Fifteen years after Apple launched the App Store, the mobile space is still poised for major growth and innovation. Global smartphone mobile network subscriptions reached an estimated 6.6 billion last year, and are expected to exceed 7.8 billion by 2028.
With seven million apps available for download from the two major marketplaces, app creators are under pressure to make apps faster, less buggy, and more seamless to use if they want to stand out from the crowd.
5 trends to consider for your mobile strategy
Trend 1: Consumers are looking to spend smarter
Fullstory’s recent global digital experience survey provided insight into the current economic sentiment: 10% of consumers are uninstalling shopping apps from their phone to discourage spending and 20% are canceling gaming and software subscriptions because of inflation.
Whether it’s fear of a looming recession or the recent rise in interest rates, saving money is top of mind for many. The purchases most affected by this crunch include travel (44%), luxury goods (43%), and gifts (28%).
While it has never been easier to find and download apps on a smartphone or tablet, the same goes for deleting them. Creating a flawless digital experience can help you avoid uninstalls or unsubscribes.
To avoid uninstalls, try these three mobile best practices:
Avoid excessive notifications. It’s tempting to shoot for maximum engagement with your customers, but too many alerts, push notifications, or (especially) ads can irritate and annoy. There’s no “right number” of alerts, but it’s best to start slow when testing notification frequency.
Make the process easy. In a competitive market, apps that are difficult to navigate or overly complicated are destined for the delete bin.
Take privacy seriously. Many consumers are taking steps to ensure their digital privacy, and are doing away with overly intrusive apps. Consider allowing users to minimize the information you need to deliver your product or service seamlessly.
Learn more about avoiding UI pitfalls in Fullstory’s guide to growth strategies for mobile apps with Yodel Mobile.
Trend 2: Certain industries outperform others (sometimes by a lot)
It’s surprising just how much industries differ in terms of digital experience satisfaction.
According to our survey, retail and grocery brands provided the best digital experiences, with 61% or more consumers reporting positive digital experiences and only 8% or fewer citing negative ones.
In the “needs improvement” category, the automotive and gaming/betting industries garnered only about 38% positive responses and 14% negative ones.
Either way, these findings suggest a chance to invest in the digital experience—brands in the high-satisfaction fields can’t afford anything less than perfection, and those in the lower-satisfaction categories can improve their mobile presence and stand out.
Trend 3: Experience beats name recognition
Mobile customer loyalty programs are on the rise—you may have seen major brands like Starbucks, Nike, and Sephora encouraging you to “download the app and save!”
But according to our survey, customers aren’t actually loyal to brands. Forty-four percent of respondents said which site they shop or interact with doesn't matter “as long as it works,” and 77% said their top priority when transacting on web and mobile is to quickly accomplish their objective.
In fact, the digital experience proved so important to survey respondents that nearly 60% said they would be willing to actually pay more if guaranteed a flawless digital experience.
A mere moment of frustration—whether it’s a slow page load, dead link, or app glitch—can send a customer to a competitor.
Trend 4: Using AI to create personalized experiences
Mobile app personalization is one of the best ways to engage your audience, boost conversion rates, and increase retention.
A recent Forbes article on mobile app trends predicts that machine learning will soon be able to analyze historical data to understand a consumer’s preferences, optimize app performance, and automatically deliver relevant content.
At Fullstory, we’re already using machine learning in features like Pages, our URL grouping tool.
Trend 5: Integrated mobile tech is the future
We know that apps will continue to transform our world for the foreseeable future, so it’s important to make sure your tech ecosystem is optimized for mobile data exchange.
According to a 2022 estimate from Shopify (a Fullstory integration partner), mobile commerce is expected to generate a whopping $620 billion by next year, and nearly half of all ecommerce purchases will take place via mobile device. With so much business at stake, you can’t afford to have your analytics siloed.
Learn how Fullstory’s tech stack integrations can help you make the most of your data.
It’s time for better user feedback.
Elevate your Voice of Customer data with the ability to see user experiences as they happen. Request your Fullstory demo today.
