, retaining users, and
  preventing churn.

• Use activity notifications in a personalised and effective
  way: At SoundCloud there are plenty of things that happen when users
  are not in the app that might be relevant to them, for example new content
  releases or social interactions. They tested 5 new notification types, always
  keeping a control group to better keep track of the impact, and managed to
  increase retention in a 5%. Watch the video
  above for more of Andy's tips on making better use of notifications.

Other speakers, such as Silicon Valley VC Greylock, have also shared their
tips for startup growth. Watch
more sessions from this year's Playtime events to learn best practices from
other apps and game partners, and the Google Play team. Get the Playbook for Developers app to stay up to
date with news and tips to help you grow a successful business on Google Play.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

                                                                              

Southeast Asian indie game developers find success on Google Play

Posted by Vineet Tanwar, Business Development Manager, Google Play

Indie game developers bring high quality, artistic, and innovative content to
Google Play and raise the bar for all developers in the process. In fact, they
also make up a large portion of our 'Editor's Choice' recommended titles.

Southeast Asia, in particular, has a vibrant indie game developer ecosystem, and
we've been working closely with them to provide tools that help them build
successful businesses on Google Play. Today, we're sharing stories from three
Indie developers based in Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia, who joined us at
our 'Indie Game Developers Day' workshops in May 2016 and all of whom have
experienced significant growth since.




Inzen Studio from Singapore learned how to use store
listing experiments and has improved the conversion rate of their newly
launched game Dark
Dot by 25%. Indonesia based studio, Niji Games, creator of Cute
Munchies, implemented 'Saved Games' and 'Events and Quests' from Google Play
games services to significantly improve user retention, and also earned an
'Editor's Choice' badge in the process. Ho Chi Minh City based developer,
VGames, optimized monetization and introduced new paid products for their game
Gungun
online, and grew revenue by over 100%.

Indie game developers who are interested in meeting members of Google Play and
who would like to work closer with us are invited to join our next round of SEA
workshops in March 2017. To apply for these events, just fill in this
form and we will reach out to you.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

   

Get the guide to finding success in new markets on Google Play

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Developer Marketing at Google Play

With just a few clicks, you can publish an app to Google Play and access a
global audience of more than 1 billion 30 days active users. Finding success in
global markets means considering how each market differs, planning for high
quality localization, and tailoring your activity to the local audience. The new
Going
Global Playbook provides best practices and tips, with advice from
developers who've successfully gone global.




This guide includes advice to help you plan your approach to going global,
prepare your app for new markets, take your app to market, and also include data
and insights for key countries and other useful resources.




This ebook joins others that we've recently published including The
Building for Billions Playbook and The
News Publisher Playbook. All of our ebooks are promoted in the Playbook for Developers app, which is
where you can stay up to date with all the news and best practices you need to
find success on Google Play.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

                                                       

Start building Actions on Google

Posted by Jason Douglas, PM Director for Actions on Google

The Google Assistant href="https://blog.google/products/assistant/personal-google-just-you/">brings
together all of the technology and smarts we've been building for years,
from the Knowledge Graph to Natural Language Processing. To be a truly
successful Assistant, it should be able to connect users across the apps and
services in their lives. This makes enabling an ecosystem where developers can
bring diverse and unique services to users through the Google Assistant really
important.

In October, we href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4y0KOeXViI&feature=youtu.be&t=1h16m8s">previewed
Actions on Google, the developer platform for the Google Assistant. href="https://developers.google.com/actions/?utm_campaign=product area_launch_actionsgoogle_120816&utm_source=gdev&utm_medium=blog">Actions on Google further
enhances the Assistant user experience by enabling you to bring your services to
the Assistant. Starting today, you can build Conversation Actions for Google
Home and request to
become an early access partner for upcoming platform features.

Conversation Actions for Google Home

Conversation Actions let you engage your users to deliver information, services,
and assistance. And the best part? It really is a conversation -- users won't
need to enable a skill or install an app, they can just ask to talk to your
action. For now, we've provided two developer samples of what's possible, just
say "Ok Google, talk to Number Genie " or try "Ok Google, talk to Eliza' for the
classic 1960s AI exercise.

You can get started today by visiting the href="https://developers.google.com/actions?utm_campaign=product area_launch_actionsgoogle_120816&utm_source=gdev&utm_medium=blog">Actions on Google website for
developers. To help create a smooth, straightforward development experience, we
worked with a number of
development partners, including conversational interaction development tools
API.AI and Gupshup, analytics tools DashBot and VoiceLabs and consulting
companies such as Assist, Notify.IO, Witlingo and Spoken Layer. We also created
a collection of href="https://developers.google.com/actions/samples/?utm_campaign=product area_launch_actionsgoogle_120816&utm_source=gdev&utm_medium=blog">samples and voice user
interface (VUI) href="https://developers.google.com/actions/design/">resources or you can
check out the integrations from our href="http://support.google.com/assistant/?p=3p_developers">early access
partners as they roll out over the coming weeks.

Introduction to Conversation Actions by href="https://google.com/+WaynePiekarski">Wayne Piekarski

Coming soon: Actions for Pixel and Allo + Support for Purchases and
Bookings

Today is just the start, and we're excited to see what you build for the Google
Assistant. We'll continue to add more platform capabilities over time, including
the ability to make your integrations available across the various Assistant
surfaces like Pixel phones and Google Allo. We'll also enable support for
purchases and bookings as well as deeper Assistant integrations across
verticals. Developers who are interested in creating actions using these
upcoming features should href="https://assistant.google.com/developer/eap/">register for our early access
partner program and help shape the future of the platform.

Build, explore and let us know what you think about Actions on Google! And to say in the loop, be sure to sign up for our newsletter, join our Google+ community, and use the �actions-on-google� tag on StackOverflow.

Best practices to improve app engagement

Posted by Niko Schr�er, Business Development, Google Play




Driving installs is important to growing a user base, but it's not much use if
your app sits on users' devices and is rarely opened. In a competitive app
landscape, it's increasingly important to engage and retain users over the long
term to build a successful business. Users who are using your app more will have
a higher lifetime value and be more likely to share your app. Watch my Playtime
session below to hear about the tools and features other developers are using to
increase app engagement. You can also read the summary of my main tips below.










1. Build a high quality app to engage Android users


Building a high quality app is the foundation of a great user experience on
Android. The better your app's user experience is, the more engaged your users
will be. Optimizing for material
design, for example, can significantly improve user engagement as well as
building for Android
Wear, Auto or TV where it
makes sense based on your value proposition.




To achieve high quality, we recommend you to check out the latest Android
features, tips, and best practices in our Playbook
for Developers.




The developer of the golf app, Hole19,
tailored their app's user experience thoughtfully for Android Wear and, as a
result, saw a 40% increase in user engagement compared to non-Wear users. Watch a video about Hole19's
success.




2. Make your users feel at home


Personalising your app experience to make users feel at home is a good way to
start a long lasting relationship. Onboarding new users is a crucial step in
this process. Onboarding should be fast and seamless and ask for minimal user
input - after all users want to start using your app as quickly as possible.
Furthermore, the onboarding should be a core part of the overall product
experience. Use images and wording that's true to your brand and only ask for
user input when it's actually needed, to reduce friction and avoid losing users.




Freeletics,
a fitness app, created an engaging user onboarding flow in which they tailored
imagery and text to male and female users respectively. They also moved the
registration process to a later stage in the funnel to reduce friction. The
improved onboarding flow increased user activity by 58% within the first 7 days.
They also implemented Google Smart
Lock to seamlessly sign-in returning users.




3. Optimize feature releases as a way to increase user
engagement


Introducing new features is essential to staying ahead of competition and
relevant to your users to ensure they keep coming back to your app. To make new
feature launches successful drivers for user engagement, follow these simple
steps:

• Define a clear objective for each release to measure your impact, e.g.
  increase number of users who edit a photo by at least 10%.
  


• Use
  beta testing to gather user feedback and iterate a feature before it's
  rolled out to all of your users.
  


• Enable
  the pre-launch report in the Play developer console to spot potential flaws
  and ensure technical stability in your alpha and beta apps.
  


• Guide users to each new feature as if it is a light onboarding experience.
  Visually highlight what's new and provide a short explanation why users should
  care.
  


• Measure performance with analytics to see if the
  new feature drives engagement (that you've defined as your objective).

4. Use notifications wisely


Push notifications are a popular engagement tool and rightfully so. However,
there is a fine line between driving engagement and annoying users (who might
then uninstall your app). Follow these guidelines to ensure your notifications
are on the right side of the line:

• Be relevant and only send messages that matter to the user in context. Be
  creative and true to your brand, speak your users language and use an authentic
  tone.
  


• Make notifications actionable for your users and don't forget to deep link
  to content where applicable to save your users time.
  


• Remember that not all your users are equal so personalize your message to
  different user cohorts with Firebase
  Notifications.
  


• Consider timeliness of your messages to get users the right notification at
  the right time and with the right frequency. For example, it might be better to
  send a notification about something interesting to read at a time when the user
  normally gets out their phone � like during their commute � instead of the
  middle of the day, when they might be busy and dismiss a new notification.
  


• Finally, give users control over what notifications they receive so that
  they can opt-in and opt-out of the notifications they like and don't like
  respectively. If users get annoyed about certain types of notifications and
  don't have a way to disable them, they might uninstall your app.

The Norwegian news app Aftenposten
implemented a new onboarding flow that clarified which notifications were
available, allowing readers to manage their preferences. This reduced uninstalls
by 9.2.% over 60 days and led to a 28% decrease in the number of users muting
notifications completely. Read
more about Aftenposten's success.




5. Reward your most engaged users


Last but not least, you should find ways to reward your most loyal users to
retain them over time and to make it desirable to less engaged users to engage
more. These rewards can come in many shapes and forms. Start by keeping it
simple and make sure the reward adds real value to the user and fits in your
app's ecosystem. You can do this by:

• Giving sneak peeks of new features by inviting them to a beta
  group.
  


• Decorating user accounts with badges based on their behaviour.
  


• Offer app exclusive discounts or promo
  codes that can only be redeemed in your app.

Generally, the more you can personalize the reward the better it will work.




Find success with ongoing experimentation


A great Android app gives developers a unique opportunity to create a lasting
relationship with users and build a sustainable business with happy customers.
Therefore optimising apps to engage and retain your users by following these 5
tips should be front and centre of your development goals and company strategy.
Find more tips and best practices by watching the sessions at this
year's Playtime events.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

Four tips for startup success from a Silicon Valley VC

Posted by Kacey Fahey, Marketing Programs Manager, Google Play




Working at Google Play, we�re on the front line watching developers build, polish, and launch their dreams for millions of users to experience. While it�s exciting to be a part of so much creativity, we�re often asked how small startups can stand out in such a competitive field. We recently had Josh Elman & Sarah Tavel of Greylock Partners speak at our events, sharing their experiences working in Product Marketing and Engineering at major tech companies including Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Below are four tips to hit the ground running and create a business built for success.

Set goals, both large and small

Every startup has an ultimate goal, but don�t forget to create micro-goals. Breaking your larger goal down into smaller milestones creates checkpoints to review progress and ensure momentum is heading in the right direction. This also allows for flexibility if teams need to course correct along the way, not to mention micro-accomplishments to celebrate!

Create stickiness

The first level in Sarah�s Hierarchy of Engagement is to identify the core action for users to perform in your app. Once you have engagement with this core action, level 2 is driving retention, getting users to come back and perform the core action more and more. The ultimate goal is to hook users with your app creating accruing benefits, whereby deeper and more frequent engagement creates habits and product dependencies.












�As companies move up the hierarchy, their products become better, harder to leave, and ultimately create virtuous loops that make the product self-perpetuating,�
� Sarah Tavel, Partner at Greylock




Example: For those looking to improve on organizational skills, Evernote can be a lifesaver. The more lists users create, the more they rely on the product. Evernote becomes such an ingrained habit that it naturally transcends between personal and professional worlds.

Drive virality

When launching a new app, look for ways to achieve virality. Find hooks to make users fall in love with your app and strive to make it part of their regular habits. But watch out, not all types of virality are treated equally.




�Whenever you�re thinking about engineering virality, you need to be sure that you�re reaching the right people, getting them interested for reasons that align with the intrinsic value of your product, and leading them to the right actions,�
� Josh Elman, Partner at Greylock

Example: Whether you�re lucky enough to convert happy users into product evangelists or catch fire through social media, outbreak virality has driven tremendous success for apps like Pok�mon GO and Prisma.

Measure cohorts

While monitoring traditional mobile metrics such as installs and DAUs provide a high level overview of app performance, cohort analysis is key to understanding user behavior and optimizing for growth. When rolling out changes in your app, make sure to track cohorts for an extended duration. Initial results may tell one story at D7, but hold tight, as things could turn a corner by D15 or even later. Give users time to adapt and get comfortable with the changes before making any final product decisions.




Read more tips on how to find success for your app or game start up in the Playbook for Developers app.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

Get a glimpse of Wear 2.0�s upcoming standalone apps

Kacey Fahey, Marketing Programs Manager, Google Play




The upcoming Android Wear 2.0 experience will introduce standalone apps, expanding your potential reach to both Android and iOS audiences with Wear devices. Users will be able to search, install, and use apps without ever leaving their device. See how other developers are enhancing their user experience with standalone apps for messaging, travel & local, and health & fitness.

Glide




Having a watch app further simplifies video messaging with Glide.
Using the Wear Complications
API, Glide is now able to live broadcast directly from the watch face. By
tapping contact shortcuts from the watch face, you can now launch directly into
a conversation. This experience brings speed and intimacy to the world of
messaging, making wrist-based communication more accessible and effortless.




Foursquare




Travelers around the world use Foursquare's
Android Wear app to discover hidden gems and be in the know about the best
places to eat, drink and explore. With their upcoming 2.0 app, the team has a
clean new canvas for rich notifications giving users an immersive experience
with Foursquare content.




"The standalone nature of the Android Wear 2.0 app will offer a big boost in
search performance and app responsiveness so you spend less time staring at the
screen and more time exploring the world around you," said Kyle Fowler,
Software Engineer at Foursquare.




Lifesum





Lifesum
helps users make better food choices, improve their exercise, and reach health
goals. The upcoming 2.0 experience complements the existing Lifesum mobile app
and as a standalone app, it will allow users to more easily track water and
meals throughout the day.


"It's all about increasing access and being there for the user in a quick
and simple way. We believe a simplified way of tracking meals and water will
make it easier for our users on their journey of becoming healthier and
happier," said Joakim Hammer, Android Developer at Lifesum




Check out g.co/wearpreview for the latest builds and documentation about the recently released Android Wear Developer Preview 4.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

Tips to be better found and discovered on Google Play

Posted by Andrew Ahn, Product Manager, Google Play





We're constantly working on ways to make Google Play a great place for users to
discover apps and games they'll love. We know this is crucial to most developers
ongoing success. There are steps you can take to ensure your app is primed for
success � that's why we're sharing a reminder of some of our top tips for
getting your app discovered on Google Play.




Build for quality




First, build for quality. Android users expect high-quality apps. App quality
directly influences the long-term success of your app - in terms of installs,
user rating and reviews, engagement, and user retention. These are some of the
factors that go into our search and discovery systems that help discern what
apps to recommend and surface across our Google Play experiences. When building
your app, check against the quality
criteria, and use what you need from the material design guidelines to make
sure you are delivering a highly usable experience. Also, be sure to test your
app for functional quality. Opt-in to the pre-launch
report for your alpha and beta apps in the Google Play Developer Console and
you'll receive a report for each APK showing how it performs on real devices. This will help you identify crashes and other issues before you release your app.

Example: Designing for high usability through Google Material Design.


Request only the permissions you need




Second, be considerate on which permission settings to enable for your app. We
see that there are some apps that ask for very sensitive permissions, even when
the app doesn't use them. (For example, a camera app asking for read and write
permissions to call logs.) Excessive app permissions may dissuade users from
installing your app. In fact, one study, in which users
were shown two unbranded apps with similar ratings that had the same
functionality but different sets of permission requests, showed that users were,
on average, 3 times more likely to install the app with fewer permissions
requests. And a similar
study showed that users are 1.7 times more likely, on average, to select the
application with fewer permission requests. The rule of thumb is to enable
permissions that are only essential to your app. Read the best
practices for app permissions.

Chart:
Distribution of permission groups use across Arcade Games category.

If you're building an arcade game, you many only need a very few permission
settings, if any.


Listen and respond to your users




Lastly, be attentive to user feedback. It's ultimately the users who drive our
search and discovery systems. When you hear user feedback about bugs or other
issues, we recommend engaging with the feedback and, if needed, updating your
app in a timely manner. Having an up-to-date app that reflects your user's
feedback can help you gain more installs, engagement, and higher ratings. Beta
testing is a good way to get feedback from real users before launch. You can
also check the ratings
and reviews section of the Developer Console to see an analysis of what
users are saying about your app and how that is affecting your rating compared
to similar apps.

Review benchmarks in the Developer Console uses machine learning to give you
insights about what users are saying about your app and how it affects your
rating.



Google Play strives to help users find and discover the most safe, high quality,
useful, and relevant apps. Building apps that put user's interest first will
help you be successful in Google Play. For more tips and best practices for
building a successful app business on Google Play, get the Playbook for Developers app.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?

Five steps to achieve sustainable growth and boost your app's long term success

Maxim Mai, Business Development Manager, Google Play




Maintaining sustainable growth is difficult for even the highest quality apps.
In this video and through the 5 steps below you can find out how some of our
leading Android developers are tackling growth.

1) Understand and define your app's objectives

Depending on your product lifecycle stage you will most likely focus on these 3
growth goals with varying intensity:

• Acquire new users
  


• Increase engagement and retention
  


• Grow revenue

2) Track and measure your tactics against each of your
objectives

List out the tactics you're using to achieve each objective and keep track of
their performance. You can visualize it using a scorecard like in the example
below created by Mobile Growth
Stack.

3) Apply your growth tactics.

Here are a few examples of specific tactics developers have successfully used to
drive sustained growth.


Tactic: Clue,
a female health app, invests in the Play store listing to increase
conversions.


Results: 24% aggregate increase in install conversion rate over
a period of 6 months.




How they did it:

• Built a continuous flow of global and localised store
  listing experiments.
  


• Monitored changes in the user
  acquisition performance report for target countries and channels.
  


• Gathered insights from what users are saying from the reviews
  analysis.

Which phone screenshot do you think drove increase in install conversion for
Clue?




Tactic: ShareTheMeal,
a non-profit app developed by the World Food Programme, uses public relations as
a free sustainable acquisition channel.




Results: 50% of their
total installs to date were driven by media coverage.




How they did
it:

• Developed an excellent messaging.
  


• Boosted installs impact by combining PR with celebrity outreach and
  distribution partnership.
  


• Learned that TV coverage has the highest impact on installs but print is a
  useful door opener to amplify TV coverage.

Tactic: Viral growth.
Virality is a core
growth tool for apps and games that focus on sharing and usually the mechanic is
built into the core user experience of the product. However, even if sharing
isn't a key component of your app, you can still influence two key variables to
create an appropriate environment to encourage virality.




How to do it:

• Increase the number of additional users that a single user brings to the
  app, by boosting the number of invitations sent.
  


• Decrease your "cycle time", how long it takes between inviting a user and
  that user sending out the next round of invitations to their friends.
  


• Offer more incentives for users to share the app or its content while
  they're using it will help shorten the cycle time and kickstart viral growth!
  

Tactic: Freeletics
Nutrition, an app to adjust your nutrition to your individual needs and
goals, uses cross-promotion to accelerate the launch of a new product.




Results: 96% of new Nutrition app sales generated by users who
originally registered for the developer's Bodyweight
training app.




How they did it:

• Surface meal advice in the Bodyweight app's activity feed with the goal of
  raising awareness for the approaching launch of their new Freeletics Nutrition
  app.

4) Build a strong growth culture

To make sustainable growth work for your app, it needs to be a part of your
culture. Runtastic
is one of the leading health and fitness app developers in Europe and 95% of
their approximately 76M total app installs on Google Play have been generated
organically. Mario Aichlseder, VP of Growth, believes this is the result of a
strong growth culture and the growth principles according to which all teams
operate. For example, product managers, designers and engineers at Runtastic
deliberately chose a mixture of qualitative and quantitative feedback loops
during the app development process to ensure they stay true to their growth
principles.

5) Adjust along the way

It's important to track your tactics against real metrics to measure your
impact. That will help you make decisions about where to increase or decrease
your efforts. Your priorities will also change based on the evolution of your
business and product lifecycle as well as due to external factors such as new
techniques becoming available, so be open to regularly adjusting your tactics.


Get more tips and best practices in the sessions from this
year's Playtime events.

How useful did you find this blogpost?

? ? ? ? ?