The development of an app and its launch in-app marketplace is a great start. Now the question comes whether your app is successful or not, and how do you measure the success of your application?
Few years back only counting the number of app downloads was sufficient for the app success evaluation. Nowadays the download numbers don’t necessarily reflect the actual success of an application and even if your app is downloaded but is not used then how come you can accept it as a profitable download.
The most common problem an app faces is engagement and so today venture capitalists and mobile developers are focusing on customer engagement. Measuring and optimizing for the right engagement metrics is the key to attaining and retaining users. From all the available metrics, identifying which ones are the most important for tracking engagement and are the most actionable is a tricky process.
The users of an app are generally measured as Monthly Average Users (MAU), this user metrics can further be segregated on the basis of type of device, day, time of the day and how when and from where the users are accessing your app. You may take the analytics of users if your app to next advance level by categorizing the users into most active users, super fans etc.
By the usage of this metrics you can take the advantage of it to monetize your app on the basis behavior of users by segmenting users doing high degree of usage and those who click advertisements. It will also help in planning further campaigns planning and optimization of apps.
Session length is the period of time between the starting and closing/timeout of an app on any device.
It gives you a detailed picture of how much times users are spending using your application.
Session length can be used to record the spikes and dips of usage of an app. Segmenting users on the basis of time spent on apps can help you out to find the most active users and indicates how much time your audience are spending on your app and can look out for the reason behind it. Session length varies greatly across different vertical, where social and gaming apps have a better session length when compared to eCommerce ads.
By usage of session length measurement, one can collect report of users making an acquisition vs. users not taking actions to gain deeper insight of visitor flow and make the application more engaging on the basis of behavior flow.
Session interval is the time between users one session to his next session. It gives the frequency with which the user opens the app. If the session interval is too long it means that the user didn’t find that much from the app or he/she had set much higher bar for expectation from the app which they downloaded.
By usage of session interval metrics one can easily go for app optimization as it will help you out to get the sessions per user as per different segments and it could be used to consider adding push messaging to compel the user with more impressive and frequent interaction.
Time in app lets you tracks how long your users spend in your app over a period of time. It gives you a picture of how important your app is to user. It helps you identify how often your app is being used and indicates how valuable your app is to users.
By usage of Time in app you may keep a check on segment of users who are consistently visiting your app for a longer period and you may study the user screen flow and make optimizations accordingly.
You may drill deeper into insights to cultivate various response of traffic.
Acquisition gives you the number of downloads and install of an app from a location which may be done through organic search, word of mouth, referrals through other apps or through paid campaigns such as Facebook, YouTube, google or any other advertising platforms. Acquisitions reports helps to track how much money is spent to acquire users, their app downloads and what they’re doing when they get into your app.
The usage of acquisition not only lets you measure the downloads and monitor the ROI (Return On Investment) but also gives you the lifetime value of an acquired customer. This metric can be used to analyze the acquired users versus the organic users and segment the audience and run A/B test campaigns (promotion for downloads, for feature enhancement etc.) for different segments.
Screen flow tracks the exits by screen, flow between the screens and total occurrences of visits to screens and to help you visualize the interaction of user to your app.
With screen flow metrics one can get insight to a particular screen of your app and see both what users did while on screen and where they went afterward. It tracks from the start of a users session to every page a user visits, giving you a complete behavioral view of how both purchasing and non-purchasing users naturally navigate your app.
Screen flow metrics shows analysis exactly what users who didn’t complete a stage did instead, enabling you to fine-tune your app’s flow to increase conversions. With this concrete data changes can be implemented to redesign the UX to create clearer funnels, or create in-app marketing campaigns to re-engage dropped users.
Retention is the percentage of users who returned to your application or are still using it. It gives you insight of most engaged and valuable users. It gives capabilities to allow in-app purchasing and level of engagement. The segmentation of users can be done on the basis of device, demographics, campaign or any custom created dimension like purchase frequency etc.
Usage of retention metrics helps you to dig out what’s not working after the update of app over time. If a new version is released, one of the first things you should identify is whether or not your retention has changed through this metric.
Lifetime value is your primary revenue metric which gives representation of the financial value of the app and how much each app user or customer is worth in his or her lifetime.
It can be split out by average monthly value or even split up by value per customer, giving insight of worth over time financially and also in terms of loyalty of the user.
The Lifetime Value metric best indicator of overall app ROI, and contributes to the brand’s bigger picture in a long run.
You can launch an app that was designed based on research, best practices, and web user behavior, but the truth is, that could all fall flat or burst out with your mobile audience. The only way to create a profitable app isn’t to launch and rely on downloads, but to use informed data and iterate to improve app and keep on working on marketing strategies to deliver A/B campaigns of to promote your app. Measuring mobile app success is not a one-time process once a new version of app is launched its analysis is to be done and then the needful changes and optimizations are to be incorporated.