• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, November 1, 2011

Discovery isn’t the big problem for mobile apps, says Simon Khalef, CEO of Flurry, an app metrics company.  It’s re-engaging the customers you already acquired.

Apps have “a traffic acquisition problem,” he says. Consumers are finding millions of apps, all the time. The trick is retaining and leveraging that acquired customer.

That is the spin behind Flurry’s latest tool for developers, which it calls AppCircle Re-Engagement. The idea is to re-engage users after they have downloaded an app once before, then remind them of your resources even when they are in other people’s apps.

The advertising tool targets people who have already downloaded a developer’s app and deleted or left it behind. The developer/publisher can define their target by usage levels, age, gender and region or even more granular segments, such as whether users made in-app purchases.

In essence, the product lets the app maker try to re-up lapsed customers who may have forgotten about an app or simply been distracted by the many other options. Flurry argues that re-targeting former users focuses energy and investment on the publisher’s most qualified targets.

The AppCircle Re-Engagement product is based on the existing AppCirlce traffic acquisition network, which Flurry says now reaches 150 million unique devices. The Re-Engagement product is performance-priced with a cost-per action, starting at $.50 triggered only when the user launches the advertised app.