How quick insights in AppMetrica catalyzed growth for Appsulove

Appsulove is a major mobile developer and publisher. The team comprises experienced product managers and analysts who track and optimize the company’s large portfolio of apps.

Though the company uses its own BI system for advanced marketing and performance analytics, the team’s product managers prefer AppMetrica for its user-friendly interface and easy access to data in real-time.

AppMetrica has helped the team eliminate critical issues in their SDK, caught crashes and helped the company grow its user base significantly. Find out how in this case study.

The Challenge

When Appsulove was about to enter a new phase of its growth, the team set a goal to find opportunities for business development and scaling. The product and analytics team integrated new instruments for evaluating their marketing effectiveness, product performance and overall business health.

The product managers at Appsulove knew something was off when they noticed a low number of ad displays compared to the number of triggers. And though the team had an arsenal of analytics tools at hand, such as Google Firebase, Flurry and other instruments, they could not identify the source of the issue or get a detailed picture of the user journey. Using their own BI system would have taken too long and too many resources.

The product managers hypothesized that the problem lied in the team’s internal SDK, which meant it affected the entire portfolio of apps. The only challenges remaining were how to confirm this prediction and identify other possible bottlenecks in the user journey.

The Solution

The product team evaluated several platforms to find the solutions to their challenges. Their chosen partner must:

• show a detailed map of the user journey
• help confirm or reject their hypothesis quickly
• identify app crashes, pointing to issues in the team’s own SDK
• load data and generate reports quickly and on-the-go
• be budget-friendly and reliable

AppMetrica met all of the criteria. Because the Appsulove product team has had previous experience using AppMetrica, they didn’t have any issues integrating it into their ongoing workflows. Additionally, the product’s pay-as-you-go subscription allowed the team to start using it without long-term commitment.

Use case 1: Confirming hypotheses and identifying problems in the SDK

To identify the biggest problem with discrepancies in ad triggers and displays, Appsulove constructed user funnels for ad-related events in AppMetrica and caught the point in the user journey with a significant drop in conversions.

After taking a deep look into the user journeys, the product team saw the exact point where the users dropped off and realized that the issue really did lie in the company’s SDK. That way, they were able to confirm their hypothesis and fix the problem quickly.

The screenshot above shows the growth of the interstitial ads per daily active user (int/dau) (top red) and the decline of failed interstitial ads per daily active user (fail/dau) (lower yellow) metrics against two app releases (vertical) after the team identified and fixed the source of the issue in their SDK.

After the fix, the interstitial ad metrics were redistributed, and the team saw an increase in ad displays and a decrease in failed displays.

Use case 2: Studying the user journey in-depth

Appsulove product managers construct funnels for various user segments, observing drop-offs. By delving into 10-20 individual cases, they are able to pinpoint issues that affect other users, too.

This approach enables a comprehensive understanding of customer behavior and the reasons behind drop-offs, facilitating the validation or refutation of the team’s hypotheses.

Other departments, like QA and testers, rely on funnels and custom paths for identifying crashes along the user paths, localizing specific issues and debugging the apps.

The results

As the team fixed the internal issue in the company’s SDK, they saw impressive improvements to the company’s entire project portfolio and revenue. Identifying the problem via AppMetrica and updating the SDK helped Appsulove:

• Raise the interstitial ad display percentage from 60% to 75%+
• Decrease failures on DAU by 50%
• Grow the inter/dau ad rate by +45% without changing the ad setup

Though the company’s analytics department uses its own BI system for advanced user research, AppMetrica’s user-friendly interface and pay-as-you-go subscription plan are indispensable. AppMetrica has become the team’s go-to solution in accessing real-time user data quickly and on-the-go.