Re-engagement measurement essentials: Inactivity windows and dynamic cohorting for life-cycle ROAS

Do you really know how much that re-engaged user actually cost you?

And, how do you know which users to target right now for re-engagement campaigns?

Re-engagement is an important focus for many because 70% of users abandon apps within the first 30 days on average. While not all mobile marketers focus on re-engagement, it’s critically important in some verticals, such as e-commerce. It may not make sense for hyper-casual games, but for high-value users in specific categories, re-engagement can be a gold mine.

The beauty of the Singular solution: we can provide ROI for re-engagement campaigns side-by-side with your traditional user acquisition efforts. You can cohort fresh installs and re-engaged users separately, and you can even enable dynamic cohorting for advanced insights into ROAS.

Inactivity windows

Configurable inactivity windows are critical to gain granular control over how you measure re-engagement campaigns. The inactivity window ensures only inactive users are re-attributed as re-engagements in your marketing reporting.

Our recommended window is seven days of inactivity, meaning you can kick off cohorts or audiences for re-engagement campaigns after they’ve been MIA for a week. But you can reduce that to fewer days if that makes sense in your app, and you can increase it to as much as a month. What your app and your app economy needs will be different than others, so this gives you the flexibility to tune your re-engagement strategies accordingly.

And, of course, by tuning the window properly, Singular’s attribution and reporting will only give re-engagement credit where you actually want it attributed: users who have legitimately lapsed.

Dynamic cohorting for re-engagement

Re-engagement measurement shouldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. In traditional last-touch attribution models, re-engagement events are attributed to the source of the re-engagement. But some marketers may also want to review the original acquisition source for those users as well so it could be interesting to look at install cohorts as if they were never re-attributed.

That’s why Singular can support the concept of switching between cohort views: a standard view that shows cohorted metrics as a user is re-attributed from their install acquisition source to their newer re-engagement source and another view that persists install cohort metrics regardless of any subsequent re-engagement source.

In addition, you can combine acquisition cost and re-engagement cost and compare to all revenue events, giving you a better understanding of overall ROI and ROAS. Essentially, you’re now getting your entire life-cycle marketing cost and providing a more complete picture of profitability.

Plus, at any time, you can switch between these cohort views on the fly, to get the data you need there for acquisition or re-activation insights.

Better insights into returns from re-engagement campaigns

Do you have questions about how to properly attribute re-engagement campaigns or what setup is best for your app? We’re here to help! Reach out to one of our experts today!