Unlocking the Power of Apple's TipKit

In the dynamic world of mobile technology, we’re always looking for ways to enhance the user experience. One of the major challenges app developers face is in retaining users within that first week of download. 

Around 25% to 40% of users tend to abandon an app after the first day of downloading it. By the end of the first week, the retention rate drops further, with only 10% to 20% of users still actively using the app. 

So, what can Product Managers and Developers do to improve the odds of keeping new users engaged in their app?

Enter TipKit. 

Within this article we are going to talk about what exactly Apple’s new tool is, how it can help with onboarding, early-life activation, and finally, how Tipkit can improve the monetization and conversion funnel of your app. 

What is TipKit? 

Apple unveiled their latest groundbreaking innovation at the Worldwide Developers Conference, here’s their description of TipKit: 

“Intelligently educate your users about the right features at the right time with TipKit. This new framework includes templates that match what people are accustomed to seeing in system apps and are easily customizable to match the look and feel of your app. Add targeting to educate users on functionality related to their current context and manage the overall frequency to avoid showing the same tips again, even if the tips appeared on another device.” 

We tend to keep a close eye on these updates within the office, and we have to say—this tool had us more than a little excited, why? Because it perfectly aligns with our ethos of prioritizing seamless, intuitive user interactions. 

An example of what a ‘Tip’ looks like, source: apple

TipKit Unveiled: A Game-Changer in User Onboarding 

Gone are the days of struggling to create in-app onboarding experiences from scratch or relying on third-party providers. TipKit marks a significant leap forward.  

This is a native, out-of-the-box solution complete with adaptable templates. Apple’s latest tool empowers developers to craft tips and tutorials that seamlessly merge with an app's aesthetic—elevating the overall user experience. 

To provide that seamless user experience, developers must establish rules to identify who qualifies for specific tips (bombarding users with irrelevant tips isn’t advised). 

This is where custom rules come in handy. Users need to engage with a specific tab multiple times within a set timeframe to trigger a tip.  

With tailored eligibility rules in place, the system will automatically display tips to users who meet the predefined criteria, streamlining the process for developers and enhancing user engagement. Tips can also be tailored to profile or demographic, going beyond generic advice and guiding users on how to unlock the app's full potential right from the start. This is how TipKit really bridges the gap between developers and users. 

Apple’s example of 2 views that could be used to show a Tip. source: Apple 

Ensuring Early-life Engagement and Preventing Initial Churn 

TipKit aids early-life activation by providing developers with a powerful tool to guide users toward key actions and features that drive activation. With the right implementation, a product manager can use TipKit to boost early-life activation and improve their onboarding CRO.  

Here’s how: 

• Personalized Activation Tips: By leveraging user data and behaviour, Tipkit can deliver personalized activation and onboarding tips. These tips can be tailored to the user's specific profile, preferences, or interactions with the app, increasing the engagement and effectiveness of any tips provided.  

• Promoting Key Actions: Armed with the correct knowledge of your user and your product’s onboarding journey, developers can create and implement tips that will highlight the most essential and critical actions required to activate and fully utilize an app's functionality. With improved customer and user experience in mind, Tipkit tips should nudge users in the right direction, at the most appropriate points of the user journey (according to your product data). This helps users take the necessary steps to get started and become engaged with the app’s core features, and importantly, reduce drop-off.  

• Understanding Pain-points: Finally, you should review your product and customer data constantly. Try to understand where and when users are dropping off, and use a well placed tip to fill that gap. When you notice patterns leading to drop-off, you can provide users with engagement incentives, or steer them towards a high-value element of your app experience. The point is to always review, test, and iterate. See what works, what doesn’t, and how you can make things easier for your users. And before long you’ll have a truly optimized user experience.

By directing users towards advanced features and hidden gems with personalized and optimized messaging, TipKit fosters deeper engagement, longer sessions, and increased user satisfaction and understanding of the core product.  

If implemented correctly, Tipkit can be used to reduce friction and confusion, making it easier for users to complete the activation process, and ultimately, improve your onboarding conversion rate. 

Profitability and Monetization with TipKit 

By leveraging customizable rules and timing, developers or product managers can strategically utilize users’ product analytics and user data to implement tips that can guide users toward in-app purchases, subscriptions, or other revenue-generating features at crucial stages of the user journey.

Consequently, the data gathered from user interactions with both the tips and the features can be shared with other marketing teams to shape the structure of customer lifecycle journeys and refine their overall messaging within the app.

Moreover, by segmenting users based on different user journeys, supplemented by tips, we can identify high and low-value users, thereby improving the targeting efficiency of our marketing incentives.

With a good understanding of product analytics and the effective implementation of tips, TipKit empowers developers with an added layer to fine-tune their conversion funnels and subsequently, their monetization strategy for their apps.

Embrace the Power of TipKit with CMA 

The potential of TipKit is immense, significantly improving activation, conversion rates, engagement, and even profitability. At CMA, we are eager to explore this potential with clients across sectors, including gaming and prominent brands.  

If you’d like to learn more about how you can utilize TipKit within your business, please, get in touch.