Should financial management apps look at daily activity data?

I recently heard that the ratio of daily active users to existing users of a financial management app that is doing well in the industry is very low, which means that existing investment users rarely use the apps on which they bought financial products on a daily basis. I personally think this is not a good thing.

In the mobile game industry, the two indicators of retention and activity can be viewed together. High retention necessarily means good activity, but in the financial management app, it is a little different. High retention does not necessarily mean activity. Ultimately, a pure financial management app is a tool product with low-frequency usage scenarios, and the basic user behaviors are investing (depositing), checking returns, and withdrawing (redeeming). After users invest, they will definitely be retained, but investment behavior does not occur every day. Moreover, financial management apps, especially fixed-income products, have fixed daily returns. There is no point in checking the returns. If it is a fixed-income product with fixed periods, there is even less to see. The usage scenario of this type of financial management product is similar to that of managing finances at a bank, and users do not go to the bank every day. Therefore, the daily active data will not be high. People only open the app to make deposits or withdrawals. Checking earnings is not a strong demand, so it does not bring activity.

The question is, insufficient daily activity means that users do not use the APP frequently. Why is it not a good thing to have few daily activity? Maybe the operator will think that it would be great to make the app like a bank, but this may not be true on the Internet. I think there are the following reasons:

1. From the perspective of the characteristics of tool apps, if they cannot be among the top few in the market, there is almost no way to survive.

We can see that everyone’s mobile phone may only keep a few or even one tool app in each field, because users will ultimately tend to use the best and most popular tools. This is a winner-takes-all market. If financial management apps also follow this route, they will have to compete for the top few spots in the market. Whether this is feasible is something you can consider.

2. Insufficient interaction leads to low stickiness of the financial management platform and easy loss of users

If users do not interact enough with the financial management app, the platform will lose its stickiness. The moat of Internet products is the strength of platform stickiness. Since there are no geographical restrictions, the cost of user migration is extremely low. If users don’t develop feelings for the app, they will naturally be attracted away by external temptations. And it may be that you will never come back.

3. Users and platforms cannot establish a trust relationship

Financial management platforms particularly need to establish a trust mechanism with users, and this trust mechanism can be built on long-term, medium- and high-frequency daily use. Needless to say, once trust is established, users will feel at ease to invest their money in a financial management platform. Otherwise, even if they try to buy financial products due to activities or other reasons, once negative news or rumors appear, a large number of redemptions and user loss may occur in an instant.

4. Not conducive to studying users and exploring their value

Less interaction and less user usage result in less user data, which means that basic data cannot be provided for user research and analysis, making it impossible to propose targeted operational plans, or further tapping into user value will become more difficult.

How can it be improved?

This is a question of survival:

Financial management apps need to transform from low-frequency usage tools to medium- to high-frequency usage Internet products. Only through in-depth interaction can the competitiveness and value of financial management apps be improved. I think we can strengthen and improve it in three aspects:

1. Content Operation (Media)

News and information apps are the most frequently used apps. Financial management apps can also develop in the direction of financial management + content. Both UGC and PGC can be tried or run in parallel, depending on positioning and resources.

2. Social Operation

Introducing social elements into financial management to create interactive relationships between financial management users and form communities or social organizations is a path that many financial management apps are trying to take now. This is a direction that I am optimistic about. Although everyone is still exploring it, in the end, a social model that best combines with financial management may emerge.

3. Gamification

The game is highly interactive and can generate a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that is no less than that of gaining actual benefits. Based on these two points alone, I think there is great potential for it. As a former veteran in the mobile game industry, this is also the direction in which I have been working towards my model and practice.

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