Brief:

• Female engagement with financial apps jumped 41% in 2018, demonstrating a stronger motivation among women to take control of their finances on mobile devices, according to a study of app data by mobile marketing platforms Liftoff and Leanplum shared with Mobile Marketer.
• The difference in cost to acquire male and female finance app users narrowed to $2.74 in 2018 from $7.69 a year earlier, the data shows. The cost to acquire a male financial app user rose 8.6% to $33.41, and declined for a female financial app user by 2.3% to $36.15, per the study.
• The growing adoption of financial apps among women may be explained by the increased global adoption of mobile technologies and growing number of college-educated women, Liftoff and Leanplum said. The analysis covers data from 10.3 billion impressions among 2.7 million app installs, 168 million clicks and 1.7 million activations and registrations.

Insight:

The growing popularity of financial apps among women is a global phenomenon that supports the idea that mobile technologies can help to enable female empowerment and present marketers with an expanding audience of consumers and financial decision-makers.

"As stereotypes fade and the gender gap closes, marketers are presented with exciting opportunities to connect women to the apps they love using," Liftoff and Leanplum noted in press materials. "As women increasingly assert their financial autonomy on mobile, marketers should keep a keen eye on this burgeoning market opportunity."

Their research also shows signification growth of financial apps in Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries. The cost to acquire a user who completes a registration fell 26% to $20.67 in 2018 from the prior year, making the region the least expensive globally. However, the data show that activation remains a hurdle. The cost-to-activation rose 29% to $49.47 among APAC users, while the activation rate was only 14%.

The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region also shows promising growth for financial apps. The cost to acquire an activating user may seem pricey dropped by about 50% to $50.62, which is still pricey by global standards. The EMEA's 13.6% install-to-activation rate is the lowest in the world, but it is five times the rate of the prior year. That kind of growth suggests that marketers of financial apps can't ignore developing markets as the adoption of mobile technologies becomes more widespread.