Mobile app analytics should help the team answer a decision, not simply fill a dashboard. A growth lead needs to know where users come from, where they stop progressing, whether they return and whether their revenue can support acquisition. Start with those questions, define the events and cohorts, and assign an owner to act on the findings. This guide separates acquisition, engagement, product health and commercial metrics so the results are easier to use.
Table of Contents
What is Mobile App Analytics
Mobile app analytics describes tools that gather data from the mobile app to evaluate its performance and help in improving its execution. It tracks, and monitors app performance and evaluates the user’s experience. The time they spend on the app, the engagement, the bounce rate, the number of people downloading your app, what causes people to drop off your app, ROI, and much more.
Need for Mobile App Analytics
Mobile app analytics is the most crucial in analyzing your app performance. By using analytics you can keep an eye on every aspect of your mobile app and can make necessary changes and improvements. If you know what your audience likes and dislikes in your app, and what are their needs and desires you can introduce new features in your app or improve the existing ones according to the market demands and requirements. Mobile app analytics can help you:
- In getting user experience-related data
- New feature impact measurement
- Measuring the return on investment
- Tracking the no. of downloads
- Helps in improving the user experience by overcoming the flaws in your app
Event analytics, user research and technical QA answer different questions. Use them together: observe where the journey changes, ask why it may be happening, and test a fix. None of these tools guarantees a successful product on its own.
Mobile App Analytics can be used to analyze
❖ Visitor Activity
You can use it to access whether customers are getting value against their time, and money or not. It can be determined by a variety of factors that can include: 1) Total number of app downloads 2) In-app sharing and In-app purchases 3) Operational users and habitual users 4) User Retention Ratio 5) Time Given to the app by the users However, the above-mentioned factors can vary based on the nature and purpose of your app. For Instance, for an e-commerce app, you can focus on the key shopping parameters including shopping cart, items viewed, shopping cart to purchase ratio, etc. Similarly, for a gaming app, you can analyze the time spent and progress made by the users in the game based on the milestones in the game if any, particularly for the paid subscriptions. Don’t forget that the users with the most in-app activity are most likely to get converted into paying customers and become one of your best advocates.
❖ Sales Funnel
This analysis reveals some really important data relevant to the demographics of new users/visitors including their age, country, etc, and the channels driving new visitors to your app. You will also be interested to know/It can also help you to determine the customer acquisition cost including the average and lifetime revenue and value respectively, which will be discussed later.
❖ App Performance
Use crash reports, error rates and load-time measurements to identify technical problems affecting the journey. Segment by app version, operating system and device where the data supports it. Combine that evidence with completion and retention metrics to prioritize a fix, then verify the result after release rather than relying on an undated generic abandonment statistic.
❖ Customer Satisfaction
Analytics can show observable behavior, such as whether a cohort returns or completes an important task. It does not tell you every reason behind that behavior. Combine event data with support themes, user research and technical diagnostics. A retention change can reveal a problem worth investigating; it is not, by itself, a complete measure of satisfaction.
Important KPI metrics to Track with Mobile Analytics
You can set a variety of Key Performance Indicators e.g. goals to determine the success of your launch and what steps can be taken to achieve the KPI.
❖ Marketing KPI Metrics
As the name marketing KPI indicates that it is used to measure the Return on investment hence the overall revenue that is generated using a mobile app. It evaluates the total spend on marketing and the resultant ROI. It assesses whether the ROI is going positive or negative. The marketing spend is generating enough revenue for sustainable progress. The major factors in marketing KPI metrics involve:
- Average Earning per user, or ARPU (average revenue per user)
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC): the cost of acquiring new customers
- Market Share: the total percentage that a company captures in a market
- Customer lifetime value (LTV)
❖ User Engagement KPI Metrics
User engagement simply means how many people downloaded your app, how much time they spent on the app, and the average duration that one person spends on your app in one day, how many customers return to your app during one day. It evaluates:
- Daily/weekly/monthly active customers (DAU/WAU/MAU)
- Average time spent on the app
- Number of the customers returning to the app
- Bounce/Churn rate
- Retention rate
❖ UX KPI Metrics
The UX KPI metrics determine how well the customers are interacting with your app, it helps you to measure your app performance along with the user’s experience. It includes how fast your app loads. How well all the features of your app are performing? Because customers usually don’t stay too long to wait for a slow-loading app, and it greatly increases the churn rate of your app. Moreover, you can observe the features on which customers spend the most time by using the screen records. You can also improve the features that are increasing the bounce rate. By improving the app’s performance you can improve the overall user experience which can increase the prevailing revenue generated through the app.
Key Features to Monitor with Mobile Analytics
There are certain key metrics that can be measured with mobile app analytics. Some of the key features are as follows:
❖ Number of Downloads
Downloads measure acquisition volume. A conversion rate needs a defined numerator and denominator, such as first-time downloads relative to the relevant store audience or completed purchases relative to eligible app users. Record the store’s own definition and the reporting window. Do not use downloads, new customers and revenue as interchangeable outcomes.
❖ Daily/Weekly/Monthly Usage
Mobile analytics records the average duration that a customer spends on your app. It keeps a track record of daily, weekly, and Monthly active users on your mobile app. It is the most important feature for an app developer to know how much time people spend on his app. Which is also a source of generating revenue.
❖ Retention Rate
It determines how many customers or active users return to your app a second or third time. The retention rate is generally calculated over 7 or 30 days of the first app install.
❖ Churn Rate
The churn rate determines the rate at which customers stop using or drop off/uninstall an app. It allows developers to access the features that cause the customers to stop using the app, either may be due to the slow loading speed of an app or due to any other feature of the app which is not fulfilling the purpose of the app. Here, the developer can introduce a new feature to attract the customer’s attention or improve the existing features.
❖ Average Revenue per User
Average revenue per user is revenue divided by the users included in a defined period or cohort. Compare like with like: revenue per acquired user over a stated horizon against cost per acquired user, not against total campaign spend. Include gross margin, refunds and the other costs relevant to the business before interpreting a revenue ratio as profit.
Choosing the right Mobile App Analytics
Choosing the right mobile app analytics is one of the most challenging tasks. In order to choose the right app analytics, you must know the goals that you want to achieve using mobile app analytics
❖ Data Analysis
In choosing the right mobile app analytics, you must first know the type of data you want to analyze with mobile app analytics. If you have an e-commerce app, you will want to analyze how many people have made a purchase using the app. And how many people have just visited the app and have not purchased anything. If you have an educational app, you must want to know how many people have subscribed or upgraded to the paid version and how many of them have just relied on the free version.
❖ Functionality
Choose tools against the decision and the data you need, including event definitions, segmentation, privacy controls and the ability to check data quality. If a tool supports experiments, check randomization, exposure logging and outcome definitions before using the results. A winning dashboard value should not automatically trigger a product or budget change without checking the evidence and guardrails.
Mobile Analytics Best Practices: The key to Success
Mobile App Analytics is inevitable in driving success to your mobile app. So applying the best practices can bring the best results. Some of the best practices are as follows:
❖ Regularly Track and Optimize User Funnel
The best thing that can be done using mobile app analytics is to regularly track and analyze the user funnel (mapping of every action that the user takes), and using this data make informed decisions regarding the app to improve the app’s performance.
❖ Determine your Objectives/Goals
Before using the mobile app analytics you must have set goals. E.g. if you have an e-commerce app, your goals may be to drive traffic to your e-store or boost sales (online purchases). In the case of an educational app, you may have the goal of upgrading to paid version or in-app purchases.
❖ Stay in Touch with the active users
You should also regularly communicate with your active users/customers so that you may come to know what they like and dislike about your app. Knowing the features that are not much popular among the customers may help you to improve your app’s performance. You can focus on and develop those features that are more popular and are being regularly used by customers for longer periods of time.
❖ Perform A/B Tests
Instead of relying on a single page of an app, use A/B testing. Use two pages and then compare which performs better. E.g. in an e-commerce app, use one product image on one page and the other product image on the second page, and then compare the results in terms of traffic and sales. The image that performs better is to drive sales and brings success to your app. It will help you to get the best results.
❖ Focus on User Experience
Among a number of metrics involving engagement, revenue focus on the UX metrics. If your user will be happy with your app, he/she will bring more customers by sharing the app more and more. So focus on satisfying the customer by improving the user experience by meeting their needs and demands.
Final Words
Turn the measurement plan into a repeatable review: which cohort changed, which event or metric moved, what else changed at the same time and what action will test the explanation? An observed improvement is useful evidence, but it is not a guarantee of growth or a causal result. Our guide to using analytics in paid UA applies these questions to acquisition decisions.
