Google Pay uses tooltips to activate new users

Context

77% of new users abandon an app within three days of app install and never return. This number jumps to 90% within the first month.

Google Pay tackles this by ensuring more users complete the core action that correlates to long-term retention 🔁. This is achieved by delivering the right onboarding experience.

When using Google Pay, new users will experience the value of the app when they make a transaction, either by scanning a QR code 📲 or searching for contacts, and users who do these actions are more likely to stick around for the long-term.

Why this works

For a cohort of users who’ve opened the app more than one time and still haven’t explored the search or the scan feature, Google Pay uses well-placed tooltips to nudge that segment of new users to complete the core action.

This reduces time-to-value as the new user immediately knows the right action to take, and thereby increases activation rates.