In the present times, consumer purchasing decisions are integrally tied to the customer experience (CX). This experience is heavily dominated by customers’ presence in and use of mobile devices. As per reports, around 63% of US adults depend on mobile devices multiple times a month for customer support. It’s safe to say that most of the answers to today’s customer problems lie with mobile apps. In fact, Statista found that as of December 2018, the total number of available apps on the Google Play Store was 2.6 million. 

However, that doesn’t guarantee that all apps are a success. If you’re a mobile marketer, you’d know that just coming up with a killer idea for a mobile app or developing the final product is not enough. Keeping it running successfully with proper monitoring and modifications is important for the app’s long-term growth. You’ll have to keep tracking your app performance, measuring its Return on Investment (ROI) and make the necessary enhancements for its smooth functioning.

This can be done by gathering the relevant data by tracking the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). But there are lots of metrics to measure and it can seem overwhelming as to which all to track. The ideal way is to set specific goals and align your KPIs based on them. In this blog, we’ve shared the critical KPIs that you need to track in 2019 and classified them under specific goals. 

15 Top Mobile App Metrics

#1. Performance Metrics

These sets of app metrics with the goal of measuring performance are perfect to analyze how smoothly your app’s running. Performance metrics focus on the stability and speed of your app through factors such as crashes, latency, load times, network errors, etc.

a.) App Crashes

A crash is considered when an app closes abruptly while the user’s using it. A great way to keep crashes to a minimum is to keep testing builds during the developing process to identify issues immediately. You should also have a beta group before launch to ensure the least amount of problems with your app.

b.) App Speed

Speed is considered to be a measurement of how fast your app loads and runs. It’s one of the basic requirements every user has when using any app.

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c.) App Latency

This is a technical metric that takes into account the time it takes your app to request and receive a response from an API. The briefer the time, the better. App latency is slightly different from app speed since latency refers to the time to perform a function whereas speed refers to the loading time for the app.

#2. User Engagement Metrics

Engagement is a key goal since it can help you analyze how interested users are in your app through metrics such as the frequency of a user’s interaction with your app, the rate at which users are abandoning your app, etc.

a.) App Downloads

One of the first signals of the popularity of your app is the number of times your app has been installed, represented by app downloads. The number of downloads and how they’re trending over time will give you an idea of the efficacy of your marketing campaigns. If you find few users downloading your app, then the issue may be in the upper stages of your marketing funnel such as an improper listing of your app in the store or incorrect messaging of your app install campaign. The number of downloads also depends on the type of app and the app store. You can resolve this by ensuring the proper listing of your app in the store or creating proper landing pages for your app. You can check the number of downloads from your analytics suite.

b.) Active Users

The active users are a more accurate pointer towards how relevant your app is. This shows how many users are actually using the app rather than downloading it and not using it. Mostly the criteria for calculating the active users is through the “session metric”. For example, as per Google Analytics, a session is termed as any user activity and interaction with an app until 30 minutes of inactivity. Based on their frequency, active users can be further classified into Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU). DAU users are those who have at least one session a day whereas MAU users are those who have at least one session a month.

DAU and MAU not only helps you analyze your app’s top user base but also the “stickiness” of your app. Stickiness is a term used to describe the frequency at which users come back to your app. It can be calculated by dividing DAU by MAU and multiplying by 100. A higher percentage means that more users are returning to your app. If the DAU and MAU values are close, it means your app has a high stickiness.

c.) App Retention

The term “retention” refers to the number of users who return to your app after their first visit. Since having more users is a key step for your app to be successful, thus retention is a key metric to measure. For example, Quettra’s 2018 study revealed that mobile apps, on average, lose about 77% of their DAUs within the first 3 days of the install, 90% within a month, and 95% within 90 days.

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To understand the cause of non-returning users, you’ll have to track your retention rate over a daily, weekly, and monthly period. This will reveal any loss or gain of users from the marketing campaigns right away. One of the sure-shot ways to increase retention is by creating an engaging user experience.

d.) App Churn

A metric close to retention is churn. This term refers to the number of users who’ve stopped using your app. The churn rate becomes significant when the leaving users are your high-value users, then your low-value users. However, losing new users also means lost opportunities.

Statista’s report for the second half of 2018 on the churn rate of mobile apps all over the world found the rate rising from57% in month 1 to 71% in month 3.

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#3. Customer Satisfaction Metrics

Another goal based on which you can determine your mobile app metrics is customer satisfaction since it’ll show you which features are popular among your users, and how they’re interacting with your app.

a.) App Ratings and Reviews

One of the quickest and easiest ways to get user feedback about your app is app ratings and reviews. Rating plays an important criterion for users for choosing an app. You can improve your app ratings to attract users by prompting them to rate the app within the app itself. Similar to ratings, reviews are also important factors that affect your store ranking. Disappointed users are more prone to sharing negative reviews so you should try and aim to keep as many positive reviews as possible.

b.) In-App Feedback

There are several ways to collect in-app feedback from your users such as surveys and contact forms. Some of the people who offer their feedback are active users of your app so their feedback will be more relevant to understand where you stand. The best part about in-app feedback is that your users won’t need to leave the app to give their feedback. 

c.) Heat Map

Heatmaps help you track the areas that gain the most interactions from users. Heatmaps are a great way to see which areas of your app are getting the best traction and which areas are not so popular with your users. It helps you in devising strategies to make certain features more attractive to users and gain more engagement.

d.) Net Promoter Score

Net promoter score is also a metric to measure how likely your users are to share your app with their friends and families. The ranking is generally done on a scale of 1-10. You can get the score by subtracting the detractors (percent of people who aren’t likely to promote your app) from the promoters (percent who are likely to promote your app). A score of 50 or higher is ideal. The users who promote your app are extremely important since they bring more users to your app. Moreover, Net PromoterSystem found out that promoters have an average lifetime value of 3-8x as compared to detractors.

#4. User Acquisition Metrics

This goal is crucial since it helps you analyze your conversions and acquisitions with metrics such as the marketing channels that are bringing in users, the costs in getting from new users and the revenue from them.

a.) App Attribution

This is an important metric that helps you to analyze the sources that bring users to your app. It’s extremely beneficial for measuring which marketing campaigns are bringing conversions such as user downloads, sales, signups, etc. A great way to improve returns on your marketing campaigns is to direct your users to a specific app landing page. You can also do A/B testing on your messaging to see what works and what doesn’t.

b.) App Abandonment

The abandonment app metrics helps you find out how many users abandoned your app before using it, especially before signing up. This metric can help you figure out what’s wrong with your app’s onboarding process and what’s obstructing your users from signing up. You may also want to find out at which stage or on which page your users are leaving your app.

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c.) Cost Per Acquisition

With cost per acquisition, you can find out how much you’ll have to spend to get an active or paying user. This acquisition cost can include several things including expenditures on ads, PR, customer support, legal needs, technology costs such as infrastructure, etc. You can calculate the cost per acquisition by dividing the total cost of a campaign by the number of acquisitions made.

d.) Lifetime Value

The Lifetime Value (LTV) is the total revenue that you’ve earned from a user before they’ve ceased to use your app. This app metric also takes into consideration the cost per acquisition. So if the cost of acquisition is greater than the lifetime value of your user, your app will incur a loss.  The ideal way to increase the LTV of a user is by understanding the exact needs of your audience. Good customer service and quick response also help create a positive experience for the user.

Which of these mobile app metrics do you use for analysis? / Do you have any other metrics to add to this list?

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