Struggling with user churn despite pouring money into the business? Implementing the right Customer Retention strategies can keep your new customers engaged and coming back.
Imagine downloading a new social media app, excited to explore its features. At first, it’s fun - you send messages, play with filters, and interact with friends.
But after a few days, the excitement fades. Notifications pile up, the novelty wears off, and before you know it, the app is forgotten, buried in a folder on your phone.
This is the harsh reality for most social platforms today - retaining users is harder than ever.
With endless distractions and competing apps vying for attention, keeping users engaged or getting loyal customers requires a data-driven focus on Customer Retention.
If you're looking to audit your current marketing technology and retention efforts, Martech Audit can help uncover gaps and optimization opportunities.
One platform that has mastered this challenge is Snapchat.
Despite fierce competition, Snapchat has managed to build a highly engaged customer experience through gamification, personalization, and social connectivity.
So, what exactly does Snapchat do differently to enhance customer loyalty?
And what can businesses learn from their retention playbook?
In this guide, we’ll break down Snapchat’s user retention strategies and explore actionable lessons for businesses looking to keep their customers engaged.
Getting new customers is easy - to retain customers is the real challenge.
Sure you may acquire many new customers, but what percentage of customers stick to your product? How many of them become loyal advocates of your service?
A Customer Retention strategy is all about making sure users stay engaged, happy, and loyal instead of drifting away to competitors. The strategy ensures higher customer satisfaction for a lower customer churn rate.
Customer Retention is important because it is way more cost-effective than acquisition.
Strong Customer Retention improving customer experience on your platforms. This not only reduces churn but also increase revenue, as loyal customers spend more and advocate for your brand.
Selling to existing customers has a success rate of 60-70%, whereas selling to new prospects is only 5-20%.
Big brands like Amazon, Spotify, and Apple know this and ensure their key Customer Retention metrics score high. They focus on personalization, habit-building, helpful customer support, seamless customer feedback, and frictionless experiences to keep users coming back. Snapchat takes it even further.
Just meeting customer needs is not enough. The 8 C’s of Customer Retention are key principles brands use to boost customer loyalty and engagement.
These include Customization, Community, Convenience, Communication, Commitment, Consistency, Care, and Choice. The goals of the 8cs hovers around strengthening customer relationship with the product or service.
Snapchat applies these in different ways to keep users active. Here’s a quick breakdown for you:
Customer Retention isn’t just about keeping users - it’s about measuring their engagement over time.
Conducting customer surveys, performing customer journey analysis, and tracking customer interactions gives you an idea of their engagement with your product or service.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the best way to track this. With the help of customer data and KPIs you can track customer behavior over time. This can help you develop effective marketing strategies to improve Customer Retention.
For social and subscription-based apps, the most important retention KPIs include:
Snapchat prioritizes habit-building and engagement by tracking key retention other metrics. A high DAU/MAU ratio reflects strong daily user activity, while Snap Streaks encourage consistent interactions, reinforcing daily habits.
The platform also measures time spent in-app, as longer sessions drive higher ad revenue. Additionally, Snap Scores and interactive features gamify the experience, motivating users to stay engaged and return frequently.
Retention is built in four stages, each guiding users from first interaction to long-term commitment.
Each stage plays a key role in guiding users from first interaction to long-term commitment.
Users need a reason to try the app. If you need to acquire new customers, you must show them its value. Strong branding, viral marketing, and influencer partnerships create awareness and drive new sign-ups.
A successful product or service is known by the facts that its retention revenue surpasses the customer acquisition costs.
The first interaction should be seamless. A frictionless signup process, guided feature introductions, and instant social connections help users get started. Remember, this is the first time a customer engages with your app or service. Failing to enhance customer experience can elevate churn risks.
Once users are onboarded, they need reasons to return. Habit-forming features, personalized content, and gamification reinforce regular usage.
A poor customer engagement is an alarming metric, which means you service or product fails to engage the users.
Snapchat reported that users who interact with at least three friends over a month have a retention rate exceeding 90% in the following month.
Loyal users feel connected to the product. Community-driven experiences, exclusive rewards, and personalization strengthen long-term retention and advocacy.
No product or service has a fixed strategy of how to increase Customer Retention. The key is to develop with data and trends and build a strong customer base.
Retention doesn’t happen by chance. The key to building lasting customer relationships and
Apps that keep users engaged follow a clear four-stage retention funnel.
Snapchat applies these strategies to keep users active and coming back. How? Here’s a breakdown -
Snapchat’s goal is to stand out and drive new sign-ups through branding, viral content, and influencer partnerships.
Snapchat removes friction and ensures new users start interacting immediately.
Snapchat ensures users form daily habits through gamification and personalized content. Maintaining a targeted and healthy lifecycle marketing ensures effective customer engagement.
Long-term retention happens when users feel connected to the platform and its community. It's a direct result of the overall customer experience on your platform.
Snapchat engages customers and addresses customer issues timely, thanks to their customer service team - building further trust among the user base. Efficient customer service also helps building lasting customer relationships.
Snapchat’s success in retention marketing isn't just about fun features - it’s about building habits, fostering social connections, exceptional customer service, customer loyalty programs, and continuously innovating.
Businesses can apply similar strategies to retain customers based on customer behavior and data.
It’s best to get a MarTech Audit done to identify gaps, get a detailed customer journey analysis, optimize engagement, and boost your Customer Retention.
Here are the Customer Retentions strategies you can use to increase Customer Retention and reduce churn rates in your business:
A retention strategy is a structured plan to keep customers engaged and loyal over time. It includes personalization, gamification, and community-building to reduce churn and improve long-term user retention.
Good Customer Retention means users keep coming back instead of dropping off. The benchmarks vary by industry: Subscription apps: 70-80% 30-day retention (Netflix & Spotify lead with over 75%).E-commerce: A repeat purchase rate above 30% (Amazon excels with Prime loyalty programs).Social media: DAU/MAU above 50% (TikTok outperforms with ~60% DAU/MAU due to its For You page).
30-day retention measures how many users are still active a month after signing up. Here’s what it means: Good: 40%+ users still engaged.Average: 20-30% retention.Poor: Below 20%, indicating high churn.
The most important factor in retention is consistent engagement. Whether through personalized content, gamification, or habit-forming features like Snapchat Streaks, keeping users actively involved reduces churn.
Customer Retention is calculated using this formula:Retention Rate=(Users at End−New Users/Users at Start)×100