What are the Important Mobile App Metrics You Should Track?
Now that you’ve completed the app development process, and your app is added to different app stores, you might want to take some time off and maybe go on a vacation. But, developing an app takes a lot of time and money and you cannot simply let all that effort go to waste without getting a proper return on your investments. So if you want your app to be successful, you’ll have to shelve your break for now and start measuring the performance of your newly launched mobile app.
To get a sense of how things are going, you need to keep a track of what’s working and what’s not for your mobile app. You need to assess the performance and value of your app and strive to make improvements. The best way to do this is to track different KPIs and metrics to see how your app is performing.
In this blog, we’ve listed down the most useful KPIs and metrics you should track to gauge your app’s success.
Downloads
You need to keep a track of the number of people who have downloaded your app. This one is by far one of the simplest ways to track your app’s performance. A download is a key stage in app adoption since all the other stages are built upon it. However, this metric alone will never be able to tell you about the real success of your mobile app.
Daily Active Users (DAU)
If a user has downloaded an app it does not necessarily mean that he/she uses it. DAU tells you how indispensable your app is for those who’ve installed it. It shows how many times, on average, users open and engage with your app in one day. More sessions are sometimes better, as is the case for a social media app, but may not measure success accurately for other apps.
Monthly Active Users (MAU)
Monthly Active Users metric operates the same variables as Daily Active Users within a prolonged period of time — a specific calendar month or a 30-days’ period. It tells you the unique number of people who used your app concerned with either a specific month.
Session Intervals
Session intervals measure the user engagement for your app. This shows the time between each user session. Unlike daily or monthly active users, your session interval metrics will break down your active users even further. Shorter intervals mean that your users do not take a long time to re-use the app.
Session Length
The session length continues to break down the session intervals even further. It measures how long each session lasts — whether the user uses the app for 10 seconds or does the session last for ten minutes. It is better to have users who spend more time on your app. However, the optimum session length may vary from app to app.
Customer Lifetime Value
It shows the total amount of revenue customers generated for your app throughout their lifetime. It might be listening to music for a music app while it might be an impression for a news app. The important point is to be able to define the meaning of “value” and identify the users who add value.
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Conversion rates
While conversion means any desired action, the conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the total number of visitors. The organic conversion rate is the rate of conversion through the unpaid encounter. It includes organic search, related apps listing in the app store, influencer marketing, and word of mouth. If your app is discovered by any of these, then it’s called an organic conversion. The paid conversion rate is the rate of conversion through paid discovery. It embraces PPC advertising, social media ads, sponsored posts or any other paid marketing activities.
Retention Rate
It is associated with the loyalty of users. Retention rate shows the number of users who come back or still continue using the app a certain number of days after install. It is one of the most valuable metrics. The higher the retention rate is, the more qualified your app is and the more future earnings you are likely to acquire.
Churn Rates
Churn rate measures the percentage of users who just stop using your app. Your active users are the ones that bring revenue to your app. A high churn rate means that a large number of your active users have stopped using your app. This would greatly impact your revenue stream and bottom line. However, if your app experiences a high churn rate as a result of low-value users leaving then it’s not as big of an issue.
Abandonment rates
Abandonment rates are not the same as churn rates, even though this metric measures user engagement too. Your app gets abandoned by a user if they install it to their device, but never actually use it or sign up. The best way to fix this is by analyzing your introduction phase and sign-up process.
Acquisition cost
Acquisition cost is calculated by dividing the number of marketing dollars spent on acquiring new users by the number of acquisitions. Essentially, this number tells you how much you had to spend on each download and you want this number to be as low as possible. High acquisition costs can really drain your bank account if you’re not careful.
Return on Investment
It measures the amount of return on an investment relative to the marketing cost. Measurement of ROI is useful to strengthen the marketing efforts you apply to your app. However, to measure the return on your investments you need to first define and measure the cost of the investment in a campaign and how these costs have impacted profits.
On a Final Note
Data analysis is an integral part of your growth strategy in mobile app marketing. That’s why it’s important to keep track of various metrics and KPIs, understand how they work, and effectively use them to enhance your app marketing performance. However, there are tons of mobile app metrics and KPIs that product owners and mobile app developers should consider at various stages of the creation process. So make sure you decide which ones are more important to you.
Originally published at henote.com.
