Creating successful mobile app user journeys

What is the difference between a user flow vs. user journey?

User flows and user journeys are both visualizations of how users interact with your app. The main difference between user flows and user journeys comes down to focus and detail.

User flows zoom in on individual actions and steps users take to accomplish specific tasks within your app’s interface. On the other hand, user journeys take a broader view. While they may reference individual flows (like login–see example below), the primary focus is on understanding the user’s overall experience, as well as the motivation and impact of each action. For example, what were they logging in to do? Did they find the process intuitive, or did they face frustrations? Insights from the user journey help you optimize future user flows by addressing pain points and improving the experience on a larger scale.

By combining both approaches, you get a comprehensive understanding of your app’s user experience. Together, they provide valuable insights to help you identify opportunities for improvement and drive better results.

What’s the difference between a marketing funnel vs. customer journey?

It’s important to note that the user journey and the user funnel are not interchangeable terms. When developing the marketing funnel, marketers focus on a broad audience from the company’s viewpoint. The basic concept is that your potential customers start at the top and move further down the funnel as they get closer to purchase.

Because of these distinctions, user journeys will account for users’ more complicated path to purchase than the marketing funnel. For example, you can create several user journeys based on different user personas, acknowledging that not all customers will share the same experience or even share the same use case for your app.

For example, user journey analysis could reveal:

• Users are overwhelmed by receiving too many emails, causing frustration and disengagement.
• Broken deep links used in promotions lead to drop-offs from a poor user experience.
• Inconsistencies in messaging across different channels confuse customers.
• A lack of personalization in content fails to resonate with users.
• Ineffective retargeting ads don't align with user intent or preferences.

Leaner app teams often don't have separate departments, so their roles may cross over different functions like marketing, sales, development, UX, and customer experience (CX). Here are some of the benefits for each business function:

To create accurate personas, use a combination of customer research, surveys, and analytics to gather insights into a well-rounded view of demographics, behaviors, and pain points. For example, while audience segmentation might tell you that a large portion of your audience is women aged 25-34, a persona provides a more nuanced view, such as Emily, a 29-year-old professional who values time-saving, mobile-friendly shopping experiences during her public transport commute.

Each persona should capture key details like:

• Demographics (age, gender, income, etc.)
• Goals and motivations (why they interact with your brand)
• Challenges and pain points (frustrations they face in their journey)
• Behaviors and preferences (how they engage with your brand and what influences their decisions)

Identify key touchpoints and potential friction

In today’s digital landscape, users are platform-agnostic, meaning they seamlessly switch between devices and channels. They might encounter your brand through an ad on social media, visit your website on a desktop, and then download your app on their smartphone. Each of these transitions represents its own phase with unique touchpoints.

Key modern customer journey stages include:

1. Ad exposure (often across multiple channels)
2. Website visits (via desktop or mobile web)
3. Text/SMS messages
4. App store pages
5. App install
6. In-app experiences

However, each touchpoint is also a potential point of friction, where you could lose their interest and, ultimately, their business. It’s helpful to have an idea of potential points of friction in the user journey to look for during customer journey analytics.

Common pitfalls in the user journey include:

• Inconsistent messaging
• Irrelevant advertising
• Broken links or redirects
• Disjointed cross-platform experiences
• Too many or poorly timed SMS messages
• Confusing app store listing
• Lengthy or unclear app install process
• Poor in-app navigation or onboarding

Pick the user journeys you’ll map

Start by deciding which critical user journeys to map, focusing on those that have the most significant impact on key vertical KPIs and your individual app’s objectives. For example, gaming apps might map the first in-app purchase journey. Finance apps may choose to map the onboarding journey or account setup journey.

Whatever you choose, break these journeys into distinct stages across the relevant points of the funnel from awareness through consideration, decision/purchase, and retention. Then, you’re ready to begin building the bones of your customer journey map. As you get started, you may wish to fill out a user journey diagram template.

First, you’ll choose a user persona and one associated objective or end action. Using our previous example, let’s say the persona is Emily, and the objective is Black Friday shopping. Start to sketch out the user touchpoints in your chosen user journey, along with your assumptions about their emotions at each point alongside any obstacles they may face.

Analyze the customer journey

To create an accurate customer journey map, it’s crucial to combine quantitative data and qualitative insights for your customer journey analytics. Together, they will help you fully understand how customers behave at each stage of the journey. This involves both leveraging attribution data with a mobile measurement partner (MMP) and conducting direct research with users who represent your core personas.

Attribution allows you to gather key quantitative data on how users interact with your marketing channels and how they move through the funnel. If users have opted in for tracking App Tracking Transparency for iPhone users, you can follow their individual journeys, gaining more precise data on their specific interactions. Otherwise, you can rely on aggregated data and next-generation methods to form an accurate view of the user journey.

However, for the sentiment aspect of customer journey mapping, conducting research with users who represent your core persona is invaluable. This involves setting up user testing sessions where individuals walk through the specific journey. Techniques like moderated user testing, interviews, and post-session surveys provide qualitative data on why users behave a certain way, how they feel at each touchpoint, and what changes could improve their experience.

Assign ownership over pain points and set measurable goals

Once the customer journey map is complete, it’s crucial to assign ownership over the opportunities identified. They say ‘customer experience is a game of inches rather than yards’ because improving customer experience often requires small, incremental changes rather than large, sweeping actions. Each minor adjustment—such as improving response times, personalizing interactions, or streamlining a feature—can have a significant impact over time.

Start by determining which team members or departments will be responsible for addressing specific friction points. Assigning ownership ensures accountability and clear progress tracking as teams work to resolve these issues. For example, marketing might handle messaging inconsistencies, while customer service could be tasked with improving post-purchase support.

Assign each action item to a corresponding key performance indicator (KPI) to help you assess the impact of your improvements and identify areas for further optimization. Here are some important KPIs to consider:

• Active users: Daily, weekly, or monthly active users, providing insight into user retention and engagement.
• Click-through rate (CTR): Measures the percentage of users who click on your ads, indicating ad effectiveness.
• Conversion rate: The percentage of users who complete a desired action (e.g., sign-ups, purchases), showing how well your funnel is performing.
• Retention rate: Indicates the percentage of users still engaging with your app after a specific period (e.g., day 7 or day 30).
• Churn rate: Measures the rate at which users stop returning to your app, helping identify drop-off points.
• Uninstalls: Monitors how many users uninstall your app and when it happens, providing insights into user dissatisfaction.
• Lifetime value (LTV): Estimates the total revenue a user is likely to generate throughout their engagement with your app.
• Return on ad spend (ROAS): Measures the overall effectiveness of your marketing spend on advertising.

Let’s see how this looks in practice with a few user journey map examples.

Finance app: Desktop to mobile policy management user journey map example

In this first example, we’ll look at the value of user journey analysis. Here, the ‘Emily’ user persona of a finance brand prefers to make big purchases on a desktop. However, they find it easier to manage their policy from mobile.

However, mapping this user journey reveals several friction points where extra steps take up the user’s time and lead to frustration. The first is when a link is sent to the user’s mobile phone. A basic short link is used, leading the user to the app store. However, the user already has the company’s app installed, so this causes annoyance.

Then, although the user was just logged in on desktop, they have to log in again on mobile. The log-in flow in this example demonstrates how user journey and user flow complement one another but ultimately differ. Finally, it takes several steps to navigate to the relevant policy document within the app.

To resolve these issues, the team implements a deep linking solution for a seamless desktop-to-mobile transition. Instead of requiring manual input, users receive an SMS with a deep link that directs them to the app with their policy information already pre-loaded. Better yet, since they’ve used Adjust’s TrueLink, the URL is short and branded. The improved user journey is significantly shortened and the user is getting a smoother, more consistent experience.

Check out more deep linking use cases for frictionless user journeys.

Shopping app: Email marketing customer journey example

In this journey, a user adds items to their shopping cart but abandons the purchase before checking out. The brand aims to re-engage the user through a targeted email to encourage them to return and complete the transaction.

This example shows why user research is crucial. While analytics reveal the point of cart abandonment, real users matching your persona highlight issues like wanting to see the sweater on a model, difficulty finding material and sizing info, and a lengthy payment process. Additionally, research shows the app logs users out after a few days, causing items to disappear from their cart. These pain points can now be mapped to the relevant teams for action items and KPIs on deliverables.

Gaming app: Customer acquisition journey map example

Now let’s look at an example of the relevance of the user persona in user journey mapping. User persona ‘Maya’ embodies a busy mother with several children. She has limited free time and is looking for something easy and quick to unwind with the few free moments she has to herself.

This user journey could look drastically different for another user persona. For example, a young professional who organically searches the app store for a game to play, and has more predictable periods of free time. There are some great considerations in the existing user journey for this segment, such as the cartoon ad placement, meeting the user where they’re at, and the tailored app store landing page. However, understanding the ‘Maya’ persona’s unique needs would allow the team to:

• Begin the funnel with CTV ads, OR move CTV ad placements to better align with the persona’s evening viewing after the kids have gone to bed.
• Push out the onboarding process, making it optional and incentivizing account completion.
• Place the opt-in prompt strategically to gain App Tracking Transparency (ATT) consent (If Maya is an iOS user), as this persona values personalized marketing but lacks time to set it up manually.

These examples are just the tip of the user journey iceberg. Mapping the customer journey is essential for understanding how users engage with your app and identifying opportunities for improvement. By analyzing each phase, from ad exposure through retention, you can pinpoint friction points and optimize the experience to meet the unique needs of each persona.

As a mobile measurement partner, Adjust provides the tools to measure and analyze user engagement throughout these journeys, offering insights into user behavior and performance at every touchpoint. Deep linking solutions like TrueLink further enhance the experience by seamlessly connecting users across devices and channels, reducing drop-offs and increasing engagement.

With mobile analytics, personalized insights, and continuous optimization, you can transform end-to-end user journeys into growth engines that deliver measurable results for your business. Request a demo to see how Adjust’s analytics can facilitate insightful user journey maps and optimization measurement.