Measuring success of mobile application

Now, since you are on this article, we are assuming that you have already had your mobile app launched and are looking at making some sense out of what would define the success of your mobile app. While we would definitely help you out with the important metrics to look at, let us first tell you a bit about mobile app analytics. Measuring mobile app success has never been so easy with ready-made analytics.

Understand Mobile App Analytics and The Use of Tools!

Well, honestly if you are using the basic analytics of your store, there wouldn’t be much to talk about. But, then the information that free analytics platform would provide will be limited too. However, enter the analytics tools and one may get really insightful information. For instance, you may get to know about the overall app heatmap, stating where exactly the user spent the most time, what kind of content was preferred more. While a basic analytics platform will tell you the page the user stopped at, a heat map will ensure that you know the exact point which made them stop. Such insight can be greatly useful in understanding which parts to promote the most.

A step further in this direction goes in the form of analytics tools that provide Artificial Intelligence based solutions. Tools such as Aiden, not only perform behavioural analysis of the users but also analyse and understand your app’s behaviour and purpose in general. Then, it checks the level of sync between the two. Thus coming up with suggestions for you to further improve upon your app’s efficiency and layout.

Finally, there are other tools as well which can give you a plethora of information on in-app analytics, which button to be made into what, the kind of colours to be used, etc etc. The range of features available is simply vast but considering that this blog isn’t really about all that, we will not turn back to what this blog intends to do- telling you the Right Metrics to determine your app’s success.

But, on a parting note for this section, some of the best app analytics tools which we suggest would be Kochava, MixPanel, Adobe Analytics, Amplitude, Amazon Pinpoint and AdMob by Google.

Measuring mobile app success metrics

So, here we go listing out the vital points for measuring mobile app success metrics for you! Read On!!

App Downloads

The very primary indicator of the success of your mobile app which shows right there on the app store too! It goes without saying that higher the number of app installs, the better would be its overall market acceptance. However, even though we put this metric as the first one, it is still a very surface-level indicator. Why is that so? Well, that is something you will figure out yourself as we proceed in this blog.

Active Users on Your App

Now, this metric is pretty different from the app downloads one but it holds its own importance given it shows how many people are active on your mobile app in real-time. It is pretty much the same as the Google Analytics section about Active users on your website.

Tracking the active users on your mobile app at any given point of time can help you with scheduling your updates accordingly. Another benefit of it would be, in case if your mobile application promotes other brands throw showing ads on it. This way, you will be able to maximise your overall revenue. For easy reference, active users are put under the two categories of Daily active users (DAU) and Monthly active users (MAU). The DAU in our opinion would be the kind of audience you would want to profile and target for a better marketing campaign optimisation. DAU has become an important parameter in measuring mobile app success.

Tracking the active users on your mobile app at any given point of time can help you with scheduling your updates accordingly. Another benefit of it would be, in case if your mobile application promotes other brands throw showing ads on it. This way, you will be able to maximise your overall revenue. For easy reference, active users are put under the two categories of Daily active users (DAU) and Monthly active users (MAU). The DAU in our opinion would be the kind of audience you would want to profile and target for a better marketing campaign optimisation. DAU has become an important parameter in measuring mobile app success.

The Stickiness Ratio

This one can be called the subset of the active user metric since the stickiness ratio is defined as the number of daily active users over monthly active users. The logic is simple. If the ratio is high then it means that people who install your mobile application, also stick to it and find it useful. A lower stickiness ratio means that while your marketing campaign did well and resulted in people installing the mobile app, your mobile app didn’t figure out as utilitarian for those who installed it and hence you need to work on that area.

Average Visit Time and Screen views per visit

Both of these metrics define how engaged the users are with your mobile application. The longer the time a person spends on the app or the higher the number of the screen views per visit means that the user likes your mobile app. A lower average visit time with an increased screen view per visit, however, may be a potential red flag which you may have to work upon. This is because, such a ratio would be an indicator towards that the user is browsing and hasn’t found anything as useful yet! This point is an important eye opener in analysing how your mobile app is engaging to the end users. Measuring mobile app success has been by product of it.

App Session Intervals

This metric measures how frequently a user returns to your mobile application. This is also another parameter to define how engaged your users are in general. Shorter the intervals between two consecutive visits, higher is the level of engagement. As we write this, and while you are reading, we are not sure how many times you must have checked your social media mobile apps already! While this wouldn’t reflect so well on our blog but it would mean that those mobile apps did a great job making you prioritise them over this piece. 

A good trick to improve upon your app session interval metric would be to make your mobile app a part of the user’s daily routine. Maybe you could have a demo bot engaging with them all the time or have a puzzle or any other game which could keep the user occupied. Though make sure that your mobile app is made well for the disruption that would happen in between and hence once the user logs back, they do not have to start from the scratch!

App Retention vs Churn Rates

App retention is a measure of how many users return to your mobile app after the first visit and churn, well that is the number of people who do not. So, the question is- which one should you focus on Improving?

Well, both because we said improving and not increasing! So, increase your retention rate while cutting down on your churn and how to do that? Just like the way we made you read this sentence!

Make your mobile app interactive, engage your users, work on the layout, get them to participate in contents, basically add some thrill to their usual routine! And how to do that- well, that is something we wrote in the “Best practices for a mobile app” blog.

Event Tracking

Now, this metric is more of a specific case but is equally important in order to measure the effectiveness of the extra efforts which you had put in to make your mobile app a success. Even if not the additional events such as contests, quizzes, etc, you may also want to see how many people shared your content, how many people copied the link to something on your mobile app and shared it further or how many shared your app itself. In addition to that, making a purchase on your mobile app, clicking on the ads in your mobile application or even reaching up to a certain level on your app would be the things you would want to keep track while measuring mobile app success.

Store Ratings and Reviews

On the store of course! The higher the ratings and the better the reviews, the more successful your mobile app is. Also, these two in specific significantly help with app store optimisation too. Make sure that you respond to all reviews- positive or negative. These responses would give you the additional window to put in your favourite high performing keywords as well. Industry wide definition of measuring mobile app success is only based on reviews and ratings received for the mobile app.

Also, sometimes if the rating isn’t as good, your honest responses would show that you care enough to respond and hence would still build a level of trust amongst your target audience.

In addition to these, some mobile apps have the option for in-app feedback too. Make sure you take them very seriously because in-app feedback comes from users who are active on your mobile app enough to care to give feedback. These are the users who will put in a good word for you or kill your mobile app if their experience is bad. So these would need extra pampering!

Heatmaps and User Recordings

Touch heatmaps record the areas which are visited most by the users. User recordings on the other hand, unlike what the name might suggest monitoring the kind of interaction the users have with the mobile app. Both of these together will show how well the people are engaging with your mobile app and if there is any change that needs to be made and also where. Analysing heatmaps is a vital step in measuring mobile app success.

App Abandonment

The next thing to consider would be the number of people who uninstalled your mobile app before even signing up. These people would come under the metric of app abandonment ratio. Needless to say that this has to be low. Also, app abandonment ratio could be a pointer towards the mismatch in your marketing campaign claims and what your mobile app eventually offers. So, the best way to reduce mobile app abandonment would be to ensure that the campaign and your mobile application are totally in sync! Yes, it is that simple!

Funnel Tracking

Well, this one involves measuring the user churn at every step. This is one metric which focuses more on the operational parts of the mobile app. Given that it involves measurement at levels, funnel tracking will help the team understand which levels are ticking the users off. This could be at some conversion points or simply on some pages. If, however, you are able to segregate where the users drop off usually, you may be able to make changes there and increase your retention score in general. User retention becomes another vital point in measuring mobile app success.

Is your mobile app viral?

Well no, Viral isn’t about the downloads. It is about how many people chose to share your mobile app or invite others! Did you get us right? And we think that if you did get us, we don’t really have to say a lot on it now!

CPA-LTV-Revenue Targets

Simply no form of business can be justified without taking into account the financial aspects of it. Hence, the cost per acquisition (CPA), lifetime value (LTV) and the closure of the revenue targets would be the things which you will have to take into account. At the end of the day, the mobile app is so that you may make money. Thus, if your revenue targets aren’t being met well, you will have to rethink it all!

Conclusion

Making a mobile app is a task in itself, making sure that it becomes a success is a challenge even bigger than that! A lot of effort and money goes into the entire process and it is human to expect results out of it. Measuring the success of your mobile app at every stage is thus critical. You can simply not overlook it! 

That being said, while we have tried to include every relevant metrics in this blog if you feel that you would want to discuss further or have any other suggestions or questions, please feel free to drop in an email!