Today’s mobile-first world is full of opportunities for businesses. However, it can also be an extremely difficult place to navigate.
Marketing your business on the go has never been easier with the advent of smartphones and tablets, but this also means you have to compete with apps from major companies like Facebook and Google.
This is why a mobile app analytics strategy is critical for success in today’s market – if you’re not tracking what users are doing within your own app then how do you know which features they value most?
The app market is becoming increasingly saturated with mobile devices, leaving users with more options than ever before.
A recent study found that the average smartphone user has around 40 apps downloaded on their phone.
With so many options available, it’s essential for businesses to create a mobile app that stands out from the crowd.
However, this means attracting only those who are truly interested in what your business has to offer – which you can’t do if you don’t stay on top of how people interact within your mobile application.
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Mobile App Analytics is Different Than Web Analytics
Traditionally, web analytics tools track website visitors and their behavior using tags placed throughout the site.
These tags record different types of information such as where they clicked or scrolled, how long they stayed on a certain page, and what kind of device they were using.
However, while web analytics is great for gathering information about your website, it’s not enough to understand mobile app user behavior.
For example, if you’re only tracking the number of visitors to your mobile app website then you won’t be able to track what users are doing within the actual application itself.
As with any type of web-based application or service, there are two main factors that make up mobile app analytics: quantitative data and qualitative data.
Quantitative data refers to measurable values such as active users, page views per visit, and conversion rates for specific features in your application.
Qualitative data includes notes on user interactions with their devices or operating systems, which may affect the success of your mobile app.
For instance, if a specific version or type of device is malfunctioning, it might be slowing down certain features of your application and causing negative interactions with users.
Understanding this information can help determine when to release new versions in order to work around any issues that are affecting user experience within your application.
Split testing is another essential part of mobile app analytics – put simply, split testing determines whether changes you’ve made to your app have improved user engagement or not through A/B testing.
Essentially, you test one variable in half of the users who visit a certain page in order to see if their behavior has changed for better or worse.
This is done repeatedly until you reach a statistically significant result.
After you’ve collected mobile app analytics, it’s important to understand what insights and conclusions can be drawn from the data.
This means taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture of how your application is performing.
You do this by aggregating all of your mobile app analytics data into reports that highlight important information such as top features used in your app, average session length, and frequency of retention among other things.
From here you will be able to better identify any issues with user experience and correct them quickly before they affect overall revenue or cause users to stop downloading/engaging with your mobile app altogether.
Mobile apps provide an essential way for businesses in today’s mobile-first world to interact with customers.
By now, most people are familiar with major mobile apps such as Uber, Instagram, and Yelp, but it’s important to remember that every business can benefit from a mobile app – whether they’re selling products or services.
It’s also crucial to note that the majority of today’s companies no longer have just one customer-facing mobile application.
Understanding how each of these types of apps is used by specific user groups allows for more targeted insights into which features are most useful and how users are interacting with them.
Lastly, by looking at the data captured through the individual apps’ analytics reports you’re able to see which types of users are opting to use certain apps and why.
Ultimately this enables you to make informed decisions about what features should be included on each app and how they can improve the customer experience by providing a personalized mobile experience that best fits their needs.
At first, it might not seem like capturing mobile app analytics is worth your time since most people simply want the application installed on their devices as quickly as possible, but understanding your target audience and how they behave within your mobile application is vital for creating a successful product.
Having access to all of the data collected through different means such as A/B testing and split testing also goes a long way toward knowing which changes will benefit user engagement with certain features or new versions altogether.
There are a number of mobile app analytics you should be keeping tabs on since every business uses its mobile applications differently.
As we mentioned earlier, determining how your users interact with individual features is vital data you need to know.
The easiest way to do this is by testing different options and seeing which receives the most engagement or use.
You can look at both frequencies of use as well as the number of time users spend in each feature to see if they’re active for long periods of time or just opening them up once and then never again.
This type of information helps determine the value behind each feature so that future versions or updates reflect what your customers want more or less of based on their behavior patterns.
Image source: mixpanel.com
Mobile app analytics also helps track user retention – knowing how many users are coming back to your application each day is vital information that helps you determine whether or not the app was what they were looking for.
You can also then use this data and compare it against other metrics such as the total number of downloads and the number of new users who complete registration/onboarding processes.
The mobile app analytics data will show you which types of people download your application, but by tracking how quickly those users churn out, you can better understand if there’s something about their user experience that isn’t as positive as others.
If there’s a specific group of people who don’t follow through on registering for your service – even though it may seem like a no-brainer to do so – chances are they weren’t a good fit for your target audience.
Mobile app analytics can also help identify problems with your different mobile applications and the way they run.
By looking at performance from a user perspective, it’s much easier to determine where errors are occurring or which features are taking up too much of their device’s resources.
In turn, this information helps you modify existing mobile apps to ensure there aren’t any major issues that should be resolved before your next update rolls out to the public.
The only way to really understand all of these metrics is by creating a mobile app analytics strategy that works for your business and its needs.
There’s no one size fits all approach since every business has unique goals and expectations for their mobile application.
A marketing agency, for example, might want to keep track of pretty much everything because they have several different apps that are used in conjunction with one another – while an e-commerce business will likely place more emphasis on understanding what its customers do within the mobile application so future updates cater to their specific needs.
Strategizing out mobile app analytics enables you to get a better idea of what every department should focus on when it comes to improving your product(s) whether it’s design, development, or customer service.
Understanding how each part of your business interacts with the user gives you access to information that without proper metrics would be very difficult to nail down or capture accurately.
With how fast technology moves these days, having access to this type of information will give you a significant advantage over your competition.
By taking the time to create a mobile app analytics strategy that works for your company, you can capture data about how customers interact with your products on an ongoing basis – which in turn helps make future iterations stronger and more effective.
How to Get Started with Mobile App Analytics
There are several ways to start collecting mobile app analytics information. The easiest is to implement an off-the-shelf solution that includes the tools you need in one package.
For example, there are many companies these days that offer paid services that can be integrated into your mobile application with just a few clicks.
Other solutions require manually implemented SDKs where you have more options for customization depending on your specific business requirements.
Another way is using open source software that gets installed onto the device itself.
This approach is usually best for smaller businesses because of its limited scope – especially when gauging performance only against other applications or groupings of data – but it has some unique advantages such as how easy it is to get up and running since everything required is already included.
Although implementing mobile app analytics tools is fairly easy, it’s important to consider the lifecycle of your product and how often you’ll need to implement updates based on new information you receive from your data.
While some solutions let you manually roll out new SDKs over the air, there’s a much easier way to do this using mobile app analytics as a service solution that has everything built-in.
The benefit here is that your developers don’t have to focus their time on updating the tooling since all changes are automatically updated by the back-end team at the vendor.
In turn, this gives them more time for other tasks such as working with internal teams or adding even more functionality to their service.
Conclusion
Mobile app analytics are more important than ever for companies looking to stay ahead of the curve.
They give you access to information that would be extremely difficult or impossible to gather without them, which puts your business at a significant advantage over its competition.
While there are several different ways to implement mobile app analytics tools, it’s best to use mobile app analytics as a service solution where everything is ready from day one with no manual development required on your end.
This lets you get started faster and focus on using data from real-time operations rather than implementing new products based on market research alone.
Acodez is a renowned web design and Mobile app development company in India. We offer all kinds of web application development servicesto our clients using the latest technologies. We are also a leading digital marketing company providing SEO, SMM, SEM, Inbound marketing services, etc at affordable prices. For further information, please contact us.
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Jamsheer K, is the Tech Lead at Acodez. With his rich and hands-on experience in various technologies, his writing normally comes from his research and experience in mobile & web application development niche.
