New Release: Branch’s Industry Report Reveals Cross-Platform Trends

In the early days of the web, it was easy enough to focus on your website and email as major drivers of engagement, conversions, and analytics. However, as devices and platforms have multiplied, today’s users engage with brands across multiple touch points.

While just a few years ago, cutting-edge brands were focused on being mobile-first, research shows that is no longer enough.

Here’s why: Cross-platform users now outnumber their single-touchpoint peers globally, and account for nearly 65% of digital users in the United States alone. As a result, it has  become even more critical for companies to react to the evolving demands of today’s user – or risk losing marketing spend and revenue.

Today, we’re excited to announce our own contribution to the data within this space, the Branch Industry Report: Mobile Trends in Focus.

Branch powers cross-platform experiences for users across more than 40,000 apps. For the purposes of this report, we analyzed over five billion app installs and six billion web sessions to reveal cross-platform, paid, and organic acquisition, and organic engagement trends from top apps in ten industry categories, including eCommerce, travel, finance, and social networking.

One of our biggest findings: Cross-platform users spend more than their single-platform counterparts.

In addition, our report brings several interesting trends into focus:

• Retention varies greatly by acquisition channel and the difference becomes even starker when looking at 28-day window vs. a 7-day one.
• Organic channels like the mobile web and referrals show an average retention 6X and 2.5X better than purely paid acquisition channels.
• Personalization across platforms can significantly increase ROI. For example, personalizing web banners by user type, visit type, source, and other factors increases view-to-install rates by 2X on average.
• With skyrocketing acquisition costs, retention is becoming more important. Retention rate varies greatly by app type and industry —new entrants must understand industry benchmarks and their own benchmark before spending on paid acquisition.

Ready to discover even more key insights about cross-platform behavior, paid and organic channels, and retention trends? Click here to access Branch’s Industry Report: Mobile Trends in Focus.