A Complete Guide to Mobile Attribution for Food & Drink Apps

In the Food & Drink vertical, convenience and personalization drive installs engagement, and loyalty as users rely on apps to make their day-to-day lives less complicated by food shopping and meal preparation. 

Apps from food delivery platforms such as Swiggie, iFood, Rappi, Grubhub, Deliveroo, and Postmates, as well as quick service restaurants such as Pizza Hut, Dominos Pizza, McDonalds, and Chipotle, have emerged as leaders in providing convenience to users, particularly since the spread of COVID-19. 

Food & Drink apps were growing at a healthy rate before the pandemic, but as people stayed at home and restaurants closed, numbers skyrocketed. According to our data, global installs of Food & Drink apps increased by more than 20% in 2020 compared to 2019. (through November).

Top challenges of food & drink apps marketing in 2023

While Food & Drink apps excel at brand loyalty and sales, there are multiple challenges to overcome:

• Securing loyalty to drive downloads and orders
• Migrating users from web discovery to mobile app
• Personalizing
• First-time onboarding

Securing loyalty to drive downloads and orders.

Because there are so many Food & Drink brands available on mobile apps, a user has dozens of options, making differentiation in an increasingly crowded vertical difficult.

Migrating users from web discovery to mobile app.

Many Food & Drink brands see strong web-to-app migration among customers who typically order online, but face a challenge among users who use the web for discovery and call or order in-store rather than downloading and engaging with the mobile app.

Personalizing content.

Deep linking, remarketing push notifications, and targeted advertising can be used by an app in this vertical to personalize messaging and keep users engaged. Furthermore, in the age of GDPR and CCPA, marketers must strike a balance between respecting user privacy and meeting user expectations of a personalized app experience.

First-time onboarding.

Ideally, mobile marketers who provide Food & Drink content would use raw attribution data to segment and capitalize on deep links, ensuring that new users are directed to personalized content on a smooth path to making their first purchase (ideally within the first day after install).

Best practices for food & drink apps attribution: user acquisition and retargeting

Deep measurement and optimization, in general, ensures that marketers can zero in on the users they want and improve their overall marketing performance.

Effective user acquisition with attribution 

1. Measure rich in-app events

With rich in-app events, you can improve audience segmentation and downstream analytics. These can include a wide range of data points collected throughout the user journey, from download to order to checkout. Make sure to track engagement and retention metrics such as visits to specific landing pages and the number of purchases.

2. Use deep links

 As previously stated, deep linking is a well-established practice in mobile Food & Drink apps. Deep links increase engagement, retention, and conversion, but you must test to determine which call to action provides the most bang for your buck.

3. Make sure your partners can deliver across platforms and devices

Making sure that your platform partners can work across devices is one challenge in cross-platform measurement. Some services, for example, are only available on mobile, which will limit your capabilities if your users use your app on both their mobile phone and their smart tv. If this is the case with your app, it is critical to collaborate with partners who support as many platforms as possible.

4. Convert trial members to engaged returning customers intelligently

How do you encourage trial users to become regular users of your app? One strategy is to incorporate content and offers into the onboarding flow as soon as the user signs up. When a user invests in and expresses interest in a product (for example, burritos, appetizers, or drinks), you have a valuable data point to use to engage them with emails or push notifications.

In addition, delivering the call-to-action on the mobile device is an untapped strategy in the vertical. For example, if a user signs up on a laptop, an immediate text message with a link to download the app is sent to their phone. The more you incorporate device downloads into the sign-up process, the better.

Retargeting with attribution

1. Personalization - Not just for UA

With the sophistication of marketing technology and the growing number of apps available, app users expect personalized experiences from start to finish. Re-engage lapsed subscribers by using viewing histories. Reduce uninstall rates by combining deep links with other in-app event data. Choose ad partners who offer behavior or intent personalization and incorporate it into your marketing routine.

2. Leverage customer user IDs

Customer user IDs are essential in remarketing, especially in Food & Drink, where users may interact with a brand across multiple devices and platforms. With that information, you can see exactly what specific users do, when and where they do it and plan effective re-engagement efforts.

3. Leverage owned media

Many of your customers are already following your brand and/or specific content on social media or through email. Make use of those channels to drive downloads and installations. Once you've got them on mobile, you can use mechanisms like deep linking to target and acquire them with personalized content. Of course, email and push notifications can also be used for re-engagement.

4. Incrementality testing

Experiment with incrementality with each partner and channel. Every partner you work with will approach A/B testing and incrementality testing differently, and you will need to work with each one individually to set up the tests and conduct the analysis. When selecting your partners, consider their capacity and approach to incrementality testing.

Conclusion

Apps in the Food & Drink vertical have a plethora of factors working in their favor at this stage of development to help them achieve their business objectives. Consumer demand for Food & Drink content at any time and from any location has driven dramatic growth in the last two years, and the vertical is becoming increasingly competitive.

The bottom line takeaway from this expansion is the importance of granular measurement in propelling marketers forward. If you implement the above recommendations and metrics, you will lay the groundwork for future profitability, performance, and success.