Dan Burcaw is Co-Founder & CEO of Nami ML. He built a top mobile app development agency responsible for some of the most elite apps on the App Store and then found himself inside the mobile marketing industry after selling his last company to Oracle.
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, The App Economy and The User, we explored the how the App Economy’s focus on growth has wrecked the user experience for many apps, and how an over reliance on paid advertising in order to generate new downloads creates a negative cycle that is difficult to break.
In Part 3 we recommend an alternative approach that is win-win for users and publishers. But first, we should talk about monetizing growth…
Monetizing Growth
Five years after the introduction of the iPhone, just 35% of American adults owned a smartphone according to Pew Research. Fast forward to today, and ownership has skyrocketed to 81% in the US. Across the globe, smartphone ownership is on the rise in both developed and emerging markets.
It’s no surprise that over the same period of time, app publishers (1, 2, 3) have experienced rapidly growing install bases with tens of millions of downloads. With so many installs, it’s understandable that monetization strategies focused on audience size have become en vogue.
About Those Mobile Ads
According to AppAnnie, mobile accounted for 62% of digital advertising spend in 2018; a $155 billion market. Many of these “mobile first” ads promote the installation of other mobile apps and have become an essential part of app publishers’ user acquisition strategy as discussed in Part 2 of this series.
Monetization through ads is a volume game. Individual ad impressions are worth little to nothing except in the rare case a user taps on an ad. Sadly, many ads are poor quality and end up disjointing the user experience rather than harmonizing with it.
Mobile ads leave much to be desired.
In today’s era of Super Retina displays, it's shocking that agencies publish display ads which represent their brands and look lousy on high resolution displays.
Apple famously tried to improve the quality of mobile ads with their 2010 acquisition of Quattro, which was the basis for Apple’s iAd network. However, that effort was shuttered in 2016 as Apple shifted focus to app search ads on the App Store.
Interactive iAd brand campaign
Unfortunately, it’s not merely the look and feel of mobile ads that is a problem for end users. Ad frameworks that app developers thoughtlessly integrate into their apps in order to serve ads can do as much or more harm to user experience than ugly creative.
Ad frameworks employ advanced targeting algorithms to serve ads to users. Most frameworks collect data about users under the guise of showing more relevant advertising. Relevancy sound great, but most users are unaware how much data an app is harvesting, especially apps that serve ads. How would you feel if an app was selling your data to the highest bidder? This is exactly what’s happening.
But what about apps without ads?
Even if an app isn’t serving ads, it may very well contain a framework that harvests your data.
Of particular concern are apps that use your location, such as weather apps. You may agree to share your location in order for the app to give you a relevant experience, but, unbeknownst to you, the same app might also be sharing your location with an ad targeting framework. With this data, ad technology companies can map your movements and quickly figure out where you live and work.
It’s not just the display ad providers, however, that are interested in data collection. The entire marketing and advertising technology ecosystem thrives on your data. Many of these companies view mobile as a key source in building immense data clouds full of rich user profiles.
Luckily, Apple continues to be focused on end user privacy, giving users more control about how and when their data is shared with apps. Apple has also made data collection much more transparent to the end user, especially with location sharing and Bluetooth access.
Furthermore, Apple’s App Store review guidelines continue to evolve, encouraging app publishes to focus more on end user privacy. While some apps have been updated to be on par with the new standards, others have gone above and beyond, offering a truly user-centric experience.
Some app publishers are following Apple's lead by offering more control over how data is collected.
The US Federal Trade Commission has also taken action against companies such as Facebook and InMobi, who have notoriously put profits above user privacy.
Wouldn’t it be great to build a real business around your app that customers are willing to pay for? It seems like such an obvious approach, but it’s not entirely that clear cut.
The app ecosystem has evolved a lot since the App Store launch in 2008. Several changes have challenged app publishers to embrace new monetization tools. Great apps can be expensive to build and maintain. App publishers need a reliable, viable means to make their investments worthwhile.
Let’s take a look at three common monetization approaches:
1. Pay to Download
Paid apps were the primary monetization approach in year one of the App Store. As the number of apps increased, however, publishers found themselves in a race to the bottom on price. A one-time price of $0.99 in a growing-but-nascent market was clearly not a recipe for sustainability.
Paid apps were common on the App Store in 2008.
2. In-App Purchases
Apple introduced in-app purchases in 2009, originally restricted to paid apps and available to free apps later that year. This created a new avenue for monetization with inexpensive, and later free, apps attracting larger audiences and offering in-app purchases.
This model has become ubiquitous in games. A consumable resource such as virtual coins can be sold to players to be used to buy virtual commodities, unlock features, or speed up the progress of a game. Monster money maker like Clash of Clans provides in-app purchases that allow players to remain competitive against the legion of other players across the internet who are doing the same, culminating an in-app purchase arms race of sorts.
Many mobile games sell virtual coins via in-app purchase which are spent during game play.
Across all app genres, in-app purchase are used for countless add-ons from photo filters to recipe bundles to workout routines. They are even used to allow users to remove ads from an app, letting the app publisher trade one revenue source for another.
The 'arms race’ phenomenon, however, doesn’t exist in non-games. Because most non-games lack a linear progression or an endless market of virtual goods, in-app purchases haven’t radically improved the long term sustainability that app publishers want outside of the game category.
In-app purchases that unlock an ad-free mode continues to be a common across categories.
3. Subscriptions
After the iPad launched in 2011, Apple introduced in-app subscriptions which were originally reserved for content publishing apps such as newspapers, magazines, video, and music.
Apple’s signature launch partner for in-app subscriptions was News Corp’s The Daily. The Daily was ahead of its time in its user experience and monetization approach, but iPad users weren’t ready and The Daily was discontinued just a year later.
The Daily, an iPad only newspaper from News Corp, was ahead of its time.
Fast forward to 2016. Four years after the launch of The Daily, Apple reported having 1 billion active devices in use around the world. This incredible milestone meant a renewed opportunity to build strong recurring revenue businesses in the ecosystem.
To do so, App Store subscriptions were overhauled and opened up to apps in all categories and improved its revenue split to be more friendly to app publishers. The original split was 70% to the app publisher and 30% to Apple. The new split was 70/30 in the first year, and 85/15 in subsequent years. This model still exists as of this article’s publication (Oct 2019.)
The in-app purchase model seems to be working. According to App Annie’s State of Mobile 2019report, consumer spending is up 120% since 2016, largely attributable to growth from subscriptions. The firm forecasts that subscriptions will drive the app economy to grow by another $75 billion dollars by 2022.
It’s clear that we’ve entered an app economy that is fueled by subscriptions.
Building a paid customer base focused on growing recurring subscription revenue is so fundamentally different from focusing on audience growth, where acquiring new users is much of the ballgame. How do app publishers thrive in this new world?
A mindset shift is necessary. In the subscription economy, it’s vital to be at peace with the fact that not all users who visit your website or download your app are going to become paid subscriptions.
A Mindset Shift
In the subscription economy, your job is to identify and encourage your users, and nurture them through a customer journey. Through that journey you’ll understand that your best users have high potential to become your best customers.
The subscription customer journey is not focused on creating hyperactive usage patterns to inflate growth metrics like MAUs. It’s also not a one-size-fits-all journey. Some users need more time to evaluate and consider whether your app serves a need. Others will know right away.
Your job is to make sure your experience isn’t creating artificial roadblocks or messaging users for self-serving reasons. Those retention email and push messages reek of desperation, and will turn users that might otherwise have become paying customers.
Best-in-class iOS apps, like Flighty, are focused on delivering a great product experience that there best users are willing to subscribe to.
The best subscription apps let go of the baggage from the growth era. Rather than spending inordinate time and energy trying to prevent those low-quality users from churning, these app publishers focus on building a great experience that some users will love.
Spend most of your time optimizing your experience to provide unquestionable value to a certain audience, and spend little time focusing on the rest.
Build For Your Fans
In the subscription economy, converting a user to a paying customer isn’t the finish line. Your job is to continue to build and reenforce the value of your product. If you do this, you have a chance to earn an even more profound stage in your app’s customer journey: true fans.
This is an elite club, so don’t expect a large volume of users in this cohort. That’s okay. They are, however, your best customers. Why? They have the lowest churn risk and the highest Customer Lifetime Value(CLTV). They will help your marketing efforts without being asked by recommending your app through word-of-mouth. They will even give you the benefit of the doubt when the inevitable bug is introduced.
Imagine a world where you focus on building a product that is valued by your customers and delights your fans rather than figuring out how to more efficiently coax and nag the millions of users who downloaded your app. Build for your fans and you are one step closer to building a healthy app business.
P.S. Your fans understand the true value of your product so they will likely pay far more than you think you can charge.
Embracing Subscriptions
Unlike ads and even basic in-app purchases, offering in-app subscriptions is quite a bit of work to not just launch, but maintain over time. This work is further complicated if your app is available across multiple app ecosystems or if you offer a way to purchase on the web.
In addition, once you launch, it's incredibly important to have the flexibility to iterate on your subscription offers, marketing, and pricing so you can optimize revenue and customer satisfaction. Nami's here to help. Our Subscriber Experience Cloud is a complete suite of tools to help you get to market fast, gain insights to help you optimize your subscriber experience which is good for revenue and customer satisfaction.
If you're thinking about adding subscriptions to your app, we invite you to learn more about Nami.
Error Code 4 is caused by payment restrictions on the user’s Apple ID or device, often enabled through Screen Time parental controls or payment configurations that restrict in-app purchases. Additionally, testing on devices with limited payment capabilities, such as restricted accounts, will produce this error. Developers need to understand these causes to guide users effectively.
Common Scenarios for SKErrorDomain Code=4 - Payment Not Allowed
This error frequently arises in the following situations:
Parental Controls Enabled: If Screen Time or parental controls are activated, in-app purchases may be restricted.
Restricted User Accounts: Accounts set up with limitations or those lacking payment permissions can trigger this error.
Testing on Non-Standard Accounts: Attempting purchases on accounts that don’t allow purchases, such as child accounts or sandbox accounts lacking permissions.
Device Restrictions on Purchases: Device-level restrictions can prevent purchases, common on devices with certain corporate or family configurations.
Step-by-Step Solutions for SKErrorDomain Code=4
Solution 1: Instruct Users to Check Screen Time and Parental Control Settings
Purpose: Ensures that parental controls do not prevent in-app purchases.
Steps:
Guide users to go to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions.
Under iTunes & App Store Purchases, ensure that In-App Purchases are set to “Allow.”
Retry the purchase process.
Result: Users can enable in-app purchase permissions, which eliminates payment restriction issues.
Solution 2: Advise Users to Update Payment Permissions in Apple ID Settings
Purpose: Ensures the Apple ID used for purchases has the necessary permissions enabled.
Steps:
In Settings > [User’s Apple ID] > Media & Purchases > View Account.
Check that purchase settings are enabled.
If using Family Sharing, ensure that the main account allows purchases.
Result: Proper configuration of the Apple ID account resolves errors related to restricted purchases.
Solution 3: Test on a Standard Apple ID Account
Purpose: Avoids issues related to testing on restricted accounts that don’t permit purchases.
Steps:
Log out of restricted or sandbox accounts and log in with a standard Apple ID.
Ensure the test Apple ID account has enabled in-app purchases.
Retry the purchase flow with this account.
Result: Testing on a standard account avoids errors from restricted permissions, allowing for accurate in-app purchase testing.
Solution 4: Enable Payment Method in Apple ID Settings
Purpose: Ensures the Apple ID has a valid payment method to enable purchases.
Steps:
In Settings > [User’s Apple ID] > Payment & Shipping.
Add or update a valid payment method if none is present.
Retry the purchase process.
Result: Adding a valid payment method ensures the account is authorized for purchases, minimizing errors.
Solution 5: Restart Device to Apply Permission Changes
After adjusting permissions or payment settings, restart the device.
Reopen the app and attempt the purchase again.
Result: Restarting the device ensures that all permission changes are updated in the system.
Conclusion
Error Code 4 - Payment Not Allowed, often results from device or account restrictions on in-app purchases. By guiding users through Screen Time settings, updating payment permissions, testing on standard accounts, and ensuring valid payment methods, developers can resolve this error effectively.
With Nami’s low-code solutions, you can easily configure in-app purchases without dealing with account restrictions or payment errors. Explore how Nami can simplify your app’s purchase flow at NamiML.
The holiday season is the most lucrative time of year for app publishers. In fact, the week of Christmas in 2020 generated $1.8B in consumer spend on just the App Store. Here are ten app growth hacking strategies for the holidays.
10. Include Keywords in App Name
According to AppFigures, the most important App Store Optimization (ASO) technique employed by app growth hacking experts is including keywords in your app name. Be sure to identify the right keywords before employing this tactic.
9. Add Holiday Search Terms
Consider temporarily updating your app title, description, and metadata with seasonal keywords. For example, an app in the Shopping category may want to include terms such as “Cyber Deals” around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
A few notes about this app growth hacking technique:
Be sure the seasonal keywords are still relevant to your app
Don’t forget to remove the seasonal keywords when it’s time
8. Update App Icon with Seasonal Cheer
Refresh your app icon with a holiday theme. This simple change can help you catch the eye of dormant users and bring them back into your app. Research also shows that holiday-themed app icons can drive up to 40% more app installs.
A few notes about this app growth hacking strategy:
Use color palettes or small adornments associated with the holidays.
Don’t fundamentally change your icon. It should still be familiar to users.
Candy Crush standard vs. season icon. Source: Gummicube
7. Use Promoted IAPs
The App Store doesn’t just promote apps. In-app purchases (IAPs) and auto-renewable subscriptions can receive promotional placement on your product page and via editorial features. Since you have to chose which in-app purchase products to promote, most apps just simplify don’t take advantage of this feature.
Also, promoted in-app purchase products feature their own metadata including title, description and icon. This means you have another opportunity to include keywords and tailor artwork for the holidays.
6. Share Offer Codes
You have a lot of offer codes at your disposal. Share a set with bloggers and press. Better yet, reach out to your most loyal users. Empower them to share offer codes with their network. This will help you nurture loyalty with top users and help you find new users via referral.
5. Add App Localization
The holiday season produces strong results around the globe. If your app isn’t yet localized for major markets, now is the time.
To get the most impact from this app growth hacking technique, be sure to:
Offer translated versions of your app’s product page
Properly localize the strings in your app’s UI text
Don’t forget to extent localization to your app’s IAP paywall
4. Acquire App Installs from Web Traffic
Do you have decent traffic to your web site? It’s amazing how many web sites don’t use Smart Banners when someone visits from mobile. All it takes to promote your app to mobile traffic is a meta tag. If you’re not already doing this, it’s about the lowest-hanging fruit you’ll find in your app growth hacking journey.
iOS 15 features a new marketing tool for app publishers called in-app events. The gist is your app or game can run a live event to drive users in at certain times. Best of all, in-app events get promotional placement across the App Store including:
On your product page
In search results
Featured by Apple’s editorial team
You can also link users to your in-app event page so you can drive traffic from outside your app such as via through a display ad or email marketing.
Apple is prominently featuring in-app events on the App Store’s Today tab
2. Get Featured!
Getting featured on the App Store is one of the best and perhaps most elusive app growth hacking strategies. Rest assured, you can get featured! Here’s the formula:
Follow the App Store best practices for design, localization, accessibility
Ship a major app update adopting some of the major new iOS features
Reach out to the App Store editorial teams and make the case
On the last point, the editorial team us looking for great apps with great stories to feature. Share yours! You’d be surprised how many app developers don’t bother and thus won’t ever get featured. Don’t forget to mention the new iOS features you’re taking full advantage of.
1. Update your Paywall
You’ve gotten this far. App installs are up and your holiday season is going great! Or is it? Did you capitalize on those new installs? Sadly, many apps don’t have the ability to make changes to their IAP paywall without requiring a development cycle and app update.
Making changes easily is important. You’ve gone through the effort to update your App Store product page and keywords for the holidays. Now you need to make sure your paywall messaging and creative is consistent as well.
Plus, you might want to run some special introductory pricing during the holidays. With a dynamic paywall, you can easily swap in your promotional product. Just as easily, you’ll want to swap them out when the promotion is over.
Error ITMS-90161 occurs when the provisioning profile associated with the app does not match Apple’s requirements or is no longer valid. This could be due to an expired profile, a mismatched bundle identifier, or a configuration error in Xcode’s signing settings. Familiarity with Apple’s requirements for provisioning profiles can help developers prevent this error.
Common Scenarios for Error ITMS-90161 - Invalid Provisioning Profile
Developers frequently encounter this error in the following situations:
Expired or Invalid Provisioning Profile: Submitting an app with an outdated profile can lead to an Invalid Provisioning Profile error.
Mismatched Bundle Identifier: If the bundle identifier in the provisioning profile doesn’t match the app’s identifier, this error will occur.
Incorrectly Configured Code Signing Settings in Xcode: Misconfiguration in Xcode’s signing and provisioning settings can trigger this error.
Revoked or Incompatible Distribution Certificate: If the certificate linked to the provisioning profile has been revoked or doesn’t match, the profile becomes invalid.
Step-by-Step Solutions for Error ITMS-90161
Solution 1: Check the Expiration and Validity of Provisioning Profiles
Purpose: Ensures that the provisioning profile is active and valid for the app’s target platform.
Steps:
Log in to Apple Developer Portal and navigate to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.
Under Profiles, verify that the profile is valid and not expired.
Renew the profile if it has expired, then re-download and install it in Xcode.
Result: Using a valid profile prevents issues caused by expired or outdated configurations.
Solution 2: Confirm the Bundle Identifier in Xcode Matches the Provisioning Profile
Purpose: Ensures that the app’s bundle identifier matches the provisioning profile.
Steps:
In Xcode, navigate to General > Identity > Bundle Identifier.
Confirm that this identifier matches the one configured in the provisioning profile.
Update the bundle identifier in Xcode or the profile as needed.
Result: Matching identifiers eliminate conflicts that lead to Invalid Provisioning Profile errors.
Solution 3: Verify Code Signing Settings in Xcode
Purpose: Ensures the app is properly signed with a valid distribution certificate.
Steps:
In Xcode, go to Signing & Capabilities.
Select the correct team and verify the provisioning profile settings.
Ensure the Code Signing Identity is set to the appropriate distribution certificate.
Result: Correct code signing configuration prevents conflicts with the provisioning profile.
Solution 4: Generate a New Provisioning Profile Linked to the Correct Certificate
Purpose: Avoids issues with outdated or revoked profiles by creating a new profile.
Steps:
In Apple Developer Portal, navigate to Profiles > Add Profile.
Select the app’s bundle identifier and ensure the correct distribution certificate is selected.
Generate the new profile, download it, and import it into Xcode.
Result: A new, correctly configured profile helps ensure compatibility with Apple’s requirements.
Solution 5: Remove Old Provisioning Profiles from Xcode and Reinstall
Purpose: Prevents conflicts from multiple versions of the same profile.
Steps:
In Xcode, go to Preferences > Accounts and select the Apple ID.
Under Manage Certificates, remove any old or expired profiles.
Reinstall the newly created provisioning profile.
Result: Removing outdated profiles prevents conflicts and helps streamline the submission process.
Conclusion
Error ITMS-90161 - Invalid Provisioning Profile, often results from outdated profiles, mismatched identifiers, or improper code signing settings. By checking profile validity, verifying bundle identifiers, configuring code signing, creating new profiles, and removing old ones, developers can resolve this error and ensure successful submission.
Nami’s low-code solutions can streamline app deployment, eliminating manual configuration issues and optimizing your workflow. Discover more at NamiML.
More than a decade since the launch of the App Store, the app economy is mature and thriving in many ways. The smartphone + app combination has become an indispensable part of daily life for most of us.
However, much of the ecosystem fails to strike a proper balance between the app publisher’s business objectives and the end user experience. In fact, many of the strategies employed by app publishers are antithetical to delivering a great experience.
This series, understanding the impact of the app economy on end users, will explore current industry dynamics and suggest ways to foster a win-win relationship.
In Part 1, we’ll look at the current status quo and explore the focus of growth.
According to AppAnnie, fewer than 3,000 apps are making more than $1 million dollars a year via paid downloads, in-app purchases, or subscriptions.
There are plenty of apps that are just not viable for a host of reasons regardless of monetization strategy - from poor design and build quality, to inadequate marketing and promotion, to functionality simply lacking an audience. Many of these apps end up published then abandoned after just a few releases.
There’s another cohort of apps that shows potential. Even without top rankings on the App Store, these apps often have experienced millions of downloads from interested users around the world. Yet, the AppAnnie data suggests, that despite impressive downloads, making real money remains elusive.
Investors to the Rescue
App downloads are a common traction signal used by early stage investors to evaluate companies for investment. It makes sense. If an app has shown it has an audience on the inventory rich App Store, there must be something to it, right?
These apps have become attractive targets for investors. One major language learning app raised $108 million dollars over five rounds of venture capital. The second most popular meditation app raised $75 million dollars. The most popular meditation app? $143 million dollars. These are just a few examples. Spend a few minutes on Crunchbase and you will find many more.
A Growth Mindset
With cash to spend, these well-funded app publishers have one job: grow.
How is growth measured? While total downloads continues to be a measure, one of the most important key performance metrics is Monthly Active Users (MAUs). Rapidly growing MAUs can be game, set, match for many of these companies as they raise subsequent rounds of funding.
But it’s not just private companies using MAUs to measure growth. Public companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Snap have seen sharp stock market reactions to their quarterly reports due to surges or cliffs in active user counts.
So how do app publishers grow? They have plenty of tools at their disposal including a whole ecosystem of mobile marketing products. At Nami, we’re intimately familiar with these from our experience building our prior company, Push IO, which became the mobile marketing engine for the Oracle Marketing Cloud.
Mobile marketing tools tend to be very expensive. We regularly hear that the most popular tools charge publishers a minimum of $50,000 per year. For that kind of money, what do these tools do? If you scour the web sites of mobile marketing vendors you’ll see one word over and over: engagement.
Engagement is such a positive sounding term. If you’re an app publisher, of course you want your users to be engaged. However, engagement is coded language that really means “keep your users from abandoning your app at all costs.”
It’s not unusual to hear people in Silicon Valley talking about growth hacking - finding was to grow as fast as possible without spending all the money in the world. An implicit part of that mission is to prevent churn at all costs.
Until Next Time…
In Part 2, we’ll explore how app publishers increase downloads and which sets the stage for how the user experience is being harmed by growth.
Subscriptions are projected to become a mind blowing $1.5 trillion market by 2025. From mobile apps to John Deere tractors, the future looks like it will be subscription-based. Subscription marketing is a frontier opportunity for marketers wanting to succeed with subscription products or services.
In this article, we will explore the five critical strategies that can equip you to become a world-class subscription marketer:
Enhancing your CRM for subscriptions
Adapting marketing automation to the subscription lifecycle
Paywalls as your best low-hanging optimization opportunity
Viral loops to help subscriber acquisition and subscribe retention
Churn is a lagging indicator so you also need a leading indicator
Let’s dig into each of this.
Enhancing your CRM for Subscription Marketing
The relationship you have with your customers (and potential customers) requires special consideration in the subscription era. For subscription products, the customer journey needs to be modeled around a customer’s interaction with and through the subscription lifecycle over time.
Actionable Subscriber Segments
At a high level, a subscription-based offering has four high level customer segments:
Never Subscribed: Prospects for trialing your subscription for the first time
Currently Trialing: Customers who may convert into paying subscribers
Active Paying Subscriber: Customers you need to work hard to retain
Former Subscribers: Former paying customers you can win back
Within each of these segments there are also sub-segments your subscription marketing efforts need to take into account. For instance, within Active Paid Subscribers there sub-segments. Each need to be marketed to very differently. Here are some examples:
Auto-renewing: Subscription is active, customer currently will renew at the end of the current billing period
Not auto-renewing: Subscription is active, but customer is not renewing at end of the current bill period
In grace period: Subscription is only still active due to a billing grace period. If the customer doesn’t current a billing issue they may involuntarily churn
Cancelled: Subscription is active, but customer has cancelled effective at the end of the current billing period
It’s also important to recognize that subscription segments are fluid. Customers can and will come and go from segments and sub-segments as their relationship with a subscription changes.
Adding Subscriber Context
Your CRM system needs to be enriched with subscription context so you know a customer’s status within the subscriber journey at the current moment in time. You also need to know what their historical subscription journey is.
For instance, a customer may have been an Active Paid Subscriber for a dozen billing periods but is not currently paying. This customer is likely a high-potential win back opportunity versus a customer who was churned out quickly after one billing period.
To summarize, your CRM needs to be enriched for subscriptions in three key ways:
Current subscription lifecycle status
History of interactions through the subscription lifecycle
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Armed with this you can effectively execute a subscription marketing automation strategy built for the subscriber lifecycle.
Subscription Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is a key strategy for lead nurturing in B2B sales since the sales cycles are long. It’s also becoming more common in B2C marketing as brands go beyond simple e-commerce use cases to a more holistic view of customer interactions across channels.
Marketing automation is perfect for subscription-based products and services. Similar to lead scoring, subscription marketers can use the CRM enrichment combined with interaction data to score customers.
Subscription Lifecycle Scoring
For subscriptions, a few different scores are needed. However, which is useful for a given customer depends on their current subscription lifecycle status. For example:
A likelihood to start a trial score if the customer has never subscribed
A likelihood to convert to paid score if the subscriber if currently trialing
A likelihood to renew score if customer is an active paying subscriber
These scores, along with a customer’s current subscriber lifecycle status and CLV can be used for marketing automation campaigns.
For example, if a customer has never subscribed and their likelihood to start a trialscore is low, then consider a marketing automation series focused on educating the user about what they are missing out on. This isn’t the moment for the hard sell. These users need to be nudged.
Similarly, if a customer is currently trialing but their likelihood to convert to paidscore is low, then make sure they know how to get the most of their trial. They may not be aware of all the features and benefits they currently have access to.
Remember, subscriptions are a long game. Customers may come and go. However, you always have a chance to bring them back into the fold.
Too many brands focus on jamming users through the acquisition funnel and into a trial start before the customer even truly know what the offering is about or whether they even want it.
This is especially true in with mobile apps due to the reliance on paid acquisition, high D1 and D7 churn rates, and the post-IDFA privacy landscape.
Subscription marketing automation can help you leverage your customer data to target the right message to the right user in the right subscriber journey state.
Paywall Optimization is your best low-hanging fruit
So much effort is spent on acquisition campaigns to fill the funnel, at rightly so. However, it can be incredibly difficult to optimize your paid acquisition efforts.
This is partially due to the incredibly complex advertising technology landscape. It’s also because of the changing regulatory environment around end user privacy.
Many subscription products view the paywall as piece of transaction technology wrapped in a utilitarian user interface. A necessary screen that helps customers transact.
The paywall can be so much more. In fact, the paywall should be your most important subscription marketing asset.
The Right Paywall Infrastructure
Believe it or not, the paywall is one of the least optimized elements in many subscription businesses. This is because it’s often owned by the technical teams. Changes are infrequent and require a development cycle. Improved are requested by, but not managed by marketing.
It turns out with the right infrastructure, paywall optimization is one of the best low-hanging fruit opportunities. Conversion rate improvements of 2-5X areachievable through modest changes.
In order to optimize your paywall though, you need the right paywall infrastructure. The right solution should be able to meet the following requirements:
Create, deploy, and update paywalls using a paywall CMS
Show the right paywall to the right user with paywallsegmentation
Run paywall A/B tests toimprove conversion
In addition to the paywall, there is another experience you can deliver that will help drive down customer acquisition costs (CAC) and improve Retention. Let’s take a look.
Viral loops can help subscriber acquisition and subscribe retention
Customer acquisition is hard. In subscription businesses it can be even harder. While subscriptions can offer customers the benefit of a low monthly price for a product or service, you’re asking customers to have an ongoing relationship with you.
As we’ve discussed, optimizing paid acquisition is one of the most challenges aspects for subscription marketers. Viral loops can be a game changer that help your acquisition and retention efforts.
Here are some examples of some subscription product viral loops:
A Currently Trialing customer gets time added to their trial by referring a friend who signs up. The trialing customer will likely become stickier, and you just acquired a new prospective customer at a much lower CAC.
A news app Active Paying Subscriber can share a paywalled article with a friend. The paying subscriber feels good about sharing, and could even earn additional shares or maybe branded merchandise. Meanwhile, a new prospective customer gets a taste of what life is like as a subscriber.
A Freemium User (e.g. prospective customer) gets a certain quantity or time premium access if they get a friend to sign up. Dropbox famously executed this strategy giving both sides of the referrals 500MB of free storage.
A successful viral loop, like a dual-sided referral program can be an excellent way to create loyalty-building moments with potential customers and subscribers.
Meanwhile, the quality of audience acquired is higher and the CAC economics to support the program are completely within your control.
Churn is a lagging indicator so you also need leading indicators
Subscription marketing requires great measurement. Yes, you need to track core business metrics such as MRR and Churn. These metrics are important.
Just remember, these metrics are lagging. You don’t have MRR growth until more trialing customers convert from free-to-paid and/or you have less churn in your paying subscriber list.
To know where your subscription business is heading, you also need leading indicators. Here are just a few examples of metrics you can measure over time to help you understand where things are headed now:
The free-to-paid conversion rate. Is it improving?
How % of users have auto-renew turned off? Is this trending up?
What is the mix of monthly vs. annual plans? Is the trend changing?
Are customer satisfaction surveys or app store reviews trending a different direction?
These are just come of the clues you can track to detect that change may be coming to your core subscription business metrics.
Subscription marketing is a new specialization for marketers looking to drive marketing breakthroughs in the massive and growing subscription economy. With subscriptions on track to be a trillion dollar market in the next few years, it’s a great time to hone new strategies.
If you’re a mobile app publisher, Nami provides the premier solution for marketing your in-app subscriptions. We’re focused on delivering powerful tools to help you improve your app’s subscription marketing. Here’s just a few ways we help:
Our platform gives you the subscription data layer you need to enrich your CRM and other important marketing systems.
We also give you the right infrastructure to turn your paywalls into your most essential subscription marketing asset. This is made possible by a no-code paywall CMS and paywall A/B testing suite.
