What is mobile app marketing?




Think of the last time you checked your mobile today - chances are quite high that an app figured in your browsing experience. Whether it was an entertainment app, or a productivity app or a services app, apps are ubiquitous and part of our day to day life experience.


The mobile application market globally has exploded - from a valuation of $107 billion in 2018 it is expected to touch $407 billion by 2026.


You can imagine - it is easy for a newbie app to be lost in this market.


So, in case you have recently developed an app and are looking to promote it, or you are thinking of promoting your already existing app, this article is for you.


App marketing refers to the broad umbrella of activities that are focused on app promotion, engagement and retention of users who have already downloaded your app. It comprises a series of activities mapped over the entire user lifecycle while they are engaging with your app.


Difference between mobile app marketing and mobile marketing

Quite often, people are confused - between mobile marketing and mobile app marketing.

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel, digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching a target audience through their mobile devices. This typically involves marketing activities such as location based marketing, mobile search ads, QR code marketing.

Mobile app marketing on the other hand refers to the process of promoting your mobile apps, driving awareness & installs as well as further downstream funnel activities such as activation, user engagement and retention.

A mobile app vs a mobile responsive website

Why do you need an app? You have a website right? Not quite.

Let’s first understand the difference between the two:

A mobile website is a website designed, optimized and scaled for viewing experience on mobile devices. Typical features include larger navigation buttons, scrollable content, responsive designs and fewer page elements when compared to desktop versions.


A mobile app is an application software, accessed via the internet or stored locally. Mobile apps can use a device's inherent features, offering a much better, more intuitive and faster user experience for customers.

Even if you have a mobile optimized website, an app can offer you a richer navigation experience, which will ultimately help your users have a seamless experience while interacting with your product. However, the decision to go for an app depends on budget, target audience and your objectives.

An app offers

Easy navigation: An app offers a more easier navigation experience through larger navigation buttons, easy to spot call to actions

Personalization: Want content & experiences curated especially for you based on your search history? Demographic data? Well then, a mobile app is a much better bet.

Communication: Via both in-app notifications and push notifications, apps do a much better job of communication than mobile responsive websites.

Better user experience: Are you running an interactive experience for the user spanning the camera & other hardware features? Well, that is not possible seamlessly on a mobile website. An app also makes full use of gestures / behavioral features such as “swipe” “tap” “drag,” “pinch,” “hold”.

Offline mode: Apps can offer content and functionality to users while in offline mode, unlike a mobile website. 


The app marketing funnel

A marketing funnel mimics the customer journey, mapping the various marketing activities to the different experience stages of customer actions [awareness, information search, search for alternatives, consideration, purchase and post purchase dissonance]


The mobile app marketing funnel mimics the traditional marketing funnel. Potential customers discover the app through a variety of tactics [discovery through family and friends, ads, then move through the consideration and conversion stages [installation], eventually move into the customer relationship and retention stages.


Acquisition is the first step in the app marketing funnel. It marks the first interaction that the user has with your app. It is the step after the awareness , when the user first downloads the app

Acquisition may be considered to comprise of the following steps

Discovery: This is how your users discover your app. Is it through the App store? Or through their friends and family network?

Consideration: Amongst all the fitness apps, the user finds your app the most apt fit.

Download: This act of download signifies usage intent.

Questions that a marketer needs to ask at this stage
  • How are users going to find our app?
  • What is the channel that generates the highest number of installs?
  • How do we gain the trust of users?

Activation is the next step. “User activation” refers to the first set of actions undertaken by the user on the app, which may be adding their personal information, or making an in-app purchase.

Activation may be considered to comprise of the following steps:

Onboarding: The first user experience defines and actually dictates the user tenure with the app. Long and complicated onboarding experiences are severe deterrents to engagement and retention.

Engagement: What steps are you taking to ensure repeated usage of the app? What activities are designed to ensure that the app becomes part of the users daily workflow?

Questions that a marketer needs to ask at this stage
  • How easy / difficult is our first user experience?What is the dropout rate from installation to on-boarding?
  • What are the engagement activities that are generating maximum user action?
Retention means repeated usage of the app by the user.

Questions that a marketer needs to ask at this stage

  • What is the uninstall rate?
  • Which specific retention activity will generate maximum engagement?

Phases of mobile app marketing

Mobile app marketing can be divided into four phases

Pre-launch: This is when marketers would typically create a landing page / website, demo video, press release, app store optimization

Launch: This would include email marketing, social media marketing, ads, influencer marketing, events and PR.

Post-launch: Ratings, reviews, recommendations, influencer marketing all take priority at this stage.

Retention: All the retention marketing activities such as incentives, promotions.


So, in brief, this is what mobile app marketing is all about. We will learn a bit more about user acquisition strategies, retention strategies, an in-depth mobile app marketing plan in the upcoming posts.

Do let me know what you think in the comments section below.
Location: Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

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