Learn which Apple App Analytics metrics you should know for your app
Update: iTunes Connect App Analytics got new data points, which means, you can now break down app-based key metrics to source types like App Store Search or App Store Browsing. Read more about this in our new blog post.
In 2015, Apple released the Apple App Analytics. The tool measures the performance of your app regarding engagement, campaigns, impressions, sales, downloads, etc. The idea is to show you how people are finding your app, track and measure campaigns, to check the retention of users and also to provide more relevant information that can help you with a marketing plan for your app. To use the platform is simple, you just need to have the Admin, Finance or Sales role in iTunes Connect.
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When you start using App Analytics, you might bump into some concepts and definitions that are really important for you to know their meanings to come up with a perfect marketing plan for your app. So here is a compact overview of what you can find on iTunes Connect App Analytics and what it means.
If you want a compact explanation of all available app metrics at a glance, download the free App Store Analytics Cheat Sheet.
App Analytics Overview & Key Metrics
In the overview section, you can choose which period you would like to analyze and see a summary of the key metrics. There, you find information about impressions, page views, app units, in-app purchases, sales, sessions, active devices and the countries where your app was installed. Translating the metrics:
Page Views is about the app store product page views App Units is the number of times, your app was downloaded for the first time Sales is the sum of purchasing apps, app bundles and in-app purchases Sessions is basically the number of times, your app has been used for at least 2 seconds. If the app is in the background and only used later, it counts as a new session; Active devices is about the number of devices that had at least one active session in that period; In this section, you can also check the best performance per country;
App Analytics app-based Metrics
The next tab is about Metrics. There, you can view the daily average and a total number of impressions and page views in the selected period. Besides that, you can see the sales metrics, including App Units, In-App Purchases, Sales and Paying users. The third point of this tab is the usage metrics. This is all the data of users that allow sharing information with you (Opt-in). In this section, you can check installations, sessions, active devices, active in last 30 days and crashes. Just bear in mind that these sessions take a while to load, so you might need a few days to see the correct numbers. This tab is really important to get insights, such as which day of the week is the best one for downloads.
App Analytics Sources Tab
This is the third tab available at the Apple App Analytics. Here is the best place to discover from where your traffic comes from. This is a key point to think about where to advertise, which type of campaign is the best one and who should be your partner. In the Top Campaign section, you can see the app sales, usage, and monetization from a specific campaign. To access this data, you need to create a campaign link. In the Top Website section, you can find the websites that indicate the right users for your app.
App Analytics Retention Section
This section analyzes the usage of your app over time. It tracks the date an user first installed your app, the number of active devices in that period, the number of days after the purchase and the percentage of devices still active after the purchase date.
App Analytics Key Performance Indicators
You should now have a better understanding of Apple’s App Analytics und its metrics. However, when marketing and optimizing your apps at a professional level, you should keep an eye on defined key performance indicators. If you want to break the previously shown metrics down to comparable indicators, here are some ideas, which ones to use.
- Find out your overall Conversion Rate: How many impressions vs. installs do you get? If your conversion rate is too low, you should think about polishing your app store appearance.
- Get to know the Conversion Rate per Campaign: calculate the conversion rate of each campaign and see which marketing activity converted users and which didn’t.
- Consider your App Store Optimization value: by regarding the total reached installs, website units and campaign units, you will find out the organic download share. Keep organic installs as high as possible by doing App Store Optimization.
Last, but not least we have prepared some useful tips for you to cope with app-based metrics for efficient analyses.
- Know where the data comes from;
- Understand which data is relevant;
- Chose the time period wisely to compare data;
- Be aware of the time zone when comparing data from different sources.
- Use tools like App Radar ASO Tool for more insights
