App Engagement Campaigns: Re-engage and Retain Users

The notification came at 2:47 AM. Our app had just lost its 10,000th user that month.

I wasn't supposed to be awake. But I'd been obsessing over our metrics, watching the churn rate climb like a fever chart. We'd spent $400,000 on user acquisition that quarter. We'd acquired 50,000 new users. And we'd lost almost all of them.

Something had to change. So I stopped focusing on getting new users and started focusing on keeping the ones we had.

What happened next changed my entire understanding of growth.

The Math That Broke My Brain

Here are numbers that should terrify every app marketer:

• 77% of users never return after day 3. Three days. That's all you get.
• The average app loses 95% of users within 90 days. Ninety-five percent.
• A 5% increase in retention can boost profits 25-95%. That's not a typo.

I stared at these numbers for weeks before I understood what they really meant: we weren't in the user acquisition business. We were in the user leaking business. We were filling a bathtub with the drain wide open.

The Three Resurrections

Once I started studying engagement, I realized there isn't one type of "lost" user. There are three—and each needs a different approach.

The Almost-Converters (Retargeting)

These users are still in the building. They just haven't found what they're looking for yet. They're active, they're engaged, but they haven't taken the action you need them to take:

• Browsed but didn't purchase
• Added to cart but abandoned
• Started registration but didn't finish
• Free users who could convert to paid

The Ghosts (Re-engagement)

These users were here. Now they're not. But they haven't uninstalled—they've just stopped showing up. And the clock is ticking:

• Recent lapsed: Inactive 7-14 days
• Medium lapsed: Inactive 15-30 days
• Long lapsed: Inactive 30-90 days
• Dormant: Inactive 90+ days

The Departed (Win-back)

The hardest group. They didn't just leave—they actively removed you from their phone. They made a decision. But decisions can be reversed:

• Highlight improvements since they left
• Offer incentives to return
• Show what they're missing

The Arsenal: Choosing Your Weapons

When I started focusing on engagement, I made the classic mistake: I went all-in on one channel. Push notifications, specifically. "It's free!" I thought. "Direct access to users!"

I nearly destroyed our user base. Turns out, there's no single perfect channel. Each has strengths, weaknesses, and users who respond to it differently.

Push Notifications: The Double-Edged Sword

Free, immediate, and powerful—when used right. Destructive when abused:

• Best for time-sensitive messages
• Personalize based on behavior
• Optimal timing: User's active hours
• Frequency: 3-5 per week maximum

Email: The Slow Burn

Everyone wrote off email. "Nobody reads email anymore." Wrong. Email works—especially for the users who ignore everything else:

• Weekly digests and updates
• Re-engagement sequences for lapsed users
• Transactional emails with cross-sell

In-App Messages: The Right Place, Right Time

The most underutilized channel. You have a captive audience—someone already in your app—and yet most marketers barely use in-app messaging:

• Onboarding guidance
• Feature announcements
• Upsell at key moments
• Feedback and review requests

Paid Re-engagement: The Last Resort (That Works)

When free channels fail, money talks. Paid re-engagement finds users who've opted out of everything else:

• Facebook/Instagram retargeting
• Google App campaigns for engagement
• Programmatic retargeting
• SMS campaigns

"I learned this the hard way: owned channels (push, email, in-app) should be your primary drivers. Paid retargeting fills the gaps and reaches the users who've opted out of everything else. Get the order wrong, and you'll burn budget reaching people you could have reached for free."

The Segmentation Secret

Here's where most engagement strategies fall apart: they treat all users the same. One message. One offer. One campaign. Spray and pray.

But a power user and a casual user aren't the same person. A whale and a free rider have different motivations. Send them the same message, and you'll bore one while annoying the other.

Behavioral Segments: What They DO

• Power users: Daily active, high engagement
• Regular users: Weekly active, moderate engagement
• Casual users: Monthly active, light engagement
• At-risk: Declining engagement pattern
• Churned: No recent activity

Value Segments: What They're WORTH

• Whales: Top 1% by spend/engagement
• Dolphins: Top 20% by spend/engagement
• Minnows: Bottom 80%, potential upside
• Free riders: Never monetized

What Actually Works

After running hundreds of engagement campaigns, here's what I've learned separates the winners from the failures:

Make It Personal (Really Personal)

• Use user's name and preferences
• Reference their history (last purchase, level reached)
• Recommend based on behavior
• Customize offers by segment

Timing Is Everything (And I Mean Everything)

• Send during user's active hours
• React quickly to triggers (abandonment, inactivity)
• Consider time zones
• Avoid notification fatigue

The Incentive Ladder

• Test different offer types (discount, free item, bonus)
• Time-limit offers for urgency
• Escalate incentives for dormant users
• Measure ROI of incentive spend

How to Know If It's Working

You can't improve what you don't measure. But measuring the wrong things is worse than measuring nothing. Here's what actually matters:

• Reactivation rate: What percentage of ghosts come back to life?
• Session frequency: Are they visiting more often?
• Session duration: Are they staying longer when they do?
• Feature adoption: Are they using more of what you built?
• Conversion lift: Are they buying more?
• Incremental LTV: How much additional value did you unlock?

That last one is the most important. LTV is the only number that matters in the end. Everything else is a leading indicator.

The Ending I Didn't Expect

Remember that 2:47 AM notification? The 10,000th user we'd lost?

Six months after shifting our focus to engagement, we'd cut churn in half. Our LTV increased 40%. Our CAC payback period dropped from 18 months to 7. We'd been so focused on finding new users that we forgot to take care of the ones we already had.

The best growth strategy isn't always about more. Sometimes it's about less—less leakage, less churn, less money wasted on a bathtub with the drain open.

Plug the holes first. Then turn on the faucet.