If you're building an app, mobile app analytics are your best friend. They help you understand whether your app is performing well, what your users like about it, and what you need to improve or optimize. With app analytics, you can transform data into valuable insights that will help you build a better product.
In this blog, we’ll be covering two broad categories of app analytics that answer two important questions:
Who is using the app?
How many people have installed the app, how many have signed up, where they are from, what devices are they using the app from, etc.
How are they using the app?
Which sections do they visit most, what do they enjoy, what do they seem to dislike, how long do they engage with the app for, how much time do they spend on it, etc.
Key Performance Indicators To Track
Key performance indicators (KPIs for short) for mobile app analytics are industry-standard metrics that help you track app analytics and report on your app’s performance, uptake, and usage. Tracking KPIs is also a great way to attract attention to your app for potential investors.
Tracking mobile app KPIs should be baked into your development and marketing plans, including which success metrics and performance metrics are the ones that will be considered the most valuable or important.
#1 Downloads
The number of times that an app gets downloaded to a device is the easiest and most obvious way to track its uptake.
#2 Installs
Actual app installations may differ from the number of downloads, so this is another way to track the popularity of your app.
#3 Uninstalls
While you may not know the reason why someone uninstalled an app, you can corroborate the information with an event like an update or a feature change.
#4 Registrations
Deciding whether or not to register (and enter your personal data) is an indication of whether users are committed to buying into your app idea. The benefit to getting their email addresses or other contact information is that you can use this to stay in contact with them.
#5 Subscriptions
If your app offers the option to subscribe to new content or other updates, then it’s helpful to track the number of subscriptions or signups for these features. Additionally, keeping track of how long it takes people to subscribe once they have installed the app, along with the average length of subscription gives you more insight into your users’ behavior and preferences.
#6 Retention Rate
This is the number of returning users after a fixed time period. Retaining users is generally an indicator of creating a “sticky” app, because it tells you how many people consistently use your app.
Retention is a good predictor of future monetization because it increases the prospects of in-app purchases and drives higher in-app ad revenue. It is important to clearly define a timeframe for retention that works for your business. Many businesses commonly analyze 7-day, 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day retention.
There’s an easy formula to calculate retention rate:
Retention Rate = (# Users on day z / # Users on day a) x 100
(‘z’ and ‘a’ are the time periods of your choice)
#7 Active Users:
Active users aren’t the same as your download rate, because it also gives you an indication of engagement. Once someone installs the app on their mobile device, it doesn’t mean that they are actually going to use it. So measuring ‘active users’ is a way to figure out how many people use the app daily and monthly.
To improve the number of active users you have, you need to entice people to open the app more frequently through promotions, notifications, and rewards.
#8 Sessions
The number of times a user opens the app is the number of sessions. Like retention, this is also an indicator of ‘stickiness’ or popularity. You can define the time period that you consider a session.
#9 Daily Active Users (DAU)
The number of active users who use the app daily.
#10 Monthly Active Users (MAU)
The number of active users of the app on a monthly basis.
#11 Stickiness
Stickiness is a metric used to determine engagement by figuring out how often people return to open your app. It’s calculated by dividing your daily active users (DAU) by your monthly active users (MAU) to get a percentage.
The higher the percentage or the more sticky your app is, the more often your users are returning. But remember, not all apps are designed to be used daily, which is why it’s important to define what an ‘active user’ means for you in the DAU and MAU calculation.
#12 Churn Rate
The rate at which active users unsubscribe or uninstall your app. Ideally, you want to target a low churn rate. A high churn is usually indicative of functionality or performance issues, or a lack of new content on the app.
Retention rate gives you an idea of how many people are sticking around, while churn rate measures the other side of the equation, which is how many people are leaving in a particular time period. To calculate your churn rate, follow this formula:
1 – retention rate = churn rate
We hope this blog helps you define and measure success for your mobile app. There are many more KPIs you can track, especially if you’re running paid marketing campaigns, or tracking in-app purchasing behavior. These twelve metrics will help you figure out how to optimize your app and plan for ways to monetize it in the future.
