App Onboarding
Part of Mobile app growth strategy
Choosing a growth objective from the app's user journey
Use the app's user journey to choose a specific growth objective, define its audience and outcome, and avoid misleading proxy measures.
Choose a growth objective by finding a journey problem that may be limiting a valuable user outcome. State whose behaviour should change, which completed action shows progress and when you will assess it. “Get more users” is too broad to guide a product or marketing decision.
Work backwards from the outcome
Begin with the job people use the app to do. For a booking app, the outcome might be a confirmed booking. For a planning app, it might be a plan saved and later used. These are examples; the right outcome depends on what the product promises and what helps its users.
Map the preceding steps and any reason to return. Use task observations, support issues and properly defined journey events. A funnel can show how many measured users proceed through its steps, but it cannot explain their motives on its own.
Before interpreting a drop-off, record how the journey was defined. Note who is included.
Locate a decision you can act on
Pattern to investigate / Possible objective
- Intended users rarely reach the relevant page or listing
- Improve qualified discovery.
- People arrive but do not begin the task
- Clarify the promise or entry route.
- People begin but do not finish a useful task
- Improve task completion.
- People finish once but do not return when a need recurs
- Improve relevant return use.
Each pattern is a starting hypothesis. Check eligibility, event quality and the natural time between actions.
A large measured drop may be a tracking gap. A later step may have fewer users because only some need that feature. Daily return is a poor objective for an occasional task.
Choose one primary objective for the next decision period. Use supporting measures to explain what happened, without treating an easier proxy as success. If the objective is a first completed booking, more sign-ups alone do not fulfil it.
Common Growth Objectives vs. Misleading Proxies
- Misleading Proxy
- More sign-ups in Sydney
- Misleading Proxy
- Daily active users (DAU) for an occasional task
Write the objective precisely
Name the eligible people, completed action, observation window and safeguard. For example: “Increase the share of eligible new users who confirm a first booking within their first week, while checking whether cancellations or support contacts rise.” The week and safeguards illustrate the format; they are not benchmarks.
Define the denominator before interpreting a result. Does it include all first opens, only people in a served area, or people who reached an available appointment? Each answers a different question.
Specify how repeat installs, multiple devices and missing events are handled. If an action takes days, let the observation window finish before comparing groups.
If using Google Analytics, verify that the event you use represents completion in the app versions you support. Check that it is recorded at the right point and includes any context needed to interpret it.
Key Metrics to Track for User Journey Optimization
- Completed Action
- Confirmed booking or saved plan with no cancellations
- Safeguards
- Monitor cancellation rates and support contacts
Tie the objective to a decision
Name the change the team could make, such as revising an entry page or fixing a failed task. Decide which result would support continuing and which would prompt investigation. Include a safeguard for a user problem the primary measure could miss.
After the observation window, check whether improvement at the selected step coincided with improvement in the valuable outcome. If it did not, investigate the connection. If the measure is unreliable, correct its definition before claiming growth.
