Decrypting “User Uninstall”! 3 data points worth paying attention to!

Do you want users to use your app for a long time after installation? It is often easier said than done.

In fact, most users churn after a few days. Understanding when and why they uninstall will give you new insights into the user lifecycle and help you optimize your re-engagement strategy.

We want to know how long it takes on average for users from different industry categories and different acquisition sources to uninstall the app? I also want to know, how much time do marketers have to get users to change their minds before they click the delete button?

Using timestamps from users across acquisition types, platforms, and verticals, we can derive the average time between the last session and the subsequent uninstall. Data shows that users typically uninstall an app within less than 6 days of having held the app for their last session.

While high uninstall rates are frustrating, they’re not all bad news for marketers.

Data performance across different acquisition source types and platforms is fairly consistent, and similar data is helpful for marketers planning retargeting strategies. iOS users wait longer before uninstalling an app than Android users, and the same is true for users from organic channels compared to paid channels . Regardless of the source, users uninstall within 6 days.

Why do users uninstall?

User churn is an inevitable part of the application life cycle, and there are many factors that lead to this result. The reason could be as simple as running out of storage space on the user’s phone and having to delete the downloaded app; or the app could have a bug, so the user uninstalled it and left a negative review.

Of course, this could also be due to more complex factors, such as poor design or user experience , an app that is unattractive, inefficient, or fails to achieve its intended purpose. That’s why uninstall tracking is so helpful in figuring out why and when users churn. In particular, by combining events with data analysis , we can more accurately define when users leave.

By analyzing data from different industries, we found that the reasons why users of different types of applications uninstall are very different.

From the above picture we can see that entertainment apps will be uninstalled quickly. After users trigger their last session, they uninstall the app within the next 12 hours. Users who use entertainment apps on iOS only stay for a short period of 9 hours.

The same is true for lifestyle apps, where users uninstall the apps after about a day. Users of lifestyle apps from paid promotion channels only stay for 3 hours before uninstalling. The data illustrates how consumers may be so unhappy with the app and its user experience that they go to the trouble of deleting it after closing the program.

At the bottom of the chart, we see that users of e-commerce apps typically uninstall the app 11 days after their last session. This may be due to user inertia. For example, when someone orders something, they won’t risk missing out on post-sales communication by simply deleting the app to check on the order and delivery later.

Travel app users delete the app after about 10 days, second only to e-commerce apps in retention time. Given that most travel apps are used for a single purpose, such as renting a car, booking a hotel room, or purchasing an airline ticket , consumers are likely to uninstall them once their trip is over.

How many users will reinstall the app?

Although most users will churn, many will reinstall. After analyzing over 8 billion installs across 12 industries, we found that on average 40% of churned users reinstall the app.

Lifestyle, social , and gaming apps have the highest reinstall rates, all exceeding 40%. The main reason for the high reinstall rate of lifestyle and social dating apps may be that users install the app again after the first few dating attempts ended in failure.

As mentioned earlier, gaming apps have a special appeal. Often attracts a lot of reloads. This is partly due to its addictive nature and the focus of game ad publishers on remarketing. Users are easily motivated by games and will reinstall apps for extra lives, game coins, or upgrades.

The reinstall rates of travel and e-commerce apps are also not to be underestimated. After all, an e-commerce app might only be used for purchases once every few months. However, without the incentive to be notified of new products or to see product discounts, it’s easy for users to delete apps to free up much-needed memory. Therefore, if the app can provide users with more content, promotions, and interactivity, it will help inspire user loyalty and brand affinity, and users will think twice before deleting the app.

Most users have limited memory on their phones, so it makes sense for them to delete unimportant apps. In other words, users will only reinstall your app if it provides a good experience. Ultimately, we want to make sure that when users need it, your app is the choice they want to reinstall.

Uninstall and reinstall tracking is important

Lifecycle tracking fundamentally gets rid of the long-standing black box-like information opacity problem of user journey.

Without tracking uninstalls and reinstalls, app marketers could be missing out on a lot of insights that could be critical to their retargeting strategy, such as when users churn and the quality of users across different channels . Understanding at what stage users churn can help you make better decisions when optimizing your app and make the customer journey more complete, thereby minimizing the chances of your app being deleted.

Additionally, without lifecycle tracking, reinstalls are treated as new installs, which not only affects your data by 10%, but also leads to inaccurate information about your customer journey, hindering the promotion of remarketing efforts. As we’ve seen, users acquired through retargeting typically stay longer and generate 37% more revenue than new users, so lifecycle tracking is worth paying attention to.

Source: Adjust GmbH