Travel apps face a range of problems, such as user fatigue and infrequency of engagement, according to new research.
Behavioral analytics specialist CleverTap releases a study this week which benchmarks travel apps on how they perform across the lifecycle, from opt-in and engagement, to retention and churn.
The company analyzed more than 55 billion events carried out on more than a billion devices in the first half of 2018 to come up with some industry benchmarks to help travel marketers gauge their own app success.
The Industry Benchmark Report for Travel Apps points out that more than 5% of all apps are travel apps, making it difficult to be heard above the noise.
The study shows that the average travel app loses almost two-thirds of users, 64%, after 30 days.
The percentage rises to 78% after 60 days, and 82% after 90 days, demonstrating how crucial it is for the on-boarding experience to be right.
According to the research, travel apps have a 63% opt-in rate and that it takes new users an average of 18 minutes to log in for the first time.
The next stage of the app life-cycle - engagement - reveals how quickly apps must show their value to drive users to engage further. The study shows that 80% of users perform a search and move to the engagement stage in 44 minutes.
CleverTap points to various ways travel marketers can drive that engagement such as special offers, personalization and a solid user-experience.
The industry benchmark for click through rates on marketing campaigns is an average of 8.32% while the booking cart abandonment rate for users deemed to be showing a desire to purchase is 78%.
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On cart abandonment, marketers need to find the friction points in the paths users take within the app as well as sending real-time personalized messages to encourage drop-outs to come back.
The customer retention stage is also important because of the high cost related to acquiring customers within the travel industry.
In addition, customer retention in travel is acknowledged as one of the hardest elements to crack given the lack of frequency of trips.
The study shows an industry benchmark of 63% of users converting in the app and moving to the retention stage in one week.
The research goes on to reveal that 48% is the average retention rate 30 days after a user has been acquired.
Churn rates are high however - 35% of users churn in two weeks and 42.5% is the average uninstall rate within 30 days.
There is the potential to entice users back with the report showing almost 58% is the average reinstall a month after an app has been uninstalled.
The report suggests a number of measures to help the uninstall rates such as minimalizing notifications within a period of time, tracking whether notifications are driving conversion and sending surveys to those that have uninstalled an app.
* The full report is available here.