Dive Brief:

• Sixty-seven percent of over-the-top (OTT) service apps "churn," which is defined as not being used to play media, within the first two weeks, according to a new report from mobile marketing platform CleverTap provided to Marketing Dive. The report analyzed 8.7 billion data points. 
• The apps have an average retention rate of 41.8% for users after seven days. Other findings include 43% of apps are abandoned one month after download, and just 26% of new OTT app users engage with media at least three times in the first month. 
• Seventy-eight percent of new OTT app users register within a week, and it takes a new user an average of eight minutes to register after first launching the app. Push notifications on OTT apps have an average click-through rate of 5%. 

Dive Insight:

The CleverTap research reveals several viewing behaviors, which can help marketers engage with viewers on the platforms and boost retention. Improving user experience and offering unique interactions through push notifications, in-app personalized recommendations and offering incentives are ways that marketers can engage with OTT app users in real time to prevent such high churn rates and increase retention rates.

Consumers, who are increasingly on-the-go, are choosing to stream content on OTT apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu. More than 49 million, representing 53% of households in the U.S., subscribe to at least one OTT service and consume content an average of 19 days a month for 2.2 hours per day, according to a Video Advertising Bureau report. The competition in the OTT space is becoming more competitive, as services vie for viewers. 

While marketers are investing more in OTT as consumer adoption has increased and services have started offering more ad opportunities, CleverTap's research suggests its still very much an open market in terms of deciding which platforms to commit to as churn rates are hight . Ad spend on OTT TV is projected to increase 40% to $2 billion in 2018, according to a fall update to Magna's U.S. ad forecasts for 2018 that was released last month. Magna also reports that 80% of U.S. households will be reachable via OTT this year.