Report from Branch Spotlights Importance of Retention, Impact of Recent Privacy Changes

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 25, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Branch, the industry's leading linking and measurement partner for the enterprise, today released its State of App Growth survey report, which shows just 8% of companies surveyed have a fully unified view of their app marketing performance across multiple channels. Additionally, only 18% are very confident in their ability to accurately attribute app installs.

Experience the full interactive Multichannel News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/branch-metrics/9319751-en-branch-state-of-app-growth-survey-results

"Too often, marketers think growth comes from pouring more money into acquisition," said Paula Mantle, VP of Marketing at Branch. "But the brands breaking through are the ones doubling down on retention, engagement and consistency across every platform. An active, loyal user base is the real growth engine."

Key Findings
User Acquisition
36% of respondents said scaling acquisition without increasing costs is their biggest challenge, followed by converting ad clicks into app installs (24%) and targeting the right users with paid campaigns (23%). Deep linking is a key unlock in improving ad campaign performance according to 61% of respondents.

Privacy
Privacy changes (e.g., SKAdNetwork, GDPR, ATT) are impacting attribution and measurement strategies with 41% of respondents reporting more challenges in cross-channel attribution, 40% saying privacy changes have made contextual targeting more critical, and 40% reporting increased costs for data collection and analysis. An overwhelming 74% of respondents say privacy regulations are creating costly measurement blind spots.

User Retention
Retention continues to be a hot button issue for mobile marketers, who list their three biggest retention challenges as difficulty in activating user data for personalization (47%), tracking and measuring retention success (47%) and lack of visibility into user behavior post-acquisition (43%).

Branch, in collaboration with GlobalSurveyz, collected over 700 survey responses from marketing and product executives at global companies to learn their top mobile attribution, user acquisition, retention and measurement challenges. 

To access the full survey results, download the State of App Growth report here.

About Branch
Branch is the linking and measurement partner for growth-focused teams, trusted to maximize the value of their evolving digital strategies. World-class brands like Instacart, Western Union, NBCUniversal, Zocdoc and Reddit rely on Branch to acquire users, retain customers and drive more conversions.

Media Contact: For media inquiries, please contact jordan.mcmahon@branch.io.

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SOURCE Branch Metrics