Re-Engagement: Building Relationships That Last

Re-engagement is often taken as a last-touch method in a brand’s customer acquisition journey. What happens to those hard-earned leads from your last campaign? Cart abandonment, losing touch, and ultimately being forgotten if you are not creating lasting value. The best brands know that re-engagement isn’t just about bringing users back; it’s about building relationships that stand the test of time.

In our latest Performance+ webinar, our panel featuring Arti Shah, New Business Agency Director at Moloco; Josh Kirby, Programmatic Director at M+C Saatchi Performance; Megan Price, Programmatic Strategy & Planning Director at M+C Saatchi Performance; and Justin Trieu, Mobile Growth Lead from SplitMetrics, discussed what great customer retention really means, and how to manage existing assets and earn user attention to drive sustainable growth. Watch the full on-demand webinar for practical tips and strategies here

When asked to define great customer retention in one word, our panel had three powerful takes: Asset Management, Attention, and Sustainability. Together, they summed up what it truly means to nurture existing users, stay visible in moments that matter, and build relationships that last.

Why is Re-Engagement Asset Protection?

The one-dimensional notion that marketing is all about chasing new users needs to change. You also need to keep an eye on the ones you’ve already gained through your campaigns. That way, you’re protecting the users you’ve acquired by keeping your communication alive. Statistically, retaining users who have already shown interest in your brand is five times more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. They also tend to have a 150% higher retention rate.

“Much like dating apps, where you keep swiping to find matches, if you don’t start a conversation or build a connection, you’re never going to get on a date, let alone form a relationship.”

Arti Shah, New Business Agency Director at Moloco

How to Plug the “Leaky Middle”?

“Retention doesn’t start after acquisition; it starts with acquisition.”

Justin Trieu, Mobile Growth Lead from Splitmetrics

Marketers who optimize during post install events, rather than simply chasing installs for scale are seeing up to 42% higher retention. The first step is to make sure that we bring in the right users with high LTV. Identifying those high-value users and reverse-engineering your UA funnel is how you protect and grow long-term value.

Enter AI: In the app space, only less than 10% of installers become buyers. It’s critical to track and pull these users in the right way. AI is making this process easier by helping marketers track, segment, and retarget users effectively as they move through the funnel.

Building familiarity is key: Tactics like sequential messaging and consistent brand presence help maintain user trust and recognition.

Creative & Messaging: To nurture users through the funnel, serve the right creatives and messages at the right time.

How To Make Your Creatives Work?

Relevance: Creatives should reflect where the user is in their lifecycle and align with their experience at that exact moment.

Consistency: Ensure your creative assets across the App Store, website, and other touchpoints maintain a similar look and feel. Consistency builds recognition and trust.

Urgency: Add time-bound elements like countdowns or limited-time offers to create a sense of urgency and prompt users to act.

Interactive Elements: Motion, carousels, and playable assets consistently outperform static formats by engaging users through interactivity.

Personalization: Web and in-app personalization amplify all the above. Tailor your creative to user behavior and context for stronger impact.

Testing: Testing remains crucial. Even small creative tweaks can unlock major performance gains. A structured, continuous testing cycle ensures constant learning and improvement.

Avoid Creative Fatigue: 49% of consumers say that seeing the same ad repeatedly makes them less likely to buy. Creative fatigue often starts when CTRs drop 10–15% week over week as AI accelerates creative production.

Seasonality: As we enter the holiday period, creatives should reflect cultural nuances and emotional relevance to connect authentically with audiences.Creative Hygiene: Great creative is about integrity. Intelligent testing and disciplined creative hygiene safeguard user value and drive sustained growth.

Why You Should Rethink you Measurement Metrics?

While it’s important to rethink how we approach user acquisition, it’s equally crucial to change how we measure success. Metrics like installs, CPAs, and ROAS only tell part of the story.

Instead of asking “How many new users did we get?“, the better questions are: “What’s the total value of our customer base? How is it growing? And what’s driving that growth?“

Incrementality testing helps reveal the true lift your campaigns, showing the actual impact beyond what would have happened organically.

M+C SaatchiOneView is an in-house MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling) solution enabling us to measure the real impact and granularity of each campaign. Measuring success, therefore, begins with confidence in the data and understanding whether re-engagement is genuinely adding long-term value.

Where is customer retention heading in the next few years?

Retention won’t be an afterthought: Research shows that it often takes eight contact points for someone to decide to buy, which highlights the importance of ongoing retention, sequential messaging, and incrementality frameworks.

Currently, 80% of a brand’s budget goes toward acquisition, while only 20% is spent on retargeting or re-engagement. We’ll see a more balanced approach in the coming years as budgets are allocated more strategically.

Product, analytics, and growth teams will increasingly work together to build meaningful experiences for customers from the very first interaction. Through AI, systems will be able to identify at-risk users much earlier allowing brands to intervene proactively and strengthen retention.

In Summary

Re-engagement is a mindset, where brands treat retention as an ongoing relationship, and not just a campaign. See how industry leaders approach retargeting across platforms for practical tips and strategies. Watch the full on-demand webinar for practical tips and strategies here.

Ready to turn retention into your next growth engine? Let’s talk about building your re-engagement strategy.