Your conversion rate is just going well. You’re on top of the world and feeling that nothing can stop you — until you start seeing a sharp decrease in your conversion rate!
Hundreds of questions are rushing into your brain right now.
You may think “What’s going on? What could be the reason my conversion rate is decreasing? What might be the things I have done that led to this huge problem?”
Now, the last thing you want to do is panic. You can either investigate or go insane. Of course, we want you to stay calm and dive deeper into the problem.
For this reason, we’ll take a look at some of the most common reasons that could cause your conversion rate to drop. Knowing these reasons will not only solve current problems but also prevent future issues.
So, are you ready to learn about the reasons why your mobile app conversion rate is dropping?
If yes, let’s dive in!
What is the conversion rate?
Before we jump into the reasons why conversion rate drops, you need to know what conversion rate is.
The conversion rate refers to how many visitors you are able to “convert.” A visitor is considered “converted” if that visitor took the action you desire them to do. For example, you want them to download your app.
Mathematically speaking, the conversion rate is the number of visitors who downloaded your app divided by the total number of visitors.
To give you an example, let’s say you want your visitors to download your app once they have visited your app page. So, if you receive 1,000 visitors in a month and 500 of them downloaded your app, then your conversion rate is 50%.
With that said, let’s take a look at the possible reasons your conversion rate decreased on either Google Play Store or the App Store.
Reason 1: Changes in your metadata
When investigating the reasons why your conversion rate has dropped, the first thing you need to ask yourself is, “What are the recent changes I made with my metadata?”
You might not have realized it but changing just a few details in your metadata could lead to a sudden drop in your conversion rate.
So, if you remember something that you have changed recently, then you can start your investigation there.
Metadata includes app icon, screenshots, app description, and other details you add for your app. (Image source: Google Play Store)
For instance, you might have changed your screenshots, app icon, or feature video. These things might have already been giving you good results, which include a high conversion rate. However, once you change them, then they stop giving you the same results anymore. That’s why it is best that you do A/B testing first before doing a major or even slight change in your metadata.
Reason no. 2: Ineffective ads
Have you experienced clicking an ad just because they look appealing and impressive? But when you got to the redirected page, you simply clicked the close button?
Caption: With so many ads everywhere, you might be tempted to use hyped and sometimes unrealistic ads to grab people’s attention.
Well, this can also happen to your potential users. You might have created eye-catching ads, however, the problem is that the ads might be promising too much. When users land on your app page, they soon realize your ads only give a false impression of your app.
What happens then is that a lot of people are coming in, but only a few are downloading your app. You can just imagine how this can dramatically lead to a low conversion rate.
Remember, your main goal here is that you want more people who want to download your app, but not ones who simply want to visit your app page without downloading it.
In short, you want to gain high-quality ad traffic. Quantity is good, however, quality is very important.
Reason no. 3: Global trends
There are external factors that are just beyond your control. These factors are known to affect your conversion rate. One good example would be the current pandemic that is gripping the entire world today.
Caption: The pandemic has changed the way people use mobile apps
Some of the apps have benefited from the pandemic while others totally shut down because of it. For example, fitness apps that accentuate in home workouts got more downloads since people are staying home more than ever. One good example would be the rise of Leap Fitness Group’s “Home Workout.”
If you read the review section of this app, you will see a lot of people talking about how this app helped them cope up with lockdowns and social distancing measures.
In one publication of Visual Capitalist, it mentioned that Doordash, a food delivery app, gained 150,000 new users in April 2020. Because people are compelled to stay at home, more and more try to get food through Doordash.
On the other hand, Uber is among the most hard stricken apps because of the pandemic. Even as a ride-hailing giant, it didn’t escape the negative effect of COVID-19. At the height of the lockdown, Uber app saw a decrease in usage 80%. Not only that, but customers were down from 90 million to 55 million.
Of course, when we talk about global trends, we must also take seasonality into consideration. For example, there are apps that get higher conversion rates during a specific time of the year, while they get lower rates at other times.
Online shopping apps get more downloads during holidays such as Christmas and New Year. Travel apps may also see a huge increase in their downloads during summer.
So, if you are getting a lower conversion rate, think about the seasonality for your app category as well. It may have an impact on your conversion rate.
Since these factors are something you can’t really control, the best thing you can do is to take precautions to mitigate the negative effects of seasonality and negative trends.
Reason no. 4: You’re not ready to be featured yet
We all love to be featured on the app stores, right? Who doesn’t want to? If you get featured especially in top charts, you instantly get more visible, and the higher your visibility the more traffic you get. However, the problem here is that getting more traffic doesn’t result in getting a higher conversion rate simultaneously.
Caption: a screenshot of the apps in the top charts in Google Play Store.
For example, if the majority of the new traffic you’re getting from includes people who are just curious about your app, they may visit your app page, but are not motivated enough to download your app.
If your app page isn’t designed to guide potential users and take the next step of utilizing your app, you are just wasting traffic. Needless to say, you will have a lower conversion rate.
Reason no. 5: Technical problems
Sometimes, there’s really no significant change in the number of people visiting your app page versus those who are downloading it. The problem lies in your app conversion tracking or data acquisition tool.
In some cases, you might be using a third-party ASO tool. If yes, then you have to also check your provider and see if they are having technical difficulties. If there’s something wrong with the tools you’re using, it is either new data is missing or if there is data, it is not being displayed properly.
Now, technical problems don’t only happen with ASO tools, but they could also happen in app stores. As sophisticated and technologically advanced app stores are, such as Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store, bugs and errors can still happen.
For example, last November 2020, the App Store was stricken with a bug that affects creative sets. The bug causes the App Store to mistakenly attribute impressions of new creative sets to the default creative sets. This problem can affect A/B testing and eventually conversion rate.
When things like this happen, you need to check forums for any updates about app store issues. You can also check the official social media pages of app stores and see if they have announcements. Keep track of the scheduled maintenance period of app stores. To confirm, you can reach out to the app store concerned and ask if there’s any known issue going on.
Final words
Knowing the reason for your app conversion rate dropping is one thing, but knowing how to correct the problem is another. Yes, determining the reason is just the first step, but it is the most important part of the problem-solving process. You can’t actually solve anything without knowing why it happened.
So, since you already know the reasons for your app conversion rate to drop, it’s time to take some actions to correct mistakes and prevent future problems.
