What is app personalization?
The process of tailoring a mobile application to the requirements of a particular user base is called app customization.
The objective of app personalization, much like other types of customization, is to provide users with experiences tailored to their particular requirements rather than offering a generic, one-size-fits-all option to all users.
Why is it vital to personalize app experiences?
There is already a lot of competition in the app market, and users’ expectations continue to rise.
There are about 4 million apps available for download from the App Store as of November 2022. In contrast, there are 2.6 million apps available for download from the Google Play Store.
Suppose a user’s first time using an application is a negative one. In that case, 65 percent of users will delete the application after having chosen and installed it. The typical smartphone user will have approximately 65 apps installed even when an app has reached that milestone. Still, they will only use only 15 of those apps every week.
According to the statistics presented above, it is becoming increasingly crucial to ensure that the experience your app offers to its users is satisfying.
If you do this, there will be a greater chance that your application can outrank competitors and stand out among the crowd, and your users will use it consistently.
Mobile app personalization is one of the finest ways to design an app that customers will truly love using. This method should be used with many other strategies, such as app discoverability, performance testing, etc.
There are three different ways to personalize app content.
You must first collect data about your mobile users before developing a customized experience for them. This will allow you to determine your mobile customers’ individual requirements and preferences.
When you have all this information about your customers, you can make educated decisions about the kind of user experiences you wish to offer and which subsets of your user base should receive which types of user experiences.
You can generally classify the different kinds of information about your users that you can collect into three categories: demographic, contextual, and behavioral. Using this information, you can develop more tailored experiences for them.
Demographic targeting
Determining who your users are to provide individualized experiences for them is the goal of the marketing strategy known as demographic targeting.
- Are your users male or female?
- Which age bracket do they belong to, exactly?
- What are some of the things that they enjoy and dislike?
You’ll be able to personalize your app’s user experience by displaying content that is most pertinent to each user if you collect this type of demographic information and use it.
There are a variety of approaches that can be taken to collect demographic data.
Asking the user directly when onboarding with the app is a simple and effective way.
For instance, a business specializing in the sale of custom auto components may ask its customers about the type of vehicle they drive. Then, every time the customer logs into the app, it only advertises sales of the appropriate auto parts.
Integrations with social networks such as Facebook are another approach that may be used to gather demographic and interest data about your users. You can choose relevant material to present within your app with this information.
Contextual targeting
Contextual targeting is another method for dividing your audience into distinct groups.
The goal of contextual targeting is to tailor the user’s experience within an application by gathering information about the user, such as the type of device they are using, the time of day, or their present position within a geographic area.
For instance, a local travel app may list eateries close to the user’s location and still open. In contrast, an e-commerce app could list iPhone cases because the user is using an iPhone. Both of these examples are possible.
Behavioral targeting
Behavioral targeting represents the third and final approach to delivering app experiences uniquely tailored to the user.
When using behavioral targeting, you personalize the user’s experience within the app based on the user’s actual behavior.
For instance, if a user has a pattern of clicking more frequently on shoes than socks inside a shopping app, the software can adapt in real time to present more things that the user may be interested in purchasing.
Or, if the user has already purchased a particular item, the app will automatically show it to them the next time it goes on sale.
The value of behavioral targeting as a method for providing a more tailored experience to app users lies in the fact that it is founded on the actions users take within the app.
A/B testing and personalization of mobile applications
To provide consumers with a superior experience, mobile A/B testing is used. It is a subset of A/B testing that may be combined with app personalization.
App users are randomly dispersed across the original and varied experiences in mobile A/B testing and personalization. Users of the app are not to be informed that they are participating in a test.
This method can be used to evaluate modifications across any component of an application where a quantifiable goal can be improved. Some examples of these areas are the user interface (UI), the onboarding flow, content, and message.
Then, once a statistically significant conclusion has been reached, they can be pushed out across a comprehensive personalization effort throughout a long period.
For instance, the apparel store Hugo Boss may test the apparel recommendation engine contained within its app.
The findings of this test are segmented, and the researchers learn that male consumers like to be given recommendations for similar clothes. At the same time, they explore (more shirts if they are browsing shirts). Still, women shoppers typically prefer to be given recommendations for complementary items (matching shoes if shopping for a dress).
The A/B test is used to gain useful data about the app’s users. Those insights can then be applied to app personalization for all users who fit into those demographics.
