Check out Apple’s brand new digs!
Apple just released it’s App Analytics feature to everyone and guess what…
Developers love it!
What does this mean for you and your app network?
Well for starters, you’ve got access to massive amounts of data straight in your iTunes Connect account.
Now developers can measure user engagement, marketing campaigns, and monetization for your iOS apps. Some specific features included are App Overview, Retention Stats, Device Usage, In-App Purchases, Installs, and loads more.
This is HUGE!
Be careful. Analytics may start to become… Fun!
Check out the following to get an idea of what you’re missing out on and how this data is a game changer for your apps and revenue.
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App Overview
The Overview Section shows tons of critical information. All of your fundamental data is easy to view and in one place.
My fav is App Store Views.
What better way to measure Soft Launch data or an update than to measure App Store Views VS Installs.
Now you know right away if your ASO edits are working or not.
Check out some examples of ASO you can test here.
App Analytics provides user engagement metrics, including number of sessions, active devices, and retention.
You can evaluate the impact of specific modifications – like changing the onboarding experience.
Apple also allows you to track information by device.
You have the option to measure what targeted devices you are missing out on. I used to have to integrate Google Analytics or Flurry for this data.
Metrics
The Metrics section is similar to the old data Apple provided but with a little bit of a twist. Here you can get the breakdown of all major data for Sales and Usage.
But Apple is still missing key data that are easily tracked on other third-party platforms like App Annie and Flurry.
What’s cool about App Analytics is the Compare To feature. Now data can be compared to a variety of things such as App Store Views, App Units, In-App Purchases, Sales, and more.
For example, let’s say I have a Casino app and I want to know how many In-App Purchases I sell per 1,000 Sessions. Now I can easily find that data.
Looking to brush up your analytics? You’re not the only one. Read Carter’s post 7 App Business Moves Your Competition Is Doing Better Than You to find out why spending more time in the analytics than in the revenue will grow your business. Carter describes analytics as the biggest difference between beginners and veterans.
Sources
Ever wonder what % of user come from sources outside of the App Store? Google, Yahoo, Facebook…
Or maybe you made a badass website that you use to push traffic to your app. Are you curious how many customers ACTUALLY come from your landing pages?
Problem solved.
Now you can see which organic marketing channels drive the highest traffic, downloads, usage, and revenue for your app.
I used to create custom tracking URLs every time I ran acquisition campaigns. Now all I have to do is click on the Sources tab and I get a breakdown of every source driving installs.
Simple.
You’ll be shocked to find out who is promoting your apps and which websites are publishing reviews.
This is a dream when running paid traffic campaigns like CPC and CPI. Easily track blogs, websites, and any other online source that link to your app
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Retention
Only Apple holds the EXACT download count. Services like App Annie, Sensor Tower, and Appfigures are badass! But for the most accurate data, you gotta go straight to the source.
What I find really interesting is the Day 1 Retention data. Day 1 Retention measures the percentage of users that use the app after the initial install.
If people aren’t opening your app on the 1st 2nd or 3rd day, you’re dead meat. Keep your percentages OVER 50%.
Apple measures the # of devices active up to 28 days after an initial install.
You see those dark squares in the screenshot? YOU WANT THOSE! That’s retention gold!
Best part is you can filter the Retention data by App Version, Platform, Region, Website or Campaign.
Learn more about Retention, Accessibility, and Functionality in Bluecloud’s Free Mobile App Development Guide.
In closing…
Well done Apple.
Golf clap.
I’m a big fan of the new App Analytics simplicity and the game changing data that is brought to the table. This is critical stuff especially for launches and updates.
In the past, Apple’s data dashboard has been a huge headache. But with the new App Analytics dashboard, it’s easy to follow and track data.
There are very few things I DON’T like about the new features. A few are:
- Not Enough Data: A lot of my apps are flagged as Not Enough Data. These words should not exist in an analytic report. If I’m running a soft launch in New Zealand, am I not going to be able to measure the data? Weak.
- UTC Time: Data is set to Coordinated Universal Time. I’d like to customize to my time zone or to a targeted time zone like US or UK.
- Mobile Usability: I love the simplicity of the iTunes Connect mobile app for development and notification purposes. But it still lacks solid data reports like App Analytics.
Login to your iTunes Connect account and give App Analytics a try today. This data is more important than your revenue report.
Also keep in mind that this is not the only analytics solution out there. Here are a few more analytics tools that you should consider.
Remember money doesn’t pour in overnight. But by crunching some numbers and putting in a little elbow grease, your apps can go from rags to riches very quickly.
Keep hustling!
Drop a line to share your findings and experience with Apple’s new Analytics Dashboard.
Does target Day 1 Retention Rate (which you ballpark as above 50%) differ for different app categories? For instance, do emoji apps have a lower retention rate than health apps, etc? Thanks also for the link to the mobile app development guide – lots of great reading there.
I will definitely use this for measuring launch data. @Mark How well does this compare to Google Analytics in your opinion? Obviously they do not have the customization that google has but what do you like about this compared to GA?
Thanks!
@Tyler – thanks buddy. Yes Day 1 Retention ABSOLUTELY differs between categories! I put 50% Retention Rate to push people, but that number is pretty F’ing high. If half your original customers are using your app everyday, call me…
A lot of retention comes down to trust. Some first tier retention apps off the top of my head would be News and Weather apps. They’ve got crazy retention numbers. You can throw finance in there too. Then Social Network apps for obvious reasons. Followed by the big retention games. For second tier I’d put Utility apps and Music apps such as Slacker, Pandora, Spotify.
To answer your question about Health VS Emoji… Unfortunately, I’d bet on Emoji apps out beating Health. Most of us send out more emojis rather than checking our HR or how fast we can run a mile. Maybe we can dev a Health/emoji app…
Great stuff! I’ll dig more into this and share in the future!
@Connor – Yo. I listened to some of your questions Carter answered on Bluecloud Select -> http://www.bluecloudsolutions.com/bluecloud-select-signup
Good stuff!
Re App analytics VS GA: I wish I could compare the two, but GA takes the cake. For simple apps, it’s great to get it in the App Store and look at App Analytics. But if you’re working on a heavy hitter app, GA is a better bet. Like I mentioned in the blog, I do like the App Analytics dashboard, Day 1 Retention data, Compare To, App Store Views, and the “Sources” may be my fav solely because it’s a lot of fun to see where traffic is coming from.
Cheers!