Introduction to Mobile App Analytics and 18 Best Mobile Analytics tools
Analytics is all about collecting data and churning it into useful information which further gives useful insights into better business performance.
How Analytics help business to better performance?
In the today’s world where companies are finding the competitive edge to sustain their position or to grow a level up, analytics has played a vital role in that.
Earlier when analytics was just known to the world, it was only limited to the web. And now, with the advances in technology, Analytics has opened the doors for mobile as well.
Mobile App Analytics is not just cemented to knowing how many people downloaded the app or how you are generating revenue out of it or what people think about your app. It’s actually more than that.
What can you track using mobile analytics?
User Acquisition Metrics
This is the most important metrics in app analytics and will remain the one. This metrics helps you in getting information about the channel where the users have come from, i.e. organic search, paid apps or in-app referrals. Getting information in depth, you can influence more number of users to install the app.
Besides this, you can get information on the operating system used by the users, geographic location, mobile networks used by them and which app version they are using in current. This app analytical report can help you in executing fruitful plans, for example, reducing the loading time of your app can earn you more revenue as this will increase your number of app downloads.
Engagement Metrics
In app analytics, just the number of app downloads will not help you in gaining the actual data. You will get them by tracking the movement and behaviour of active users.
There are various articles around the web that provide the list of user engagement metrics you need to track. But what you should track depends on the purpose of developing the app. For instance, a gaming application like Candy Crush would track the number of visits rather than the time duration whereas an app like Zomato would track the frequency of use and order from different restaurants via this very app because this data will help them get useful insights on how the app is getting used by users and what strategies they can execute to increase user engagement.
Active Users
To analyze user engagement metrics of an app, you need to analyze the count of active users.
Who are active users?
Active users are those who use your app frequently in a specific time period. This helps you gain useful insights on the user’s interest on the basis of which, you can plan effective strategies to leverage more users to download your app and enhance your user engagement.
Revenue Metrics
Revenue is calculated based on the price of the apps , in-app purchases and conversion rates.
Below are a few revenue metrics you should know while calculating the revenue of your app:
It is the average revenue you bring in from each user using your application. It is calculated by dividing the per user revenue produced by the total count of users of that specific month. Basically, ARPU should be used to calculate the number of paid installs, organic installs, and total installs in order to reframe or improvise monetization strategies if needed.
CPI refers to the real cost you paid to know the users who have installed your app. CPLU refers to the cost to get new users- the ones who install your app at least three times.
Retention is the biggest challenge faced by mobile app developers and publishers. The analysis helps you in tracking the number of visits per user and the app performance in depth.
Performance Metrics allows you to measure the user’s experience using your app. Therefore, to deeply understand user experience, you need to peep into a few performance metrics;
The crashing of app distracts users and as a consequence, users may uninstall the app and never install it again if the issue continues to slow down the app performance. However, the crash report helps app developers to understand how, when and where the app got crashed.
Loading time refers to the time taken by the app to fetch the data and display the same on the screen. The more the app takes the time to load, the more it turns out to be an irritative factor for the user. However, performance metrics gives app developers an understanding where the app takes the time to load so that they can work on and reduce the loading time.
This is another hindrance to app performance. Today, many apps run online. Meaning, apps directly fetches information from the web and there is no messenger in between to pass the data, for example, Database. Therefore, whenever the internet does not work or server is not working, the app pop ups with a Network Issue message box giving users the appropriate reason as in why the app is not functioning well.
This app analytics metrics let app developers know when did the network issue message box pop up and how many times the app got crashed noticing the same.
Which are the best mobile app analytics tools?
You may find a plethora of mobile app analytics tools available on the web of which a few are free and rest are freemium. Most of the tools mentioned below will require mobile SDK download and a little of customization so that you can integrate with the app and experience your app performance using a binocular.
Here are the 18 best mobile app analytics tools which most of the mobile app development companies use , do have a look;
1- Flurry Analytics
Price: Free
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, Android, Java ME, Blackberry, Windows Phone.
Description: In the year 2015, Flurry became the part of Yahoo Mobile Developer Suite. It’s one of the best mobile app analytics tools we have. Over 2,50,000 developers use Flurry Analytics in 8,00,000 apps and that too 10 billion sessions daily. It is used to measure audience reach, conversion rates, revenue, user engagement, and lot more.
The best part of Flurry is, it takes less time to get integrated with the app and you only need to enter the App Key in your main code.
Features: It can be best used as a marketing tool because it gives you a deep understanding of user experience in real-time plus, you also get insights of how the advertising campaigns are gaining grounds.
2- Countly
Price: Free
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone.
Description: Alike Flurry, Countly gives deep insights on how the users are experiencing your app. From a button click to swipe screens to time spent on the app, Countly captures each and every information of the app movement and stores it in the database.
It is an open source mobile and web analytics tool and is available for free if hosted on your server. Countly has also added Enterprise Edition and Cloud Edition features in its pocket.
Features: Countly is a marketing analytical tool for web, mobile apps and gaming application. It is useful in targeting relevant audience via push notification, attribution tracking or segmentation.
3- Google Analytics
Price: Free
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, Android
Description: Surprisingly, google analytics was not offering its features to mobile and was available in beta version till 2014. But now it’s servicing mobile as well with a separate dashboard for app analytics where you can measure user behaviour, speed and the functioning of the app.
Features: Google Analytics can be used for all the business purposes, be it gaining insights for business growth, app marketing or more. It is useful for users who operate multiple devices. Meaning, one user multiple device ids. Google Analytics is secured and therefore, it’s necessary for the user to create an account and perform analysis on different metrics.
4- Localytics
Price: Free + Premium ( contact Localytics to let you know the prices)
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS and Android
Description: Localytics is a kind of handy tool for mobile app developers. A software development kit is available for developers tailored according to your business needs. Once you integrate your app with Localytics, you will get an overview of your app performance on the very first screen.
Features: Localytics is a marketing analytical tool that helps you improve user engagement via three important parameters: Useful Insights, Smart Targeting and Marketing Automation.
5 -Appsee
Price: Free to a limit. Contact Appsee for special Startup rates
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, Android
Description: Appsee lets you understand the user experience with visuals. From button clicking to focusing on screens to time spent by the user, it captures everything. For developers, it’s like a magic tool when it comes to scrutinizing the app crash. They can check the records of crash through visuals which help them to know how and where exactly the app crashed.
Features: Appsee offers per-user tracking besides monitoring the summary of aggregate data. Additionally, it’s visual concept of analyzing each event like heat maps gives you the same understanding of how users are experiencing your app.
6- App Annie
Price: Free + Premium
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, Mac Store, Google Play, Amazon app store,
Description: App Annie allows you to track information on the app downloads, revenue, ratings, reviews and more. In short, it automatically gleans all the crucial data from the multiple app stores on your behalf and lends you the opportunity to stay updated with the latest trend.
The price may vary depending upon the requirement. For instance, it allows you to glean store statistics for free whereas for mid-market intelligence and enterprise intelligence, the prices differ. You can contact App Annie professionals to know the price rates for the last two statistics.
Features: App Annie is a great tool which lets you relax and works on your behalf. It caters with an intuitive dashboard which gives you deep insights of how your app is performing on different stores.
7- AppFigures
Price: Price Variations
Platforms/Device Supported: Amazon App store, Google Play, iOS and Mac Store
Description: Appfigures tracks all your app data at one place. It allows multiple users with different access level and a customized dashboard.
The interesting thing to note especially for mobile app developers, there is no need to download any Mobile SDK, you only need to use AppFigures API in your code and start experiencing your app performance.
Appfigures has three different price segments;
- Basic: Lifetime free and can track data of 5 apps.
- Premium: $4.99 per month + $1.99 per app. First 2 apps are free. It contains more features compared to the starter.
- Enterprise: $2.99 per month. This package is for those developers who track almost 1000+ apps in a month. A team of 5 developers can enjoy the benefit of Enterprise feature.
Features: Appfigures alerts you about the new app reviews and gives you the option to pick the kind of reviews you want to get alerted. It shares your app reviews in a beautiful card which has a unique link inbuilt with automatic translation and app analytics. You can export the analysis in any format and also save the important analytical reports with pinned view for future study.
8- Bango
Price: For information on price section, contact Bango.
Platforms/Device Supported: Google, Windows 10, Amazon.com Samsung Galaxy Apps, Blackberry, Windows Phone Store.
Description: This analytical tool can be easily integrated with different app platforms listed above and help you to track revenue metrics which is useful for your business growth.
Features: Bango dashboard data allows you to foresee the important revenue trends and keeps an eye on how your app is getting used. It is the good tool to track marketing campaigns and give useful insights on how to increase user engagement and payment revenue.
9- Amplitude
Price: Free + Premium
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS & Android
Description: Amplitude provides analytics on user behaviour. It gives you a top-to-toe data analysis as in where users are facing issues and further helps you in improvising the app.
Amplitude consists of different price sections based on the requirements;
- Basic : Lifetime Free. Monitors up to 10 million mont
- Premium : Starting at $2000 per month. It provides high volume data and includes basic + premium features.
- Corporate : The price may vary depending upon the requirements, therefore do contact Amplitude for further details. If you pick the Corporate plan, then you entered the gate of benefits. You not only get to track high volume data + user behaviour but also enjoy the extended features which include both premium and corporate.
Features: Alike Google, Amplitude also provides analytics for both web and mobile. The integration gives you a complete vision of the user count using your app across multiple devices.
10- Mixpanel
Price: Free + Premium (click here for prices)
Platforms/Device Supported: Android & iOS
Description: Mixpanel caters event-based analytics tools that allow you to choose the event in order to know how your app is performing.
Features: Mixpanel gives you insights on how you can make your product better by tracking the analysis on actions and not page views.
11- Facebook Analytics for Apps
Price: Free (Facebook login not required)
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, Android, Unity, Javascript, Php
Description: Facebook Analytics provides you each and every information in depth on what’s happening across the facebook app: User Session, Business Pages, Activity pages, Number of posts — daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, number of likes, shares , comments and a lot more.
There are different category of mobile apps rolling in the app stores and most of these apps have facebook integration. For instance, gaming applications like Farm Heroes Saga has a Connect to Facebook button which allows you to share scores in the Facebook and make it public for others to view. Facebook Analytics tracks such events and let the game developers know how many users have posted their high scores on Facebook and how many people are taking an interest in it.
Features: For facebook, nothing is more important than tracking users and enhancing user engagement. Facebook Analytics have curated features that help you peep into users whereabouts, breakdown, in-app & push notification, app ads, revenues, percentiles, cohorts, events, segments, and funnels.
12 — Medialets
Price: Do contact Medialets to know price rates in detail
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS & Android
Description: Medialets is an advertising analytical tool that empowers you to measure, analyze, attribute and optimize ROI of every impression across every mobile app in real-time. No SDK is required to download and therefore, you can enjoy smooth, self-service trafficking and reporting workflows to measure every mobile advertising campaigns running across the mobile environment.
Features: Medialets supply media rich ads besides providing app analytics useful to enhance marketing strategies. It offers custom event reporting feature which further helps you in getting useful insights on certainly actionable events. However, it focuses on generating revenue by promoting ads across various mobile Platforms/Device Supported.
13- Apsalar
Price: Free
Platforms/Device Supported: Android & iOS
Description: Apsalar is an analytical tool for app marketing and media partners. It is used to measure the app performance across major channels and gathers useful data that helps in optimizing marketing strategies to maximize ROI.
Features: Apsalar is an all-in-one solution to measure and analyze the advertising campaigns and retargeting efforts without double install countings. It’s unique because it eliminates the possibility of double install counts and saves 20% + budget spent on install marketing.
14- Asking Point
Price:Premium
Platforms/Device Supported: Android & iOS
Description: Asking point is an analytical tool that helps you in conducting polls and surveys with ease. Just like any other mobile app analytical tool it enhances user engagement via push notification, in-app promotional activities and feedbacks or responds.
Asking point is not a free analytical tool, you need to avail as per your convenience.
Features: Asking point is an app rating booster. You can improve your app ratings and learn who are your app’s fan. It also works as a mobile survey edition providing you real-time data with sophisticated targeting.
15-Apple App Analytics
Price: Unaware of the pricing. Do contact the team for the same.
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS, TvOS
Description: Apple Analytics got launched in the year 2015 with a purpose to measure App Store Views, App Units, Sales, and Sessions. The metrics provided helps you to get a glance of your app performance in comparison with the previous time slot(30 days by default). The data can be tracked, measured and analyzed within iTunes Connect in a customized dashboard.
Features: Apple Analytics lets you monitor the clicks and views of your App Store product page. It also helps you glean the accurate data of app crashes, marketing campaigns, user engagement, paid users (using Apple id), Apple TV and web traffic.
There is a unique feature in Apple Analytics i.e. Apple TV data. You can easily track the count of iOS users using the same app on Apple TV. Plus you can promote your tvOS apps in another tvOS apps using campaign links.
16-Answers
Price: Free
Platforms/Device Supported: iOS & Android
Description: Answers is an analytical tool alike App Annie that gleans the data on your behalf. It provides you with the detailed study of your app performance and lets you understand who and how users are experiencing your app.
Features: Answers gives you the flexibility to track an unlimited number of apps, users, sessions, app crashes, retention metrics and more. Answers caters Build Comparison tool that notifies you with the app stability, changes and user engagement in real time. This unique tool is integrated with an outstanding Crashlytics which drills down to fetch granular data of how, when and where the app crashed.
17- Kissmetrics
Price: Premium
Platforms/Device Supported: Windows, iOS, Android, Mac.
Description: Kissmetrics is an analytical tool that provides useful insights to optimize your marketing campaigns.
The pricing plans of Kissmetrics depends on upon the features you choose. Click here to know in detail.
Features: Kissmetrics helps you in reducing the churning of information and provides useful insights on understanding user behaviour. Analytics is linked to taking actionable decisions and this is what Kissmetrics helps you in doing and increase your revenue.
18- Apptentive
Price: Choose the plan that best fits your business needs. Click here to know the pricing plans.
Description: Apptentive is the analytical tool that helps you make your communication better with your customers. It helps you building a two-way communication between you and your customers inside the app and guides you in making strong relationships with relevant users on your terms.
Features: Apptentive helps you in understanding your customers better and gives you useful insights on how you can improve user engagement by performing personalized campaigns based on user behaviour.
Ending Note:
This was a quick tour of Introduction to Mobile App Analytics and 18 best mobile analytics tools. You can choose any of the above mobile analytical tools that best fits your business needs. If we have forgot any analytical tool that you know is best feel free to share with us.
Originally published at www.openxcell.com on July 18, 2016.
