Customer engagement relies heavily on data. Although customer data often takes center stage ( think all that wrangling over first vs third-party data) it is also essential for marketers to utilize metrics, benchmarks, and KPIs as tools for understanding whether customer engagement campaigns and programs are performing successfully or need adjustment; but comparing all measures from various angles would provide an inaccurate portrayal.
Mobile app developers attempting to evaluate the success of their relationship with app users face a distinct challenge: measuring engagement. But here are 10 KPIs (key performance indicators) that will allow marketers to measure what works in developing audiences for apps and mobile phone games.
Apps KPI And Its Importance
KPI represents “key performance indicator”. Simply stated, KPI refers to any piece of measurable information attributed to users that allows us to gauge app performance across critical areas by keeping tabs on data processing and reporting back results; mobile application KPIs enable us to measure all aspects of how users engage with an application.
KPIs are crucial in measuring app performance against its objectives. App KPIs allow your company to set goals, formulate plans to meet them and assess your progress along the way.
Consider it like taking a road trip: you set the destination, plan out how you will reach it, and periodically assess if anything has gone amiss on the journey.
Mobile app KPIs have become more vital due to the amount of time people are now dedicating daily to apps. As proof, daily app use in top mobile-first markets increased by over 30% between 2021-2022 – reaching over four hours daily on average!
What Is The Difference Between App KPIs And Metrics
KPIs and metrics both measure quantitative data. KPIs relate to business targets while metrics reflect processes within your company.
That may sound like semantic splitting; let’s consider an example. With an app-focused KPI such as increasing engagement levels, we might measure metrics such as:
Average sessions per user with uninstall rate averaging at 12% and average session length reaching 30 minutes on average.
Number of Daily Active Users
In general, one department or person in an organization owns each metric within their KPI. In contrast, multiple departments contribute towards it – so for example, if your company hopes to sell an extra 30% subscriptions during a particular quarter multiple departments could potentially help attain it.
KPIs and Their Metrics for Measuring Mobile App Performance
To meet your ultimate objectives, the first step should be identifying which KPIs or measurements you wish to track. Key performance indicators and measurements help assess app performance – but only when you know exactly what success looks like! These variables must also help gauge expected rates of success.
Below is a comprehensive list of critical mobile app performance KPIs to measure any app. These metrics measure how well an app functions, how appealing it is, and the revenue it brings in. Furthermore, KPIs increase knowledge about your target audience as well as help develop its business success.
1. Retention Rate
Retention should be at the heart of mobile marketers’ KPIs; without users engaging with your app anymore, engagement won’t happen. Deliberately monitoring churn is one way to decrease it and keep more users returning!
There are various definitions of retention; we will focus on range retention as an approach here. Range retention involves comparing the total user count from one week, month, or other date range against their equivalent count on another comparable date range to understand who has been retained from either date range.
You can calculate range retention by simply dividing this figure (say month after last) by its previous counterpart (a month prior) which in this instance equals 1.
2. Churn Rate
Retention rate shows how many customers you’re keeping around, but your churn rate measures the other side, how many app users leave during a given timeframe. Calculating it is straightforward. Simply subtract retention from one to get an approximate figure.
3. (MAUs) Monthly Active Users
For most apps, knowing your monthly active users (MAU) is an effective way of understanding who exactly comprises their audience. MAU counts someone as an MAU if they log an app session within any month (or 30-day period which your company defines as one), regardless of when or for how long.
MAU can serve as an excellent directional signal – users might stop engaging for some period but still come back later- but keeping tabs on whether your MAU count is rising or falling can provide insight as to whether customer acquisition/retention efforts are yielding fruitful outcomes.
4. (DAUs) Daily Active Users
For certain brands, knowing their monthly app usage statistics may only give a clue as to who their highly engaged customers are – knowing daily active user numbers provides more of an understanding of which customers they truly have in their midst than monthly figures alone can.
Simply having people download your app may not guarantee anything; engagement efforts need to bear more fruit if users actively make use of the platform consistently.
Considerations are to remember- DAU refers to each unique user who utilizes your app, not sessions; each individual counts only once for this metric, regardless of how often or often they access your application throughout a given day or period.
Keep this in mind; DAU can either be calculated per individual day (such as yesterday’s DAU) or averaged over multiple timeframes.
5. Daily Active User Per Daily Sessions
Now that we know how many people are engaging with our app each day, it is possible to dive deeper to understand exactly how that daily engagement looks in practice.
Examining how frequently users access apps allows brands a clearer picture of audience activity- usually multiple sessions daily are desirable levels for most apps’ success.
To calculate daily sessions per DAU, brands need to track both total sessions and DAUs – then divide one by the other.
6. Stickiness
Daily Active Users or DAU is one way of measuring repeat user activity, but stickiness goes further by including monthly user activity as an element in its definition.
By dividing DAU by MAU and then taking their ratio as your indicator for “stickiness”, stickiness provides insight into audience engagement levels – how likely and engaged people are with coming back each time around.
The closer these two numbers are, the greater effect your app is at keeping users coming back over and over.
7. Average Session Length
Its Session length is an effective KPI that measures how long on average users are spending with your app in each session – in other words, how wide it is extended in front of each user’s eyes.
You can calculate this metric by dividing the total time spent divided by users who logged sessions over any period to gain an idea of users typically engaging quickly for 10 seconds or remaining long after using your application for minutes at a time.
8. (CPA) Cost Per Acquisition
Acquiring new app users requires investing time and money; as part of your accounting, it’s helpful to know exactly how much is spent to acquire each audience member acquired through a campaign run.
CPA provides this insight by dividing campaign costs by the total acquisitions made during its duration; thus giving your company greater insight into managing marketing spend wisely.
9. (LTV) Customer Lifetime Value
Telling users to download and also open an app is only half of the battle; next comes creating value or revenue generation for your organization through subscription renewal or purchases.
Customer lifetime value (LTV) helps companies measure this aspect of brand-customer relations by measuring how much value can be extracted from an average user throughout their tenure as customers; when this value compares against CPA costs.
The more value you get for each acquisition dollar spent; to calculate LTV, take total spend by buyers divided by several buyers to date to determine LTV value calculations for them as they help your brand make strategic business decisions regarding investments made about app acquisition costs vs acquisition costing.
10. Return on Investment
Return on Investment KPIs can serve as the cornerstone of mobile marketing KPIs, helping marketers assess how much value has been created by campaigns versus costs spent, which is crucial when planning future strategies.
Unfortunately, understanding all its factors is challenging due to various variables at play – for instance, looking at revenue generated via conversions may not reflect all factors related to that campaign, for instance
Return on Investment (ROI) can still be calculated, provided there’s internal alignment on what constitutes return (profit, net revenue, etc.) and on what the investment costs of your campaign were.
Final Thoughts
There’s no one-size-fits-all method of turning data into campaign success; otherwise, marketers would need to check off a few boxes in an automated process before watching conversions come pouring in.
That being said, the KPIs listed above provide valuable insight into just how effective your mobile marketing efforts are and where improvements might need to be focused to drive future successes. Mobile app development company USA has been focusing ahead of time to see success rate in the market.
For more insight on what factors influence successful user engagement, look at A3logics Guide.
