What Are Daily Active Users?

How Do You Calculate DAU?

Before finding out how to calculate daily active users, app marketing teams first need to define what their app recognizes as “active users.” 

What action should users complete in order to be considered an active user? Do they need to create an account and log in, click a button, or scroll – or just open the app? 

Once they’ve decided on how to identify their active users, they are ready to calculate their daily active users as follows:

Why Is DAU Important?

An app’s DAU metric comprises both new users and returning users. App marketing teams can simultaneously measure how quickly their app attracts new users and how quickly they return day after day – or how “sticky” their app is. 

An app with millions of downloads but a low DAU metric begs the question: “Are users actually engaging with this app?”

Here’s why the daily active users metric matters in app marketing.

1. User Engagement

DAU allows app publishers to measure both user engagement and calculate potential user revenue. If teams want to increase user engagement rates in the long term, they must also be able to bring in more unique active users. 

When monitored together with monthly active users (MAU), the DAU metric can help apps track whether or not users are churning over time and take appropriate action to remedy the situation. 

Tracking this key metric over a period of time is often considered a more accurate way to determine if an app has significant traction than MAU. 

2. Use DAU to Calculate Other KPIs

Other key metrics, such as lifetime value (LTV), average revenue per day active user (ARPDAU), and retention rate can’t be calculated without knowing an app’s DAU metric.

No publisher can deny that DAU is a crucial metric to consider to understand app stickiness. Active users however don’t always indicate happy users – so they should keep in mind that combining DAU with other KPIs will give a better holistic picture of users’ in-app experience. 

Besides combining DAU with other related metrics, such as monthly active users (MAU), apps shouldn’t neglect their user acquisition metrics, in-app purchases (IAPs), reviews, and time spent in the app. These are all critical to help app marketers better understand their app’s performance and if there are any problems to address.

3. Compare with Industry Standards

App marketers can get a sense of how well (or how poorly) their app is performing by looking at how their daily active users compare against industry averages.

What is a good number of daily active users on mobile apps? Benchmarks will vary depending on the app vertical and the geo in which it is being used – but also on an app’s particular growth goals. If marketers want to increase their DAU, they will most likely need to increase their app’s user acquisition efforts.

How to Increase Daily Active Users

Marketers wanting to know how to increase daily active users on mobile apps, should first of all optimize their user acquisition strategy and grow their user base with paid media. This user base should consist of quality users, users to whom the app is most relevant. These users are more likely to convert into daily active users.

After that, they can take steps to keep the users they have already acquired engaged: 

• Send users push notifications to re-engage them – but avoid alienating users by sending these too often
• Remind users of an app via email – this could help, particularly, with onboarding 
• Create special events that drive users back to an app – this can be done with live-ops or even seasonal promotions to earn rewards
• Introduce daily rewards – this will require users to open an app every day

Conclusion

The DAU metric is invaluable for measuring app stickiness and how users interact with an app on a daily basis. App marketers know that an increasing DAU metric, in combination with higher engagement and app retention rates, is a great sign that apps are acquiring and engaging the right users.

FAQs