You just built your first mobile app, which means it’s time to celebrate completing a huge mobile project, right? Wrong. Just because you got your app launched, doesn’t mean your work is done In fact, the launch is just the beginning. Now it is time to start tracking metrics, measuring success, and thinking about ways you can continuously improve your mobile experience. But, what are the right metrics to measure? Here’s a spoiler: app downloads or activations won’t tell you everything you need to know.
Important Mobile Engagement Metrics
So if you shouldn’t track downloads, what should you track? First off, you should decide what your goals for your app are. Is it to drive revenue? Or is it to drive brand awareness? Setting your goals before you launch your app is the best way to determine which metrics will tell the story of how successful your app is. For example, if you’re looking to drive revenue, you will want to track in-app conversions and click-through rates. But, if you are focusing more on brand awareness, you'll probably look more at active users.
Some other important metrics to track include daily and monthly number of users to see how many people are viewing your app. You should also take users one step further and look at the percentage of users that return to your app. Returning users will show how engaged consumers are with your content, brand, and in-app offers. Another key metric for measuring engagement is session duration which will help you understand how much time users are spending on your app during each session. The higher the duration, the more engaging your app is.
It is also important to note you might measure metrics differently depending on what type of app you built. Native mobile apps require a download and typically have more barriers to accessing the app. Therefore, consumer behavior will look different than those using a Progressive Web App (PWA). PWAs are apps hosted on the web, but can also be saved to your home screen. PWAs are much easier to access than a native mobile app, so it’s possible that PWAs could have more users, but the percentage of returning users may be smaller than a native mobile app. This doesn’t mean the app isn’t successful, you just have to adjust your goals based on what kind of app you are using.
Why Tracking Metrics Will Help You Improve
Tracking metrics is so important when it comes to marketing because you can use the data to improve your user experience and understand where there are holes that you need to plug. Only 31 percent of marketers track their returns from mobile investments, which is a huge missed opportunity for improvement. When you start to track users' engagement with your app you can better understand what pages of your app are most popular or where users are dropping off. Once you start to find these pain points you can start fixing them. You can also better understand how users are navigating the app, and if there are any user experience issues that would help increase engagement and conversions. Overall, tracking these key engagement metrics will help you improve your app and the user experience in the long run.
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