Unless you pay attention to your app metrics, you are flying blind. Improve your app performance with these six key metrics to provide the best in-app user experience.
In order to make the best business decisions, you need to be able to track and gauge your app’s performance. When analyzed properly, collected data can provide a comprehensive picture of how your app performs and, if you know what to look for, can offer a clear roadmap to make your application better.
For this reason, it’s crucial to have mobile app metrics in place that will allow you to keep track of your users’ behavior within your app. Here are the top six metrics that matter most to application developers and tips on improving the numbers to deliver the best in-app experience for your users.
1. Number of downloads
A key metric to track an app's success, monitoring its growth can give you valuable insight into how effective your marketing campaigns are and highlight some areas for improvement (e.g., app store listing, optimization).
Improve this metric by: Encouraging users to leave reviews
While there are many ways to boost your downloads, one untapped solution is to involve your users and encourage them to leave reviews on the app store.
Remember, not all users are willing to give glowing testimonials — only those who are satisfied and engaged (a.k.a. your brand advocates) will do so involuntarily, as they are those who find value in interacting with your product. Build relationships with your users and cultivate loyalty by adding in-app social features such as chat, feeds, profiles, and more to improve their experience, eventually making your app more valuable to them. With these additions, you can quickly turn casual users to brand advocates.
2. Activation rate
Your success doesn't end with app downloads. For more detailed information on your app's success, you should look into the activation rate, which measures the percent of people who downloaded and opened your app.
Improve this metric by: Optimizing your onboarding process and make it frictionless
Ensure a simple onboarding process for your users. Cut unnecessary forms, questions, and get straight to the point. The less tedious it is for your users to start using your app, the faster they will love using it.
For easier onboarding, you can also enable in-app messaging with live chats. Live chat is such a powerful tool as it allows you to interact with your customer instantly if they encounter any issue in a tailored and convenient way. Use it to automate FAQs and let bot replies help guide your users.
3. Active users
After you have figured out why you have many downloads and how many people started using your app, you need to determine how many people actually use your app regularly. You can segment active users into Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU).
- DAU: Refers to users who visit your app at least once a day. This data represents your most active and engaged users, those who consider your app an essential part of their daily routine.
- MAU: Users who open your app at least once a month.
When you combine DAU and MAU, you can assess user engagement, ultimately determining your app stickiness. You can use app stickiness to calculate how many of your users are active every day compared to those who use it only occasionally or once a month.
To calculate app stickiness:
Improve this metric by: Integrating in-app messaging and groups to keep the engagement going
Say you have episodic-based content, and you want users to keep coming back to your app, regardless if you have new content or not. You can utilize group chats and interest-specific groups to continue user engagement until your new content comes.
Host public and private groups, give regular (and relevant!) special promotions to make sure users keep checking your app, and keep the hype going with discussions. AirAsia integrated this solution into their current platform. The leading low-cost airline in the region implemented in-app group channels. This improvement helped increase their MAUs dramatically to 350,000 MAUs chatting monthly in 2021 even if everyone is at home and not traveling due to the pandemic.
4. Average visit time
Also known as the average duration of your users’ sessions, this feature explains how long they spend on your app, helping you determine the overall user experience. Consider checking your app's features and design and asking for feedback if the duration of their visit is short. This way, you can improve user engagement with the app.
Improve this metric by Adding engaging and personalized content to the in-app feed
It's all about customized experiences and high-quality content to keep users interested for a longer time.
Use a tailored in-app feed and show users the content that matters most to them. Enable app user engagement by aggregating the posts they want to see in one newsfeed, so they spend more time scrolling and digesting information specifically curated to their interests. Having a relevant in-app feed will encourage users to stay on your app for a longer time.
5. User retention
Upland Software found an average of 43% of users re-engage an app at least once within one month of downloading it before it drops to 34% in the second month and 29% in the third month. User retention rate is a fundamental metric because it shows you how often users return to your app. You can measure this metric in various ways, but the most valuable is the percentage of users returning to your app over a day, week, or month.
Improve this metric by: Activating in-app communities to entice users to come back
Connecting with your users via your platform through communities in your app is one of the best ways to ensure they check-in in regularly. Let the users communicate, exchange, share, and increase your chances of keeping them coming back.
To increase in-app user engagement, encourage interaction between members by letting them submit user-generated content to help you build credibility with your users. People tend to trust their peers first, so make sure you are building your community well.
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6. Churn rate
Did you know that 57% of users churn in the first month and 71% by the third month? The churn rate can tell you the percentage of users who stop using your app is directly related to your retention rate.
Improve this metric by: Providing more value to your product through social features
A growing app requires continuous improvement and constant innovation by improving what already works or eliminating flaws to enhance your platform. One way to elevate your app is to integrate social features to provide more value to your platform.
For instance, enabling in-app messaging support can improve your customer experience, as they can quickly and immediately report issues without leaving your application. Further, groups can increase in-app social engagement, giving your users a reason to keep using your app and connect with like-minded peers. Adding videos such as live streams and stories to your app can engage your users using interactive visuals in real-time. Social features can provide endless opportunities for your app to improve, so definitely look into how you can integrate and maximize them on your platform.
Take advantage of app metrics
All these metrics allow you to track your app’s performance in various ways. Looking at the data gathered closely, you can gain a more in-depth understanding of your users, evaluate the success of your app user engagement strategy, and help the growth of your application.
Based on these metrics, you can develop an effective action plan to address any potential flaws and convert casual visitors into repeat users — and eventually brand advocates — who simply could not resist coming back to your app.
