What app metrics product managers should track to make their apps thrive

There are many metrics, like install-to-purchase conversions, retention, or ARPU. You might know how to count these, but choosing the right one to make business growth decisions is tougher.

In this post, learn how to choose the metrics you need to drive growth for your mobile app. You’ll also see some tips on selecting an app analytics tool to track your metrics.

Metric tracking should be your second priority

You can use tools like AppMetrica to track everything your users do on your app. While it’s now so easy, it can be overwhelming, too.

You may be tracking too much, too little, or just the wrong things. The most important thing is to know why you track what you track.

Let’s say your product is a meditation app. You’ve implemented a few features that change the user flow a lot. You’re having your coffee break now, and can’t resist looking at your numbers. This is what you’ll see on AppMetrica:

This AppMetrica Audience report shows a positive change in your MAU.

You could’ve stopped here — the numbers look nice. But then you see that despite high MAUs, fewer people started using premium features.

This AppMetrica Events report shows that there’s a decrease in premium purchases (order_event) from December 27th.

This happened because everyone who opened the app was considered an active user. While having many people opening your app is nice, it doesn’t help the business. This example shows the importance of thinking about the “why” before you track anything.

Seeing the ’why’ is easier and quicker when your analytics tool has a friendly UX. Take your time to choose the platform you’d like to work with in the long run.

Choosing the growth metrics that matter most

You’ve probably heard of a North Star metric. This framework suggests choosing one metric that brings the most value to the business. Then, you’d usually work with metrics that affect the North Star one.

Companies use it a lot, but this concept might be too limiting. Managing everything with just one metric can be complicated if you have different company goals or products.

We suggest a more relaxed approach called the Metrics Pyramid.

Some metrics give value to the business, usually money — we call these key metrics. And there are things you work with daily, like app load time, crash rates, etc — these are proxy metrics.

Your proxy metrics should serve the key ones — they matter most at the end of the day.

This is AppMetrica’s logo. The red color represents key metrics that lay on the surface. The proxy ones (in dark blue) help the pyramid and businesses function.

Whenever we think of a new feature or product, our job is to see how it’ll impact the business. Make sure you know which key metric you want to target with each thing you do.

You can choose as many key metrics as you need. But try to keep the list as short as possible while making your metrics very specific. See examples of specific and not specific metrics below:

When choosing your metrics, see what worked and didn’t work in the past. We recommend using an analytics tool that saves your history for at least two years.

Test your hypotheses to drive key results

What we love most about metrics is seeing the change. Changing your proxy metric affects other metrics and leads to a shift in your key metric. The tricky thing here is to know what causes the change.

First, you need to come up with hypotheses. Then, you need to see if they are true. You can use A/B testing or just look through the events in your analytics tool to do this.

This is our A/B test feature that lets you compare data of different groups of users.

When using your product analytics tool, remember to save reports. This will give you more data to learn from in the future.

AppMetrica has a ‘Saved reports’ section where you can store your reports unlimitedly.

5 types of metrics for product managers

See below our list of the most-used app metrics to start with what has proven to work well. Whatever you choose, remember why you’re tracking the metric and how it affects the business goals.

Monetization

Metrics: Average revenue per user, Net revenue retention, Monthly recurring revenue

Why to track: to see how much your updates lead to increased revenue.

This is our Revenue report showing an increase in total ARPU from December 1st to December 25th.

Activation

Metrics: Conversion Rate to Registration, Free-to-paid conversions, Time to activate

Why to track: to see how quickly users understand your product’s value.

This Funnel report in AppMetrica shows user drop-offs at each step of the customer journey

Retention

Metrics: Retention rate, Active users per time, Stickiness, Feature usage

Why to track: to see how users return to your app.

Our Retention report shows which media sources bring you biggest retention rates.

Referral

Metrics: Active users sending invites, Installs or clicks per invite, Customer acquisition cost of referrals

Why to track: to see how well your referrals work.

This Referral report shows a breakdown of your most active referrers and consequent app installations, conversions and sessions of users who came to the app from these referrals.

Acquisition

Metrics: Installations and revenue-related events

Why to track: to know more about which channels help users find your product and generate revenue.

This User Acquisition report shows that most users found your app organically.

Before you go

Your app’s success isn’t just about tracking numbers; it’s about tracking the right ones. First, define your key metrics. Second, see what other metrics can help boost the key metrics. Then, test your ideas to see what works.

Tools like AppMetrica can help you track things, but it’s for you to decide what matters most for your app.