Analysis of app usage on over 100m smartphones and tablets by marketing tech company RadiumOne has found that high-value users account for just 17 per cent of the audience, but 85 per cent of app revenue, making targeting such users a key priority for marketers.

The firms State of Mobile Acquisition report aims to highlight how companies can use mobile data to ultimately increase app revenue, and found that marketers have a huge opportunity to acquire more high-value mobile users via both their own apps and outside of them.

High-value users engage more than four times as much than the average user and account, on average for 85 per cent of app revenue across sectors including retail, sports, communication and music. The difference was the most distinct in communication apps, where high-value users have five times as many in-app sessions as the average user.

High-value users tend to show greater loyalty to retail apps, installing less rival apps on their phone, but also have more lifestyle apps, opening up the ability for marketers to acquire new high-value users via other apps.

“The report further underscores the need for marketers to look outside their own app for signals to truly get to know their high-value users,” said Bill Lonergan, CEO at RadiumOne. “Taking in data from the entire ecosystem, including third part apps and web sites, determines how customers act outside of apps and will only help marketers reach them in a more effective way, ultimately leading to increased revenue.”

According to the report, key strategies for acquiring high-value mobile users include focusing on the segment the drives the majority of revenue using in-app analytics and targeting potential high-value users with both in-app and mobile web ad campaigns.