How to optimize in-app-purchase with excellence user experience?

There are three types of in-app purchase options: subscriptions, permanent purchases, and non-permanent purchases.

It is created according to the type of mobile application (Store category / Pro features of the application / In app actions for users) and the behavior in the user’s purchase story (GA / Firebase etc.).

Assuming you have own an app and want to increase your in-app purchases (IAP) at this post:

F
irst of all, make sure your app is great.
Bugs, crashes and other bad experiences indicate that you don’t care about users, and only users who trust you will buy from you. This step is the first and most important step for optimizing in-app purchases. User’s purchase cancellations, negative comments (Negative comments are directly affect your app ranking). In addition, the crashed applications will show a serious manipulative data in terms of users not using that feature in particular and measuring metrics. Detect crashes through Firebase during testing.

Appstoreconnect => Analytics => Metrics => Crashes

Apple Store Connect => Analytics => Usage => Crashes

Google Play Store => Crashes an ANR’s

O
ffer IAP at the right time. From the event manager of your application,
list your most valuable features for the user with the multi-critia decision model and offer your purchase or promotional offers by calculating the user lifetime cost for the features that will provide extra value (a user’s in-app advertisement / IAP). For instance, if a user plays a game and fails to complete a level, it is a good time to offer him an item that will help him to master the level.

S
etting Up In-App Purchases for Search
IAPs are not indexed by default. To make them searchable for the App Store algorithm, you must promote them. The term “promote” is somewhat misleading as it does not refer to marketing action in this context. Instead, it is a technical process that consists of these steps outlined in the App Store Connect Help:

1. Log in to App Store Connect.
2. Click on “My Apps” and select your app.
3. Click “Features” and then “App Store Promotions” in the left navigation column.
4. Check the IAPs you want to promote and click “Save”.

That’s it; your IAPs will show up in search results now.

Promoted IAPs do not only create visibility in search results. They can also be featured on the Today, Games, and Apps tabs.

A
dding Keywords to Your In-App Purchases
The next step is to add IAP metadata. You need to provide four different elements:

• The IAP title (or “display name”) has up to 30 characters.
• The IAP description is a short text of up to 45 characters.
• The IAP icon (or “promotional image”) is a graphic of 1024 x 1024 pixels.
• The IAP price.

When an IAP shows up in search results, users will see all of these elements. In addition, the title of the app shows up as well as the app icon.

Have a look at the example from the game Jetpack Joyride below.

Source: Apple App Store

While all of the four metadata elements are visible to users, only one is indexed by the App Store Algorithm: the IAP title. Thus you must put relevant keywords into the title.

To make your IAP titles relevant, avoid generic terms. “1 Year Subscription” explains what a package contains, but will not create any search traffic because it is not relevant. But the “1 Year Bodybuilding Plan” for a fitness app is very relevant because users actually search for “bodybuilding”.

• Send users messages (newsletters, in-app messages, push up notifications) to promote your IAPs. Make sure not to molest them though, and to have their permission to do so. Even at optimal notification frequency levels, 54% of app users will churn in the first 90 days after opening an app. To address this segment, it’s critical to be able to detect signals app users are sending that they’re likely to churn.
  Think about how to get your users to accept push notifications — In mobile apps, users can opt-in or opt-out of receiving push notifications, so you need to think about how you can entice them to opt-in. You can do this by showing them how they’ll benefit from your notifications. Let them know what kind of push notifications you plan on sending and the value they’ll get from them.

T
hink about timing.
The timing for sending push notifications needs to be well thought out. Incorporate timing into your strategy. Will certain user segments receive push notifications at one time depending on their location? Will certain times of the year affect when you’d like to send notifications?

O
ptimize the frequency.
Remember, less is more. You don’t want to pester users with never-ending promotional notifications. So spend time thinking about how many and how often you should be sending notifications.

P
ersonalize notifications.
Tap into your user data to send personalized notifications based on things like their behavior in the app, location, and overall profile. This will maximize the notification’s relevance.

C
reate urgency.
Offer IAPs only for a limited time, so users feel like they might miss something if they don’t buy. This is, in particular, a good approach for new users. Offer them a starter pack that is only available for the first 72 hours after installing the app.

L
imited Offer.
Lower the price for IAPs for a limited time. Submitting limited offers to your users will prompt them to complete your offer within a limited time frame.

Reward regular customers with better packages, higher discounts or other benefits. Make more special offers by clustering users with certain similar behaviors within the app.

Don’t force your user to search for something similar to you, but for free. By limiting the free functionality, making it a little less convenient and attractive (but still you can use it) — thereby you push the user to upgrade and paid access.

L
ocalize the application and prepare a special paywall for users. Use A/B test with paywallscreen.com & deepwall.com etc. remotely configure every aspect of your paywall. As a result of the test, integrate the most suitable paywall for you into the applications.

Attract Mobile User Whales

Finding users who spend a lot of money on in-app purchases is hard. This tiny group of users is called mobile user whales.

In most cases, users who spend $100 or more during their lifetime are considered whales. However, this almost never happens in the form of a one-time purchase. They spend an average of $20 a purchase (DeltaDNA).

What this means for you is you need to provide them with an encouraging and rewarding purchasing experience.

With more and more mobile users to choose from, catching them is becoming more of a challenge.

If you already have an existing user base, you should dive into analysis to find your whales. Detect your existing spenders and learn all about them:

• Demographics
• Locations
• What other application do they use
• Devices and operating systems they use
• Why they using your app

Doing this will help you both optimize both your useplay and IAP to drive in-app actions.

Attracting whales is also linked to your app’s user acquisition campaigns. Both Google and Facebook offer you the possibility to optimize campaigns for in-app actions such as in-app purchases.

Targeting users that are likely to spend on-in app purchases instead of aiming for the number of installs might result in catching more big spenders.

How to analyze IAP optimization success?

So you’ve worked on the ASO (App Store Optimization) of your In-App Purchases, how do you analyze the results?

1. Analyze the dynamics of your IAPs. How has their ranking changed?
2. Keep track of which keywords and how high your IAPs are ranking. This way you can understand if the title is performing well from an ASO perspective. It may be worth iterating again.
3. Keep an eye on your competitors and how effectively they are promoting IAPs. By the way, you can also study your competitors’ pricing history. This marketing analysis will give insights and help you in setting your own prices.

The solutions or tips mentioned above can be used in any combinations, but not all of them suit all kinds of apps. Hence take a step back, relax, and choose the ones that suit your app the best. Make sure that you put in your own inputs when it comes to strategies and their implementation and you are bound to see some great results.