Mobile App Analytics: Leverage KPIs and Reap Benefits

It’s no secret that building and launching a successful application is a tough undertaking. Beyond adopting expert mobile app development services, companies need to devote their resources to marketing and advertising. At the same time, the benefits that mobile applications can bring to businesses cannot be overstated. With 6.7 billion smartphone users worldwide, companies cannot afford to miss out on the opportunity to reach such vast audiences. 

However, widespread digitization also has downsides such as data siloing, cybersecurity threats, and technical gaps. Mobile app analytics helps organizations combat these obstacles. By offering insights into user behavior and app data, such systems can unlock invaluable opportunities for growth. So what is mobile app analytics? In this article, we will discuss what it is, explore its benefits and metrics, and cover best practices. Finally, we will identify the best mobile app analytics tools for native and cross-platform app development. 

Types of App Analytics Tools

There are three main types of mobile app analytics systems targeting different metrics and objectives. 

In-app Analytics

In-app analytics platforms aid companies in tracking the user journey within the application and measuring user engagement and behavior. The collected and observed data is further segmented depending on demographics, location, device type, etc. Marketers can rely on these insights to develop marketing strategies to attract and retain more users. 

App Performance Analytics

App performance analytics tools deal with the app side and help identify bugs and errors within the application. Such platforms can share real-time updates about the health status of the solution to allow you to solve issues proactively. For example, if the application becomes unresponsive or crashes, your IT department will be immediately notified to salvage the system. 

App Advertising Analytics

App advertising analytics applications are key tools for the marketing team. Tracking app performance across marketing channels, they assist businesses in analyzing how users interact with ads. Learning these metrics can help marketers pivot their course and improve their campaign efforts. Moreover, these systems can also estimate the costs of advertising activities and provide optimization options. 

Benefits of Mobile Application Analytics

According to Statista, 25% of applications are used only once after installation and then abandoned for good. The important question is, why are your users leaving? Measuring user and app metrics will help you identify the weakest parts of your application and improve it to satisfy your audience. 

• Valuable insights: Accumulating and monitoring user data can yield priceless insights into how your users interact with your solutions. You can learn at which point they abandon your application, when they decide to upgrade, and what their preferences are. 
• Increase ROI: Having a comprehensive overview of app, user, and marketing data enables marketers to optimize their investments. Based on this data, companies can learn where to allocate funds to get the highest return. 
• Improve UI/UX: User behavior insights will tell your analysts which parts of the application require changes to offer better navigation and user experience. These metrics will help designers create user interfaces that appeal to your audience and increase retention. 
• Enhanced app performance: Your development team can also greatly benefit from mobile app analytics tools. The findings can help them optimize performance by removing bugs and errors.
• Closer collaboration: Working with a mobile app analytics tool can help enterprises align cross-functional teams by providing a unified solution. The ability to share session recordings, dashboards with metrics, and crash reports helps teams to quickly react to issues and take immediate action. 

Web vs Mobile App Analytics

Depending on your app business plan, you may have a website, an app, or both. The main distinction between web and mobile app analytics lies in page views and events. While web analytics focus on tracking what pages are visited, mobile app analytics platforms capture events that take place. Events include an array of actions such as clicking a CTA button, signing up, sharing a file, browsing the app, messaging another user, and more. Simply knowing how many users are visiting your website gives you highly limited information to work with. At the same time, event-based analytics lets you examine exactly which features users interact with and how often. 

Moreover, mobile application analytics tools are more sophisticated as they are built to track multiple app versions. The look and feel of the app changes depending on the operating system and device type and developers and designers need to take this into account. 

Privacy and Mobile App Analytics

Working with sensitive user data can pose potential cybersecurity risks. Criminals are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities in mobile apps in order to steal or expose private data. Companies that process financial, health, and personal information need to be especially hypervigilant when it comes to cybersecurity. Not only will a data breach affect your reputation and credibility but it might also result in substantial monetary losses. 

However, compliance with data protection laws like GDPR and CCPA will significantly reduce the chances of a devastating data leak. By following standard practices of data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and data backups, organizations can ensure the utmost safety. 

Another vital aspect of good security hygiene is third-party risk management. As numerous companies rely on third parties to extend their functionality and enrich user experience, the threat of indirect attacks is big. Therefore, it’s imperative to research your potential partners before integrating to make sure they comply with the laws and regulations. 

Vital Mobile App Analytics KPIs

A coherent marketing strategy is one of the integral requirements for mobile app development. But how does one create a fruitful marketing plan? In this section, we will focus on important KPIs that will help you stay on top of your advertising strategy and ensure great performance. 

Revenue KPI Metrics

Metrics that deal with profit generation are referred to as revenue KPIs. They calculate whether your application is producing sufficient income to be sustainable and help you efficiently allocate your funds to maximize the output. 

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) determines how much money a business spends to acquire a single customer. It’s measured by dividing the total costs of sales and marketing by the number of new customers in a period of time. 
• Cost per Install (CPI) estimates how much money a company pays to acquire a single new app installation. CPI is calculated by dividing the overall ad spend by the number of new installs in a period of time. 
• Conversion rate is a metric that dictates how many users were converted and turned into leads or customers. This can be measured by dividing the number of conversions by the number of impressions. 
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the total revenue that a corporation may expect from a single customer throughout their entire life. To learn the CLV, multiply customer value by their average lifespan. 
• Purchase frequency describes the number of purchases over a period of time. By dividing the total number of purchases by the number of purchasers, you can gain insight into your customers’ buying behavior. 
• Average Revenue per User (ARPU) indicates the amount of revenue each user yields. Divide the total revenue by the number of users to measure ARPU and identify areas for improvement in your monetization strategy. 

User Experience and Performance KPI Metrics

When it comes to analyzing your application, UX and performance KPIs offer tangible insights into your solution. These technical metrics will aid you in detecting potential issues and solving them in time. 

• Load speed determines how quickly an application loads and responds to actions. A slow load speed may largely affect customer experience and engagement as most users are accustomed to fast speeds. 
• Screen resolution is the number of horizontal and vertical pixels on the screen. A higher resolution requires more pixels and allows users to access more information without scrolling. 
• Time in-app describes how often and for how long the application is being used. This metric offers a deeper understanding of user behavior patterns and trends. 
• Task success rate measures how often users correctly complete a certain task. Using this KPI, designers can tweak the layout and navigation to improve usability. 
• User error rate is used to determine how user-friendly the solution is. Divide the number of errors by the number of attempts to identify the user error rate and eliminate roadblocks. 
• Crash reports give companies real-time data regarding crashes and bugs. These findings help IT teams swiftly detect the cause of the issue and enhance app performance. 
• Devices and OS-related metrics include CPU utilization, memory usage, and more. 

User Engagement KPI Metrics

Metrics associated with user behavior and engagement assist marketers in creating the type of content that the audience wants to see. These insights help companies ensure their marketing efforts are driven by accurate data. 

• Churn rate describes how many users abandoned your application over a period of time. You can measure the churn rate by dividing lost users by total users. 
• Retention rate is the number of customers who continue to use your solution over a certain time period. First, subtract acquired customers from the total number of customers at the end of a period of time. Then, divide the result by the number of customers at the start of the said period.
• Session duration is the amount of time a user spends using your application. Add all session lengths and divide it by the total number of sessions. 
• Session depth measures how many actions a user took during their session. To calculate session depth, divide the total number of events by the number of sessions. 
• Daily active users (DAU) is a metric that indicates the number of unique users that engage with your application. Add unique new users to returning users to calculate DAU. 

App Analytics Best Practices

In the abundance of mobile applications on the market, it has become vital to begin app analytics as early as possible. After finishing the app development steps and launching the solution, start collecting user data to measure user satisfaction. Let’s take a look at the industry’s best practices of mobile application analytics. 

Start Early

The sooner you begin gathering and analyzing mobile app data, the faster you can put the insights to use. Adopt mobile app analytics tools early on to detect weaknesses in your solution and make appropriate changes. 

Identify the Right KPIs

Make sure the KPIs you are measuring align with your business objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase revenue, focus your attention on profit-generating metrics. You can also peek at industry benchmarks to discover which KPIs are commonly measured by companies in your sector. Additionally, acquire professional consulting services to gain an expert perspective on which KPIs are relevant.

Focus on Concrete Goals

Instead of throwing a blanket statement like “improve user retention,” formulate specific objectives. For instance, you can set a goal to increase user retention by 10% in the next year. Concrete goals simplify the processes of measuring and tracking progress and produce more tangible results. Furthermore, your objectives should be realistic and achievable to encourage and motivate your staff to work towards this benchmark. 

Implement Data Visualization

In order to process and comprehend large amounts of information, you can employ data visualization tools. By generating charts and graphs, your workers can easily identify patterns and trends and utilize the findings. For example, bar charts are perfect for data segmentation, whereas pie charts are used to display the proportions of data categories. 

Best Mobile App Analytics Tools

A robust mobile application analytics platform is an integral part of any company’s mobile app technology suite. Let’s explore the most popular tools on the market. 

data.ai

data.ai is a mobile app analytics tool that focuses on revenue generation services. The platform helps businesses examine the top monetization models for your company and increase their profit. By connecting data from multiple sources—including app sites and ad networks—companies can gain a comprehensive overview of user and app metrics. The data.ai suite enables organizations to monitor competitors’ ad campaigns to enhance their strategies and optimize ad spend. 

Supported platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone

G2 rating: 4.1/5

App Radar

App Radar is largely dedicated to boosting organic growth and increasing user acquisition. Through optimizing ASO techniques, providing comprehensive keyword analysis, and monitoring reviews about your product, App Radar is a mobile app analytics tool that helps you grow. Outside of the platform, the company also serves as a marketing agency that creates custom strategies to achieve your goals. 

Supported platforms: Android, iOS, Windows Phone

G2 rating: 4.4/5

Adjust

Adjust is a mobile app analytics platform that helps companies measure accurate and real-time data to meet their KPIs. With a focus on automation, Adjust allows its clients to leverage report automation to maximize campaign results. Using their services, businesses can drive ROI and reduce costs by eliminating routine tasks. Finally, Adjust comes with a powerful Fraud Prevention Suite that protects your data from malicious attacks. 

Supported platforms: Android, BlackBerry, HTML5, iOS, Windows Phone

G2 rating: 4.1/5

Firebase

Besides backend products to build and release applications, Firebase also offers a robust mobile app analytics platform. You can monitor user data in Google Analytics, run experiments using A/B testing environments, send notifications with Cloud Messaging, and investigate app performance in the Crashlytics tool. A Google-owned solution, Firebase also delivers helpful insights on how to monetize your application and maximize ROI. 

Supported platforms: C++, iOS, Unity, and Android

G2 rating: 4.5/5

App Analytics

Apple Store App Analytics caters to iOS-based applications and unlocks insights into various metrics. From the number of downloads to session duration, you can learn a range of priceless KPIs from the App Analytics platform. The tool also includes a marketing campaign manager that measures the performance of your efforts across channels. To increase your ROI, you can monitor the number of paying users from a particular campaign or website. 

Supported platforms: iOS

Tune

A prominent web and mobile app analytics platform, Tune is a fully-fledged SaaS platform for executing and managing marketing campaigns. By unifying all your partners, networks, channels, and campaigns, Tune allows marketers to identify opportunities for growth and drive engagement. Sophisticated reporting and customizable dashboards provide an extensive overview of user and app data. Finally, automation features simplify tedious and labor-intensive tasks like payment processing and fraud detection. 

Supported platforms: Android, iOS, tvOS, Javascript, Windows Phone

G2 rating: 4.1/5

Kochava

Kochava is another popular mobile app analytics tool that focuses on driving user attribution. Their innovative Kochava Traffic Index helps businesses select high-quality users and sift out fraudulent channels to guarantee better campaign results. Using user segmentation and A/B tests, the platform can boost your user engagement and retention. Based on Kochava’s advanced analytical solution, organizations can predict the churn rate and fix their issues before users start to leave. 

Supported platforms: Android, iOS, tvOS, Windows & Xbox One, Unity, ReactNative, Cordova, Adobe Air, Xamarin, Web SDK, Corona Labs, Adobe DPS, Adobe Analytics

G2 rating: 4/5

MixPanel

MixPanel is a mobile application analytics tool that provides advanced event monitoring, user segmentation, and cohort analysis. The platform specializes in segmenting user actions and building funnels to describe how people interact with your application. MixPanel is a helpful solution to help understand user behavior as it expertly breaks down user demographics. 

Supported platforms: iOS, Android

G2 rating: 4.6/5

Flurry

Flurry concludes our list of best mobile app analytics platforms. This free tool helps organizations study their user behavior and enhance app performance to satisfy their user base. By offering insights into your data, Flurry assists companies in broadening their audience and gaining a deeper understanding of their behavior. 

Supported platforms: iOS, Android, React Native, watchOS, Unity

G2 rating: 3.9/5

Conclusion

Mobile app analytics is a valuable tool to enhance user experience and engagement alongside app performance. Instead of pointlessly collecting data, you can put it to good use and extract priceless patterns and trends. If you would like to learn more about mobile app analytics but cannot choose a mobile app development company you trust, reach out to NIX.

We’re a team of experienced IT specialists with in-depth expertise in both the technical and business sides of software development. Let us know about your goals and we’ll prepare a proposal for app development uniquely designed to meet your needs. Our extensive list of mobile app success stories will further convince you of our dedication and acumen. Get in touch with NIX to discuss your ideas and bring your app to your audience.