How Increasing User Engagement Helps Increase Purchase Frequency

By now, everybody knows the drill: retaining customers is a lot better than attracting new ones.* But, in a competitive ecommerce market, how do you keep customers loyal to your brand? And—perhaps even more importantly—how do you encourage your more valuable customers to repeat purchases? Improved user engagement is key to realizing increasing purchase frequency.

Here, we’ll learn more about the link between these crucial metrics, including tactics to strengthen user engagement and encourage repeat consumer transactions.

User Engagement and Purchase Frequency

Instead of scouting for new revenue streams, give your existing customers more reasons to keep your ecommerce app open—and their user accounts on autosave at the online store. That said, the user experience might not be the same for all customers.

Purchase Frequency Across Groups

To increase a customer’s purchase frequency (PF), you’ll need to look at this indicator a bit closer. PF is what you get when you divide the total orders by the number of customers. When you start measuring PF across segments. you’ll discover that some groups are a lot more loyal—or more engaged—than others. Groups with higher purchase frequency often report better user engagement.

Transforming Casual Browsers to Repeat Customers

Marketers have multiple strategies available to enhance user engagement and purchase frequency. Implementing the right strategy can transform a lukewarm user into a committed repeat customer. Conversely, using an inappropriate strategy for your target customer segment is unlikely to generate more than a mediocre response.

Personalization and Tailored Recommendations

Personalization goes beyond remembering to insert a customer’s name into the latest mobile marketing message. In a hyper-competitive marketplace, personalization means incorporating all the customer insights gathered over previous transactions. This includes their purchase history, current location, and previous customer service interactions.

Netflix used to employ a five-star rating system on all its shows. Viewers simply rated the show between one and five stars—five being the highest. In 2017, the streaming services giant scrapped the complicated rating system, replacing it with a simplified thumbs-up, thumbs-down system. Then, Netlifx added a third option, “two thumbs up,” signifying that a viewer loved the show instead of just liking it.* Viewers now find it easier to rate Netlifx shows, which in turn allows the company to quickly spot and promote trends—and cancel non-starters.

Netflix’s easier thumbs up system has led to better engagement.

Gamification and Rewards Programs

Gamification, which involves incorporating gaming elements into mobile apps, is a great way to increase user engagement. Examples include live scoreboards, awarding badges for specific accomplishments, and unlocking new levels upon completing an objective.

A case in point is the video game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, where users receive accomplishment badges and reward miles by completing in-game tasks. They exchange these miles for household items, apparel—or even an appointment with a hairstylist. Players all over the world loved the idea and bought a Switch to play the game. It became so popular that by May 2020 it had set a new record of five million digital downloads in a single month.*

Interactive Content and Social Engagement

Opening up your brand’s social accounts to the public is another way to get followers engaged. When brands open their communication channels, customers experience a heightened state of user engagement. Add in some interactive elements, and you’ve now established a two-way conversation between the brand and its most passionate followers.

To help increase social engagement, many brands partner up with TikTok, due to its outsized popularity. For example, Samsung launched their #danceAwesome campaign to promote their Galaxy A line of smartphones.* The original video featured the popular South Korean girl group BLACKPINK dancing to the song they created for the campaign; the aim was to encourage users to submit their own interpretations of the ad’s song and dance. By the end of the campaign, Samsung received 5 million videos of user-generated content.

Seamless and Convenient Shopping Experience

Cart abandonment is a serious issue for mobile marketing. Recent data shows that more than seven out of ten online shopping carts worldwide never made it to checkout in July 2023.* In order to prevent or minimize the abandoned cart rate, companies should commit to a seamless shopping experience. Some of the pain points leading to abandonment include a complex checkout process and repetitive instances of asking for payment information.

Amazon is one of the trailblazers in seamless shopping, with its chain of Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores.* Moreover, by downloading the Amazon Go app, users can enter an Amazon Go or Amazon Fresh shop, pick up the items they want, and leave. The Amazon Go app automatically scans and charges all chosen items to the customer’s payment account. No cashiers, no bag boys, no security necessary.

Exclusive Offers and Limited-Time Deals

For many buyers, a heightened sense of urgency can nudge them into buying. This is why many online retailers have adopted the tactic of flash sale announcements or counting down to holiday sales and clearances.

Ever since retailers realized that people would prefer to search Thanksgiving deals in the warmth of their homes, rather than line up outside stores before dawn, digital Black Friday sales have gone through the roof. So-called “Cyber Monday” lasts well over a week now for some businesses. According to Forbes, online Black Friday week/weekend sales in 2022 were up by 2.3% compared to 2021—despite fears of a recession—amounting to $9.12 billion spent over the holiday weekend.*

How Does CleverTap Increase User Engagement?

To increase customer purchases you have to keep them interested—and provide the best possible customer service experience. However, to drive user engagement, you’ll also need to understand the behavior patterns displayed by individual shoppers.

CleverTap currently helps thousands of brands in more than 100 countries to boost the frequency of customer purchases as well as improve customer lifetime value. Visit our site, let us know how we can help you, and we’ll be happy to arrange a live product demo.

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