2023 Mobile Customer Engagement Benchmark Report

Trends that will define the year in mobile

Executive Summary

In 2022, brands gave a voice to more of their customers than ever before. The teams who acted on customer feedback improved retention, reduced churn, and weathered economic storms with more certainty than their feedback-light competitors. Leveraging customer feedback acted as a cheat code for brands in the 2022 marketplace—and it’s not slowing down in 2023.

As we have for the past eight years, Alchemer Mobile collected data from hundreds of millions of consumers across 1,000 iOS and Android apps, each with a minimum of 5,000 active users. This data includes more than 1.2 billion app installs.

The research from Alchemer mobile shows that teams working on apps of all sizes were able to capitalize on the increased amount of customer feedback to make meaningful improvements to their mobile offerings.

The mobile channel continues to be a direct channel to consumers across industries. Mobile customer feedback changed product roadmaps, improved ROI, drove revenue, and got companies closer to achieving overall business goals.

There are three feedback strategies winning brands should prioritize in 2023:

1. Close customer feedback loops. Capturing the right feedback and taking action on it is just the first step. Close the loop by telling customers their voices were heard—and show them what improvements were made.

2. Invest in retention early. Proactively engage with customers within the first 30 days to reduce the risk of churn and improve customer lifetime value.

3. Be wherever your customers are. Know your customers well enough to predict their behavior, including where they’ll engage. Mobile is the best channel for in-moment feedback, but a sophisticated feedback strategy should cover multiple channels.

Apptentive is now Alchemer Mobile
Alchemer helps organizations move from data collection to people connections. The Alchemer platform is the fastest, easiest, most effective way to close the feedback loop with customers and employees. With it, you can:

Collect the best feedback with Alchemer Survey

Collect in-moment feedback with Alchemer Mobile

Close the feedback loop with Alchemer Workflow

Dive Deeper

Download the 2023 Mobile Customer Engagement Report to see detailed data from your industry and app store category.

Key Findings

Alchemer Mobile’s benchmark for 30-day retention is 67% —seven times the industry standard, standard, according to Business of Apps, driven by proactive consumer engagement.

When consumers engaged with an Alchemer Mobile Love Dialog in the first 30 days, retention went up to 83% on average.

The number of mobile surveys brands send to consumers has increased 180% over the past five years but response rates have stayed consistent, indicating that consumers will share feedback when asked for it.

The number of in-app surveys brands send to consumers has increased 180% over the past five years but response rates have stayed consistent, indicating that consumers will share feedback when asked for it.

Alchemer Mobile’s benchmark for in-app survey response rates is 13% —much higher than the industry average of average of 5%, according to Business of Apps.

15% of consumers shifted their emotions between Fan and Risk audience segments. Within the shifted emotions, 52% (7.8%) switched from Fan to Risk, and 48% from Risk to Fan. This allows companies to understand how to adapt their app to shift more Risks to Fans.

Methodology

Alchemer Mobile’s annual mobile app engagement benchmark report serves as a baseline to help app publishers across industries understand their app’s engagement strengths and areas for growth.

For this report, Alchemer Mobile collected data from hundreds of millions of consumers across 1,000 iOS and Android apps, each with a minimum of 5,000 active users. This data includes more than 1.2 billion app installs.

The report was created for companies seeking to understand how their customer feedback and engagement metrics stack up against their marketplace.

While this is our first year publishing this report as Alchemer Mobile (read more about Alchemer’s acquisition of Apptentive), this is our eighth consecutive year conducting this research. Data from our 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016 reports are included to show shifts in brand focus and engagement over time.

The data in this report comes from 1.2 billion app installs across 1,000 iOS and Android apps with 5,000+ active users across the following app categories: Business Services, Education, Finance, Food and Drink, Healthcare, Media and Entertainment, Personal Services, Shopping, Travel, and Utilities. All apps included in the data are Alchemer Mobile customers. All data for Android apps are global. Ratings data for iOS apps are US-only. Phrases are in English.

The data ranges from January 2022 through December 2022. In most scenarios, we’ve used raw data over aggregates. App aggregates ensure large apps don’t skew numbers, but the risk of data skewing was neutralized based on our pre-qualification of included apps. Unless otherwise noted, the overall numbers shown in this report included total raw numbers.

Throughout the report, you will see blended data (combined iOS and Android) and data broken out by operating system, noted accordingly.

Disclaimer: We’d be remiss to not call out potential correlation rather than causation in the report data. Although reflective of the broad app marketplace, the data is inherently biased as Alchemer Mobile’s best practices include ensuring consumers have used an app for a period of time before engaging them, and the data in this report only includes Alchemer Mobile customers.

2022 Mobile Landscape at a Glance

Mobile adoption accelerated in 2022, with consumers spending 3% more time on their devices daily and new app downloads increasing by 11%. (data.ai, February 2023)

Mobile shopping hit an all-time high on Black Friday 2022—accounting for nearly 50% of all sales among the top 100 internet retailers in the US. In 2023, dollars spent in retail apps are predicted to migrate to experiences, including in the travel, events, sports, and health app categories. (data.ai, December 2022)

For brick-and-mortar businesses, apps that communicate between the mobile consumer and in-store experience - effectively closing the communication loop – will keep inventory full while reducing the burden on employees. (McKinsey, January 2023)

Companies that don’t close the loop increase their churn by a minimum of 2.1% every year. Companies that do close the loop  decrease their churn by a minimum of 2.3% per year. And customers are 21% more likely to answer the next in-app survey if you close the loop. (Customer Gauge, 2023)

Nearly 90% of VoC and CX measurement programs use email surveys to collect customer feedback. Yet 61% of respondents said their companies do not have a formal process for closing the customer feedback loop. (Forrester, 2022).

Mobile App Marketplace Trends:
Mobile Consumer Sentiment

In 2022, 94% of all consumers who were prompted by a Love Dialog responded “Yes” or “No” rather than closing out of the prompt. On iOS, the number was even higher at 96%, compared to 88% of consumers on Android. The Love Dialog garners such high response rates primarily because of its simplicity. People are willing to answer short, simple questions and share feedback when they’re proactively asked for it at the right mobile moment. The Love Dialog allows brands to take a quick, regular pulse of consumer health and happiness over time.

In 2022, 64% of prompted consumers responded that “Yes,” they loved the brand, which makes up our Love Percent. These quick responses are a great way for brands to quickly understand consumer emotion without asking people to leave the app for feedback, or to take another step away from their intended use of the app.

Mobile App Marketplace Trends:
Expressed Sentiment

To measure emotion data, we group consumers into six segments:

Customers who have expressed positive emotion for the first time.
Customers who have expressed positive emotion at least twice in a row
Customers who have expressed negative emotion for the first time
Customers who have expressed negative emotion at least twice in a row
Customers whose expressed emotion has shifted from negative to positive, or from Risk to Fan
Customers whose expressed emotion has shifted from positive to negative, or from Fan to Risk

Last year, brands continued to leverage the mobile channel to gather in-moment feedback from their customers at a regular cadence. Repeat Fans (30%) outpaced New Fans (26%), which means brands got better at prompting consumers with the Love Dialog more than once. In return, consumers regularly responded with their feedback, sticking around long enough to be prompted multiple times. The regular cadence of asking for, receiving, and following up on consumer feedback allows brands to create continuous feedback loops and improve customer experiences based on feedback.

An average of 15% of consumers shifted their emotions in 2022 (Shifted to Fan or Shifted to Risk). Within the shifted emotions, an average of 52% of consumers shifted from Fan to Risk. Most companies are unable to predict churn before it happens, which is why being able to identify shifts in emotions as they happen is so important. By measuring real-time changes in sentiment, brands can get ahead of churn by proactively reaching out to consumers, especially those who have shifted from Fan to Risk. Understanding why people are unhappy and working to fix what went wrong gives brands an advantage over those who can’t quantify consumer experience in the same way.

Mobile App Marketplace Trends:
Retention

In the midst of uncertain economic headwinds, proving resiliency and reliability is crucial to keep resources. While customer acquisition and ratings and reviews are externally-visible success indicators of a brand, customer retention plays the biggest role in increased customer lifetime value (CLTV) and improved ROI. Last year, brands across industries engaged more of their consumers than ever before, pushing investment behind retention over acquisition. And as a result, retention benchmarks soared.

Across the mobile marketplace, 30-day retention rates are rapidly declining. The average mobile app saw a 30-day retention rate between 4-10% in 2022 (Appsflyer and Statista, 2022), down from 15-20% in 2021 (Appsflyer and Statista, 2021). There are a few factors at play, including changes to consumer privacy regulation, economic instability, and an ever-expanding marketplace of apps.

However, 30-day retention did not decline for Alchemer Mobile customers, who saw an average 30-day retention rate of 67%—seven times the industry standard, driven by proactive consumer engagement.

90-day retention for the average mobile app falls between 20-30% (Appsflyer 2021). Alchemer Mobile data shows an average 90-day retention rate of 58%—twice the industry average. If consumers engaged with a Love Dialog in the first 90 days, their average retention rate went up to 63%.

Annual retention is generally not reported due to the acceptance of high consumer churn, but many companies who have shifted their strategies away from acquisition toward retention have begun benchmarking annually. Across all apps in our dataset, 42% of consumers who used the app in January 2022 were seen in December 2022. If the consumers saw an Alchemer Mobile interaction in January, 60% were still seen in December—an improvement of 43% just from mobile teams being proactive about gathering consumer feedback. 

Comparing churn risk for people who responded “Yes” to the Love Dialog (Fans) and people who responded “No” (Risks) tells another compelling story. We would expect to see people who say they love the app remain active longer because they are happy, and people who said they do not love the app drop off quicker due to a problem. However, in 2022, the churn risk to both Fans and Risks was within percentage points throughout the year. 

This is particularly notable for consumers categorized as Risks, challenging the assumption that most unhappy people will leave. Brands who gave both happy and unhappy consumers a voice to express their emotions directly within the app saw their retention numbers throughout the year stay about the same—even when consumers had negative experiences with the brand. This insight allows mobile product teams to understand the concern and adjust their product roadmap so the experience can be fixed, ultimately saving relationships they would otherwise lose.

Mobile App Marketplace Trends:
Interaction and Response Rates

The mobile channel remained a primary communication channel across industries as brands leveraged their apps to regularly engage consumers. In response, consumers interacted more with brands through their apps, without disrupting their in-app experience to share feedback outside of the app.

Among Alchemer Mobile customers, interaction rates, or the percentage of people who are prompted with an interaction, rose slightly to an average of 28% in 2022. The average response rate, or the percentage of people who provide a response when shown an interaction, to in-app interactions was 92% —meaning the overwhelming majority of consumers interacted with and responded to the brand’s outreach.

Mobile App Marketplace Trends:
Ratings & Reviews

While ratings and reviews aren’t the only indicator of a successful app, the opportunity cost of a star is huge. Ratings are a star score from 1-5 stars that may or may not also contain a review. A review has a star rating as well as a text comment.

For example, moving a three-star app to four stars can lead to an 89% increase in people converting to downloads. Plus, the lower the star rating, the less likely consumers are to download an app.

Across the apps included in our study, the average star rating was 4.7. Apps had an average of 90,774 star ratings and an average of 719 app store reviews.

It’s challenging to compare apps across categories due to differences in consumer behavior, particularly when it comes to ratings and reviews. Comparing apps
to others in their industry yields a more accurate picture of performance.

Apps across industries saw differences across their average star ratings, on both iOS and Android.

There were also differences in the distribution of star ratings in both app stores. Below is the 2022 distribution across both iOS and Android, by app category.

Apple’s release of iOS 11 and Google’s 2020 release of the in-app review API simplified the rating process. While the changes made on both app stores made the process of rating an app easier and less disruptive to end-consumers, there was an unintended negative impact on the number of iOS and Android app store reviews. The average number of app store reviews continues to decrease each year due to decoupled rating prompts.

Decoupling refers to targeting customers for ratings separate from the audience that sees the Alchemer Mobile Love Dialog, or prompting for a rating at another point in your customers’ journey that is not immediately after the Love Dialog. While decoupling is best practice, adding a step in the consumer feedback journey means that it will be harder, and therefore less likely, for people to complete the path.

Below are the average number of ratings both iOS and Android apps saw over the past six years.

Below is the distribution of the average number of app store reviews, by app category. 

Editor’s note: Ratings data is based on aggregates.

Mobile In-App Surveys

The best product decisions are informed by an abundance of data from a representative cross section of a customer base, and mobile in-app surveys are often the best way to get it.

Among Alchemer Mobile customers, there was a meaningful increase of 24% in the number of in-app surveys sent in 2022 compared to 2021. Brands are talking to more consumers and are more comfortable engaging with them over longer periods of time, particularly through closing feedback loops by telling consumers their voices were heard. The past five years show an incredible 180% growth in the number of in-app surveys brands send.

In addition to sending more in-app surveys, mobile teams sent in-app surveys to a larger segment of their customers in 2022. The average number of consumers prompted to answer in-app surveys was 30%. The more consumers you hear from, the more holistic your feedback will be.

In 2022, Alchemer Mobile customers received an average in-app survey response rate of 13%—almost three times the industry average of 5% (Business of Apps). Even though the number of consumers prompted for in-app surveys went up, the response rate held constant year-over-year, showing that when brands connect with consumers for feedback, it’s often met with enthusiasm and action.

Not all in-app surveys are delivered in the same way, and when consumers are given the choice to opt in or out, response rates soar. In-app surveys that are linked to using a Note, saw an average response rate of 47%. Notes and Actions are powerful Alchemer Mobile features that allow users to take action. Said another way, about half of all end-consumers across both operating systems responded to Note-linked surveys.

The average NPS for Alchemer Mobile customers in 2022 was +37 (“good” scores typically fall between +40-50, depending on industry). But NPS is just a surface-level indicator and, by itself, is pretty useless. NPS as it exists today does not help companies understand customer emotion in real time, nor does it give insight into how emotions shift through customer journeys.

Alchemer Mobile advocates for our customers to run non-biased, open-ended in-app surveys over—or in addition to—NPS in order to truly dig into customer emotion driving sentiment. This means our customers don’t only target their fans in order to get a high result. Instead, they ask for feedback from happy and unhappy customers alike, which allows teams to holistically understand what’s driving their customer experience and how they can have a bigger impact.

Key Take-Aways

So, what did you learn?

The three feedback strategies winning brands should prioritize in 2023

First, the mobile industry continues to evolve. Mobile app adoption continued to increase as did spending in many categories. Survey usage reached an all-time high. Many VoC and CX programs effectively collect customer feedback (nearly 90%), but many do not have a formal process for communicating with customers or app users about their feedback.

Second, Alchemer Mobile features like Love Dialog and Fan Signals can have a significant impact on adoption and retention. Fan Signals alone represent a major data point for CX professionals, marketers, and customer service/support; as customer emotion shift, smart communicators will respond with messages, promotions, and surveys to improve or better seize the opportunity.

Third, mobile app retention will continue to be an important metric for mobile product owners/ managers. With retention rates on the decline, app developers in all categories are likely to focus on keeping the customers they have, in addition to generating new users. Product owners/managers will likely seek out tools in 2023 to better understand why customers churn and develop programs to improve app retention.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, all business leaders should take an interest in closing the customer feedback loop. Collecting feedback is a great first step, especially from mobile customers. But communicating with customers about their feedback is becoming a differentiator in the marketplace. Considering the customer journey, including mobile app touchpoints, is essential for closing the feedback loop.

If you have questions about this report, please reach out to Marketing@Alchemer.com.

Learn more about how Alchemer can help improve your mobile app experience. For more information about Alchemer Mobile, visit Alchemer.com/Mobile.

How Mobile Teams Should Respond

In 2022, brands gave a voice to more of their customers than ever before. Alchemer Mobile’s customers reached more than 1.2 billion consumers alone, allowing these brands to make better product and resourcing decisions from a larger, collective customer perspective. The teams who acted on feedback improved retention, reduced churn, weathered economic storms with more certainty, and delivered more products and services consumers would buy than their feedback-light competitors. Leveraging customer feedback acted as a cheat code for brands in the 2022 marketplace—and it’s not slowing down this year.

The three feedback strategies winning brands should prioritize in 2023
1. Close customer feedback loops.

Capturing useful feedback and taking action on it is just the first step. Close the loop by telling customers their voices were heard—and show them what improvements were made.

2. Invest in retention early.

Proactively engage with customers within the first 30 days to reduce the risk of churn and improve customer lifetime value. The first 30 days of a new customer’s experience with a brand are a strong predictor of lifetime value.

3. Be wherever your customers are.

Product owners, researchers, and marketers share a common goal: to know their customers well enough to predict their behavior, including where they’ll engage. Knowing the channels customers will engage with allows teams to invest resources in the right places; for example, to make data-backed changes to priorities on a product roadmap, to test new engagement points across mobile experiences, and more.

See the benchmark data for your industry

Download the rest for data specific to your industry, unique challenges, and where to focus your mobile program in 2023.

Industry categories in the full report include:

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