8 Mobile App Engagement Strategies That Actually Improve Retention
Proven tactics product teams use to keep users coming back. From gamification to lifecycle emails, learn what works and when to use each strategy.
Charlie Hopkins-BrinicombeGamification Guides
Useful guides on how to build gamification features
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Build an Energy Feature
Building energy systems from scratch means handling regeneration, consumption, and caps. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
Jason Louro
How to Build an XP Feature
Building XP systems from scratch means handling points triggers, economic balance, and award logic. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
Jason Louro
How to Build a Streaks Feature
Building streak tracking from scratch means solving time zones, consistency, and edge cases. Here's the technical reality and faster path.
Charlie Hopkins-BrinicombeOther Posts
How to Build a Leaderboards Feature
Building leaderboards from scratch takes months and creates ongoing maintenance burden. Here's the technical reality and a faster alternative.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Setting Up Seasonal Competitions and Events
Time-limited competitions create urgency and re-engage dormant users. Here's how to run seasonal events without permanent complexity.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Email and Push Notifications That Don't Kill Your Gamification
Poorly timed notifications turn motivating gamification into nagging spam. Here's how to keep users engaged without annoying them.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Handling Time Zones in Global Gamification Features
Time zones break gamification features in subtle ways. A user in Tokyo and a user in New York can't fairly compete on daily goals without careful handling.
Jason Louro
Using Gamification Data to Understand User Behavior
Gamification creates data that reveals what users actually care about, not just what they say they care about.
Jason Louro
How B2B Platforms Use Gamification Without Looking Unprofessional
B2B gamification requires professional design and workplace-appropriate mechanics. Learn how to drive engagement without undermining credibility.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Productivity App Gamification That Doesn't Backfire
Productivity gamification can enhance focus or create busywork. Learn how to reward genuine productivity without encouraging productivity theater.
Jason Louro
Social Platform Engagement Beyond Likes and Follows
Likes and follows create passive audiences. Learn how social platforms use gamification to drive real participation and community.
Jason Louro
Your First Week Implementing Gamification with a Platform
Most teams expect gamification implementation to take months. Here's what actually happens in the first week with a platform.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Testing Gamification Features Before Full Rollout
Rolling out untested gamification can damage retention instead of improving it. Here's how to validate features work correctly.
Jason Louro
How to Roll Out Gamification to Existing Users Without Chaos
Adding gamification to an app with existing users requires careful planning. Here's how to avoid confusion and backlash.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Your Leaderboard Is Only Motivating Your Top 1%
Platform-wide leaderboards create motivation for elite users while demotivating everyone else. Here's how to fix it.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
What Metrics Actually Prove Gamification Is Working
Gamification engagement metrics look impressive but often hide whether features actually improve retention. Here's what to measure instead.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How Long Until Gamification Improves Your Retention Numbers
Teams expect immediate retention improvements from gamification. The reality is more complex and depends on what you're measuring.
Jason Louro
Calculating ROI on Gamification Investment
Gamification requires investment but measuring return is complex. Here's how to calculate whether your gamification pays off.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
When Your App Needs a Streak Feature
Streaks drive habit formation in apps. Learn when they work, when they backfire, and how to implement them effectively for your product
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
What Makes Achievement Systems Work (And Why Most Fail)
Most achievement systems fail because they reward the wrong actions. Learn what makes achievements effective and common mistakes to avoid.
Jason Louro
Why Leaderboards Drive Competition in Some Apps But Not Others
Leaderboards boost engagement in fitness and learning apps but fail in many others. Learn when they work and when to skip them entirely.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
When Your App Needs an XP System
XP systems reward user progress and drive engagement. Learn when they work, how to balance earning rates, and implementation considerations.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
When Your App Needs an Energy System
Energy systems meter usage to drive engagement patterns. Learn when they work, how to balance regeneration, and why Duolingo switched to energy.
Trophy Team
How Streak Freezes Keep Users Engaged Without Killing Motivation
Streak freezes prevent lost streaks from destroying motivation. Learn how to balance forgiveness with accountability in your streak system.
Jason Louro
Gamification Strategies for EdTech Apps
EdTech gamification requires balancing engagement with learning outcomes. Learn strategies that drive retention without undermining education.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Push Notifications Without Annoying Users: Buen Provecho's Location-Based Strategy
How do you keep users engaged when you don't always have products available? Guillermo reveals their approach to personalized push notifications based on the last purchase location and a 48-72 hour cooling period.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Managing Retention When 75% of Your Users Can't Find Products
With supply constraints creating empty shelves for many users, retention becomes tricky. Guillermo discusses how they balance growth with user experience and avoid burning out their audience.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How To Create a Duolingo-style Points Feature For Your Web or Mobile App
Learn how Duolingo's XP feature drives user engagement and how to build an XP feature for your web or mobile app.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Why Duolingo switched to ‘Energy’ and how to build an Energy feature for your app
Duolingo recently introduced a new feature called ‘Energy’ to replace the long-known 'Hearts' feature. This shifts the focus from penalizing mistakes to rewarding success and represents an opportunity for app developers to rethink their gamification strategy.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
The Psychology of Streaks: How Sylvi Weaponized Duolingo's Best Feature Against Them
Speaking on the Levels Podcast, Amy shared how understanding streak psychology helped Sylvi capitalize on market disruption and create a retention system that actually serves user goals rather than just app engagement.
Jason Louro
How to Design Gamification That Actually Retains Users
Sylvi AI's approach offers valuable lessons for any B2C startup looking to implement gamification that enhances rather than detracts from their core value proposition.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Why Your B2C App Needs a WhatsApp Group: The Retention Strategy You're Missing
Amy Cameron, Head of Marketing at Sylvi AI, discovered a surprisingly powerful retention strategy that any B2C app can implement immediately: adding new users to a WhatsApp group during onboarding.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How To Create Duolingo-style Progress Reports For Your App
Duolingo is famous for having fun and engaging lifecycle email marketing and it's a big driver of retention. But what if you could follow their strategy without all the upfront work?
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Send Charts in Lifecycle Email Campaigns (Don’t Use Images!)
Using charts in emails is great for engagement, but can hurt email deliverability. Here's the solution.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Prevent Lifecycle Emails From Becoming Boring With Trophy
Users get a lot of lifecycle emails throughout their journey with your product. So how do you maintain freshness and relevance in the inbox? Learn how Trophy text variations can solve this problem.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Design Personalized Lifecycle Emails With Trophy Variables
Learn how to use email variables to design personalized and relevant lifecycle email campaigns that improve your app’s retention.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Design Gamified Lifecycle Emails With Trophy
Learn how to design engaging and personalized lifecycle email campaigns that improve your app’s retention.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How To Build A Gamified NextJS App With Achievements
Achievements can be an exciting feature for any consumer-facing web or mobile application yet can be surprisingly complex to manage at scale. In this blog I’ll walk through best practices for adding achievements to a NextJS flashcard study platform using Trophy.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Simple Gamification Achievement Badges With Trophy
Use achievement badges as part of your gamification strategy to reward and motivate users for using your application. Learn about multi-stage, one-off and streak-based achievements and the different ways to use them.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Using Trophy To Build A Gamified Study App
Learn how to use Trophy to implement features like achievements, streaks and gamified re-engagement emails in an example NextJS flashcard study app.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Power Gamification With User Behavior Tracking in NextJS
Watch how to ship features like achievements and streaks in your NextJS application with just a few lines of code.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
Powering Gamification With User Behavior Tracking
Use metrics to track user behavior and drive powerful gamification features like achievements, streaks and re-engagement emails.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe
How to Increase User Activation With Streaks
Streaks are one of the most powerful retention-driving features. Here we dive into how they work, walk through the product strategy, and see how you can ship streaks in just a few hours with Trophy.
Charlie Hopkins-Brinicombe