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July 17, 2020 by Kimberly Clark | Business
The success of your app largely relies on app marketing. That’s where app analytics come in. And to market the app effectively, ensure that you target the right audience, and to keep them satisfied, it’s essential to understand the app data.
However, not all metrics are beneficial to your business. With many analysis tools, knowing the right metrics worth tracking that will ultimately increase engagement, conversion, and revenue is challenging.
But if you don’t know where to start, this article will help you out. We’ve narrowed down to five critical mobile device metrics you can immediately start monitoring.
User acquisition is critical to your app’s success. If you are not attracting new users, there’s no way you can expand it. And to better understand how new users can be acquired, it’s vital to know where they come from.
That means you’re going to have to track downloads and link them to some acquisition channels. Downloads are a good indication of how your app is performing; whenever a user installs your app, the download rate increases.
So, thousands of downloads a day is much better than hundreds of downloads. It shows that your users are responding well. If you’re getting a few downloads, then it means something is wrong with your marketing.
New downloads are measured within a certain time frame, which can be daily, weekly, or monthly. This data, together with the understanding of where your new customers come from, will enable you to know how to target potential customers.
The key to increasing your downloads is optimizing the app in the store. That means focusing on things such as its name, keywords, icons, and descriptions. But you need to understand that different apps like Google Play Store and Apple App store use different algorithms.
How do you know where new customers come from? The app acquisition metrics precisely shows you that. It also reveals how effective your marketing campaign is, enabling you to optimize it.
You can use Google Analytics or Mixpanel to track your app’s user acquisition metrics. Mixpanel categorized the metrics into activation rate and metric range.
The activation rate shows the percentage of users who launched the app.
Activation rate above 85% is an excellent performance, while a lower activation rate means there’s a problem, and more analysis is required to solve the issues.
The metric range, on the other hand, shows how well the app is doing. It shows you the number of people who downloaded but never used the app. Some of the factors that can cause these issues are the lengthy registration process and UI typos.
It’s necessary to monitor downloads but also to know who the active users are. This measure is essential because it shows how valuable the app is for your clients.
Now, who is an active user? The classification of an active consumer may vary depending on the method you are using for the analysis. However, they are generally classified into Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Daily Active Users (DAU).
DAU indicated the number of users who visit your app at least once a day, while MAU shows the number of users who visit the app at least once a month. Both of them can be tracked using the Google Analytics tool.
Other important insights you can get are the average amount of time users spent on your app and how frequently they open the app.
An active user can have different meanings for different businesses. If your app requires the user to spend a considerable amount of time, short user sessions mean you need to improve your engagement campaigns. But the length of sessions is irrelevant as an active user can mean a user visiting the app at least once a day.
The retention rate represents the number of users who keep using your app after installing it. Based on the findings, you can make adjustments like enhancing the user experience for an improved retention rate.
Retention rates are measured in periods. So, a day-5 retention rate represents the percentage of users using your app five days after installing it. Using the metrics, you can look at short term analysis like day-1 retention or long term analysis like day-90 retention for more insights.
This metric is helpful in many ways:
It shows user engagement: only stratified users convert to loyal customers.
It’s the basis for monetization: if you have many loyal customers, you can profit from selling in the app.
It shows your user funnel’s effectiveness: a high retention rate on day-1, but a low retention rate on day-7 means your user funnel needs improvement.
It indicates technical problems: if you notice a sudden decline in the retention rate, it means a bug or other technical issues could be frustrating for your users.
Calculating the App Retention Rate
App Retention Rate % = (No. of Users Retained at the end of Period / Total Users at Start of Period) x 100
Alternatively, you can use Google Analytics to measure your app retention rate.
Monitoring the user retention metrics will enable you to understand where most of your customers are dropping and where you should improve. The longer your users are engaged, the better the revenue your app generates.
Lifetime Value is yet another vital metric in mobile marketing. It measures a user’s value to your business over some time. Once you understand the profitability, you can reevaluate your marketing costs and acquisition strategies.
If your Lifetime Value is higher than your Cost per Acquisition (CPA), then your business is profitable. If it’s the opposite, you’re making losses by spending more on acquiring your customers than the value they offer.
The average customer lifetime is determined by the number of years you retain a customer. It can vary depending on the nature of your customers. If you’re targeting customers between 18-24 years, then the average customer lifetime is around 4 or 5 years.
App rating is perhaps the most critical app matric. Your ratings can either attract or scare away potential users. A study revealed that 79% of users first check your app’s rating before downloading it. So, even as you invest in other aspects of the app, make sure that you have good ratings on Google Play Store and App Store.
Besides, your app’s rating affects how it ranks on the app store. Apps with good ratings rank higher than those with poor ratings. And, higher ranking means more visibility and possibly increased downloads.
Tracking the app rating and review will allow you to understand where there’s a need for improvement. The best way to get 5-star reviews is by offering users valuable content or products and excellent functionality, which amounts to excellent user experience.
Also, make sure to remind the users to give you good ratings. Resolving complaints and asking customers for better reviews will go a long way too.
There you have it. These are some of the best metrics that you need to track to improve your app’s performance. However, it’s important to note that there are other useful metrics that you should track. How appropriate and useful the metrics are will depend on the nature of your app.
All the above metrics help you enhance your customer satisfaction and possibly get a good return on the investment. Using these metrics, you can better analyze your app and use the feedback from your customers to improve the app’s performance.
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