App developers need to focus on getting users to engage “over and over again” with an app and one way to do this is personalisation, Adam Spector, co-founder and head of business at LiftIgniter, told Mobile World Live.

Developers usually try to personalise app content by asking users certain questions when they sign up.

Examples of this include asking if they like “politics/tech/sports or perhaps whether they prefer red pants over blue pants or jeans over khakis,” said Spector (pictured).

The problem with this approach is that what a user likes “right now, at this very moment, may be wildly divergent from what they will like tomorrow, next month or next year,” he explained.

“Who you are right now is what matters,” he said, adding that “true personalisation is about showing each and every user the perfect piece of content right now, at each finger swipe.” And the way to do this is via machine learning.

His company LiftIgniter provides automated plug and play machine learning personalisation.

LiftIgniter claims it is able to automatically predict, with a high degree of accuracy, exactly what the user will click on next. Each user action should have an automated, intelligent reaction from the app.

“It should be like the app is having a conversation with the user,” he said.

The way the system works is “you send us data about user actions, we send you predictions about what they want to do next within your app. We average 70 per cent improvement in engagement,” he elaborated.

“Think about that – you have a ton of content but you have no real idea what that specific user really wants. In many cases, that’s because the user doesn’t even know what they want.”

If users engage repeatedly with an app, this will automatically drive up greater user growth, because users tell friends about apps they really like, he explained.

“Automated, real-time personalisation is the future of apps. Look at what Facebook, Google and Amazon are doing. Anyone that wants to compete with them for revenue needs a way to keep their users engaged,” he said.