CRM, often seen as a set of tools or platforms, becomes far more powerful when viewed as a comprehensive strategy for building lasting customer relationships.
While paid UA focuses on bringing users to your app, CRM ensures they stay engaged, converting them into loyal, revenue-generating customers.
Read on to learn CRM strategies amplifying the impact of paid UA, ensuring that every acquired user delivers maximum Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for mobile apps is a strategic approach to foster long-term user retention. This involves:
These efforts cover a range of communication campaigns—from onboarding to promotional initiatives–making mobile messaging via push notifications, in-apps, emails, and other channels an essential part of the process.
Effective app-based CRM strategies play a crucial role in driving key success metrics for your app:
↗️ Engagement
By analyzing user behavior, you can send targeted messages and offers, encouraging users to take actions that align with their interests and needs.
↗️ Retention
Personalized communication keeps users returning, addressing their pain points, and providing relevant content or promotions that drive long-term use.
↗️ Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
As engagement and retention improve, each customer’s value increases over time. CRM ensures users remain loyal and continue interacting with the app, leading to higher repeat purchases and upgrades.
UA and CRM address different stages of the customer lifecycle but work together to maximize overall efficiency. While UA focuses on acquiring new users, CRM nurtures and retains them, creating a seamless journey from acquisition to long-term engagement.
The more effectively you engage, retain, and convert users, the faster they repay the costs spent on user acquisition.
Via CRM strategies, you can maximize the return on your UA investments, ensuring that users not only make the initial download but continue to engage and convert, generating sustainable long-term value.
| 💡 Sometimes, your growth may come from organic channels rather than paid UA. In such cases, reinforcing that growth with CRM strategies becomes equally important. For example, HungryNaki, Bangladesh’s first food delivery brand, successfully sustained its user base expansion past the pandemic by launching targeted engagement and retention campaigns. |
How did your users discover your app—through Instagram, Google Ads, or another channel?
You can tailor engagement campaigns to these UA sources, ensuring each user feels understood and valued. You can craft highly targeted and relevant offers by segmenting users based on their acquisition paths.
For example:
💡 Pro tip: If you use a campaign mapping tool for your communications, check if it integrates with platforms that track UA sources, like Adjust or Amplitude. These integrations let you quickly create audiences based on UA data and launch targeted campaigns:
Segmented CRM campaign built with Pushwoosh Customer Journey Builder
Cross-channel communication is about reaching users through multiple touchpoints across different platforms and messaging channels.
A great way to implement cross-channel communication is combining mobile channels with retargeting ads.
For example, if users haven’t completed onboarding or got activated, retargeting ads can help bring them back and ensure your UA efforts don’t go to waste.
These ads can complement in-app messages by reminding users of your app’s benefits and encouraging them to take the next step, whether finishing setup or making their first purchase.
To enhance your UA efforts, it’s crucial to analyze the behaviors and characteristics of your existing high-value users.
Focusing on high and frequent spenders—such as those identified through an RFM grid—ensures you identify users who provide the most value.
Once you’ve gathered insights from your existing high-value users, apply them to optimize your UA campaigns. Use the data to:
How can you harmonize your UA and CRM efforts to ensure users move smoothly through the funnel, from their first app interaction to becoming loyal customers and promoters?
Here are some strategies to help you achieve this.
Effective onboarding is crucial to converting new users into active ones. Personalized welcome messages, questionnaires, and app demos can help new users complete onboarding steps more efficiently.
Incorporating multiple channels, such as in-app messages and emails, ensures that users receive guidance across different content formats:
Even with a strong acquisition strategy, not every user will remain active. That’s where re-engagement and win-back campaigns come in.
Push notifications with personalized offers based on past activity can reignite interest and bring users back.
Example from La Redoute: If a user adds items to the wishlist and doesn’t purchase them, a push notification will remind them of their favorites.
Imagine having a system that listens to your users, learns from their actions, and constantly improves your strategies. That’s the power of a feedback loop—it’s not just about collecting feedback; it’s about transforming it into smarter CRM and UA efforts.
Via in-app surveys, reviews, or customer support interactions, feedback loops help you stay in sync with what your users truly want. The result? Happier users, sharper UA targeting, and a retention and lifetime value boost.
Leveraging push notifications to promote your app’s social media can significantly expand your online presence.
By sending engaging push messages highlighting social media content or communities, you can encourage users to join the conversation on platforms like Facebook, X, or Instagram.
💡 By implementing this strategy, Bladestorm, the publisher of GC.SKINS, boosted the game’s social media communities, bringing in 1k–3k new users with one push notification!
Integrating paid UA efforts with a CRM strategic approach creates a powerful synergy beyond just acquiring users—ensuring they stay engaged and loyal, driving long-term value.
CRM drives the ROI of your paid UA campaigns by implementing user segmentation, lifecycle communication, and cross-channel messaging, along with analytics and user feedback.
With CRM strategies in place, you’re not just spending on user acquisition; you’re investing in a growth cycle that turns every acquisition into an opportunity for long-term success.