How to Measure the Success of Your Mobile App

When answering the question of how to measure the success of your mobile app, as an app publisher you might say “its about how much money my app makes me.” There is no doubt that how much money you are making is crucial information, but to get a truly accurate measurement of your app’s success, you need to consider broadening the scope of your analysis.

You have to ask yourself what goals best fit your specific app publishing model. Many companies are trying to increase market share, broaden awareness for their company, sell products, or provide functionality for those using company services. For these companies, apps are a tool that should reflect the overall goals of an organization as it communicates with internal or external constituencies. 

For app publishers whose app is the business (perhaps most importantly for these app publishers), things ratchet up exponentially. You have to determine what the goals are for your app in terms of monetization, brand value, cross-platform opportunities, future complimentary app launches, and much more.

As an app publisher, you need to create a set of performance indicators for your app that you can measure against so that you can ensure that your efforts are achieving their desired outcomes. Yes, revenue is a key performance indicator, however it is a function of many other interconnected activities. 

You need to be sure that you set benchmarks that are measurable and quantifiable so that you can constantly check to ensure your activities are constantly performing to the level that is required for your individual blueprint for success. 

You can track any number of metrics and analytics, but the task of identifying which are the most important for your specific goals are ultimately going to determine how successful you are in using your app for its intended purpose. And for many app publishers, measuring user engagement is one of the primary indicators for success.

Diving into metrics can seem overwhelming, but in truth, there are a number of steps you can take to gain insight and boost the impact of your app when considering user engagement. The good news is, when focusing on analytics, the availability of diverse and sophisticated analytics is growing exponentially. The bad news is the challenges associated with truly understanding how to leverage the availability of these diverse and sophisticated analytics.

For app publishers who rely on user acquisition and engagement, Localytics has created an overview titled “The 8 Critical Metrics for Measuring App User Engagement.”  This publication discusses philosophies and techniques to help app publishers drill down to what is important when measuring the effectiveness of your techniques for interacting with your app’s users.

Measuring and optimizing for the right user engagement metrics is key for app publishers for attaining and keeping users. And whether your business model is driven by in-app advertising, purchases, or paid subscriptions, driving your revenue is fundamentally dependent on personalization and engagement. And this guide will demonstrate how to understand and utilize critical metrics.

To read the full publication, visit the Localytics website.