Keep your eyes on the ball: a growth strategy cheat sheet for the app founder
When it comes to product analytics, it is not always obvious which metrics the app owner should monitor to grow their mobile app business. Sophisticated app analytics solutions offer a wide range of parameters. In this guide we’ll focus on growth hacking strategies, metrics and features you can use to save money and identify growth opportunities.
You know one of the key rules of business: selling to an existing user is cheaper than attracting a new one. Because retention is cheaper than acquisition, your revenue is actually directly influenced by your retention rates. That’s why it’s a good idea to check whether your current users are happy with the app and find out what you can do to make them stay.
AppMetrica lets you monitor everything the user does in the app. You can use the platform to generate in-depth reports based on your app’s events, analyze them, and improve the user experience.
First, observe what users really do in the app via event tracking
An event is any significant action in the app, like an install, a purchase, click, hover, text input, and so on.
By tracking specific events and monitoring what your users are really doing in the app, you can identify screens and/or features within your app that either generate revenue or cause your customers to churn. Moreover, you can generate reports for user cohorts via Cohort Analysis and then dive into the activity of individual users.
AppMetrica reports to check out: Events, Cohort Analysis
Then, improve app engagement via Funnels
A detailed understanding of your user cohorts will help you drive a monetization strategy with in-app purchases, subscriptions or ads. To maximize your revenue, you will need to make sure your user experience is as smooth as possible, with high engagement rates and minimal drop offs.
A Funnel report within your product analytics platform will help you answer questions like:
- At what point do you users install your app?
- What in-app event helps them subscribe and/or make a purchase?
- What screen and/or feature causes friction?
To find problem areas, you can build funnels to see where and why users drop off, fix these bottlenecks and drive clients closer to conversion instead of losing them.
Metrics you can track: Timespent, Installs, Purchases, Retention
Reports to check out: Funnels, Engagement
Ankit Sharma, A1Apps founder: “As most apps we started with Google Firebase which was good for basic product data but as we grew and introduced subscriptions in our service, we needed a more sophisticated but affordable analytics tool.
AppMetrica is now an integral part of our product analytics. It is a cost-efficient way to organize comprehensive analytics for our apps. We find the UI really user-friendly.
As we are a subscription-based service, we value Funnel reports a lot as they help us identify user drop-offs on the way to subscriptions.
Attract more users with real time analytics and save money
When it comes to user acquisition, monitoring live campaigns, reacting to issues and maximizing on opportunities can be crucial for success.
For example, you can observe a campaign performance on the go, and either halt an underperforming ad (and save yourself some money) or boost an ad with the best results to get the most out of it.
AppMetrica lets you monitor installs and purchases in real time via its own mobile app, allowing you to track your campaigns anywhere, anytime. It merges data on user in-app experience and ad channel metrics — a great combination for calculating and growing ROAS.
Metrics you can track: Installs, Purchases
Reports to check out: User Acquisition
Vyacheslav Krivsunov, CEO of Multicast Games: “We saved a fortune thanks to AppMetrica’s mobile app. I can check where the money goes realtime, no matter whether I am: in the bath or on a picnic. When it comes to managing User Acquisition, there are no days off, it’s like playing on the stock exchange. You either stay up to date 24/7 or lose money.
Appmetrica literally is the fastest tracker in the wild west. It shows you the installs before the ad network withdraws money from the account. It is the fastest way to learn you’ve been featured: you simply see activity boost in reports. It is the best for dealing with ad networks spikes: you get to know about them immediately and put the daily spend down. Plus you can check crаsh & error reports in the same app”.
Detect channels with the highest LTV with predictive analytics (and maximize your ROAS)
What if we told you you don’t need to wait several days to see which channels are performing best?
Use predictive analytics features in your analytics solution to identify users with the highest lifetime value (LTV) and which channels they come from. Then, skip the trial-and-error stage and launch those campaigns most likely to succeed right from the start. Neat, isn’t it?
AppMetrica’s LTV predictions will allow you to estimate whether an ad channel will bring users with high LTV via an ML model. The model predicts a user’s LTV based on his or her activity on the first day of downloading an app. Based on this data, LTV Predictions forecasts the highest-paying users, allowing you to optimize your ad campaigns and attract similar users.
Metrics you can track: ARPU, Revenue
Reports to check out: User Acquisition, Revenue
Case: Yandex Games
Yandex Games used LTV Predictions to detect which user will spend more time in the app. They formed groups from the top 5%, 20%, and 50% of users based on predicted interest. Then they used these three groups to optimize ads and launched an A/B test to compare the following:
- Optimization based on the event “User played a game for at least 10 minutes”
- Optimization based on a prediction model event for the top 20% of users most capable of making a purchase
On the 21st day of the experiment, the model showed +19,65% growth of ROAS comparing to the default strategy and +25,35% ARPU.
See all your revenue in one data analytics dashboard
Spoiler alert: app founders should know where their revenue comes from. As with any business, diversifying your revenue channels is key to stable and protected income, so managing your revenue reports in one dashboard will rid you of at least one headache.
As you manage and grow your app, make sure to monitor your revenue sources and re-evaluate them from time to time. AppMetrica gathers all revenue channels in one dashboard. You can check Ad Revenue for any channel and identify the channels with the most purchases and subscriptions. You can monitor the overall revenue for subscriptions, for one-time purchases or for ads. You can see all types of revenue together and each one of them separately. AppMetrica displays every event that affects the revenue.
AppMetrica also provides automatic subscription tracking. Data about subscribing and updating the subscription status is collected as events with additional parameters. This lets you monitor your subscriptions renewal rates and create funnels, for example from install to subscription.
Metrics you can track: Total Revenue, Total ARPU, In-App Revenue, Ad Revenue
Reports to check out: Revenue
Launch new features without a new release
We all know the pain and investment of releasing a new app version in the app stores. And with a backlog full of improvement ideas and new features, the prospect of app updates can seem daunting.
While you can go the traditional way to test and launch new app versions every time, constant app updates (as well as any issues that come up during that time) can cause massive user discontent, lower engagement and, ultimately, lead to drop offs.
You can skip all that and minimize those risks with AppMetrica’s Flag configuration feature, also known as Remote config, which allows you to test and set any element of your app without releasing a new app version every time.
So, there’s no need to issue a new release to check how the app performs with those changes. You can add a new banner, button, screen or feature, run simultaneous A/B tests and launch the winning creatives directly from your dashboard. Could it be any easier?
Balance your staff and resources
Whether your company is a startup or a global enterprise, it’s important to manage your team and solutions efficiently. A comprehensive analytics platform that combines product and marketing analytics gives the app founder a perfect opportunity to avoid overstaffing and keep your resources in line.
So, you don’t need a team of UAMs anymore. AppMetrica acts as your UAM and analyst, all in one.
AppMetrica will even email you if something urgent shows up. Currently we are testing the Insight feature: it will monitor the general metrics and let you know if they have changed significantly and give you some advice on what to do with that. You will receive a notification via email and by push.
Reports to check out: User Acquisition, Cohort Analysis
Before you go
AppMetrica is an optimal solution for app founders who’d love to keep their eye on the ball. Stay aware of your mobile analytics and get things done:
- Boost retention via event-tracking
- Track ROAS for every channel
- Monitor UA realtime and save loads of money
- Detect user acquisition channels with the highest LTV from the first day of campaign
- Check all types of revenue together and each one of them separately
- Launch new features without a new release
- Stay up to date in the background mode
