How Purpose Driven App Analytics can Help Your App Grow?

We all know that decipherable user data through app analytics can play a great role in making an app successful. Without app analytics you are nowhere near the correct picture of what is going on with the app performance and users. Through analytics only you get a solid grasp on user’s engagement with the app and how this engagement can be enhanced to the advantage of your app. You can know the areas preferred by them, what app aspects are most detested, the reasons for uninstalling the app, the reasons for using the app once and never coming back, etc.

But contrary to popular perception app analytics can prove to be harmful at certain occasions as well. App analytics besides their in-depth analytical role in finding the loopholes and areas needing improvement can sometimes be misleading as well and there lies the potential threat. But how this danger manifests?  Let us explain here a bit.

First of all any robust analytics tool such as Google Analytics for Mobile Apps and iTunes app analytics will provide you hundreds of relevant metrics on diverse parameters but often instead of tracking all of them you will be confused as where to start from and what actions to take. So, as you can understand only so called analytical data garnered by different metrics does not help much unless you have clear purpose and objectives in mind for using them to the advantage of your app. Heaps of data would only amount to staggering confusion and non-action unless you have a thoroughly purpose driven approach.

Keeping the core objective and purpose of your app in mind you can use app analytics to the greater advantage of your app. Here below we provide some helpful insights.

1. Starting with few useful metrics 
Sometimes, too much metrics create information overload and mostly it lets people lose their focus. So, the first and most important thing is to zero in to useful types of metrics and simply ignore others until you need them for specific purposes.

There are various metrics that are not useful that much in the present context of successful mobile app marketing and economy. For instance, tracking app installs is fruitless since the focus should be on engagement than just install numbers. Because, a vast majority of installs are either used once or twice or not used at all before they are dumped by the users. Moreover, even when a metrics is valuable, it may not serve your purpose at that given point of time. So, to prevent wastage of time and energy from your management team, stay focused on the purpose and objectives of the app as for selecting metrics.


2. Concentrate on the metrics that is most relevant
Sometimes, following some best practices offers more help than groping in darkness in search of insights. For most apps and businesses a handful of metrics prove to be more useful. These metrics are mostly centered on user engagement. But even then, you cannot blindly follow the example of other apps. The core purpose of your app should guide your selection of the metrics. Here below we provide some considerations for choosing the right metrics.


• Obviously the industry that your app belongs to will help you make a gross idea of the metrics you need. While productivity apps will have more stress on session launches, media apps will have focus on in- time. Similarly, ecommerce apps will focus on product browsing, buying and transaction history for users, while travel apps will focus on location data besides other metrics.
• Secondly, priority of metrics is not static throughout the lifetime of the app. As per the growth of the business this may change as objectives will differ from a newly launched app to an established app. A growing app will have more focus on acquisition specific metrics like app sessions or subscribers but established apps mostly will have focus on retention.
• Another important thing to remember is that metrics for web and mobile differ considerably and you cannot use the same metrics for both platforms.
• Finally, it is the app purpose that should guide the selection of metrics most. Just think what purpose your app serves for the users and accordingly get down to the relevant metrics. The purpose of the app will tell you which in-app user behavior is important to improve the app.


3. A Marketing plan that complements your core metrics and purpose
Focusing on core metrics you will also know where you need to improve and make a better marketing plan. When you have a target for new user acquisition, you need to focus on metrics related with that objective. Similarly when you have a retention plan you need to orient with the metrics that showcases relevant data for user retention.

The typical vanity metrics like number of downloads and installs will have no role to play here as in-app activities and engagement fetches you business result rather than fluffy download numbers. Most downloads are dumped after a single use or no use at all and so your metrics at any case should focus on active users instead of downloads. 


4. App analytics to result driven marketing
With the analytics you need to come down to specific set of user data that tells you about the course of action to be taken. According to the user data provided by the core metrics you can make befitting marketing plan for each segment of users and target them. You can target different groups of audiences with specifically designed push messages and garner a better result with the campaign. Utilizing app analytics you can make your marketing effort rightly timed, rightly targeted and properly presented to garner maximum outcome.

Finally, to represent all the above mentioned aspects in a sequential order we must begin with the purpose of the app followed by core metrics, a complementing marketing plan and use of analytics to drive growth. All these aspects simply boil down to knowing the app objective and accordingly finding ways to serve it better.