Categories of metrics to track
All metrics can be divided into several categories:
1. App installation source
Helps assess how well marketing is working on your project to attract customers.
2. User retention and engagement metrics.
Shows how many users use your app, how often, and for how long.
3. Session characteristics
Helps assess how long a user stays in the app.
4. Financial metrics
Track your app’s financial success.
App installation source
Start with the basics—track where your users come from. It’s very useful to record how many users come from each source every month, especially during the first year after release.
Number of installs
The number of installs of your app. This is the simplest metric for measuring your product’s popularity.
Number of uninstalls
The fewer users uninstalling your app, the larger your audience.
Why users uninstall apps
- They don’t like the app—it doesn’t meet their needs, is too complicated, contains too many ads, and so on.
- They no longer need the app, for example, if they downloaded the product for one-time use. This issue depends on the business area and the app’s purpose.
- There can be various technical reasons, for example, the user has run out of storage on their phone.
- There are bugs—technical problems when launching or using the app.
- The registration process is unnecessarily long or complicated.
Session duration and frequency
A session is the time interval between the user’s first action after launching the app and their last action before closing it.
You can track:
Average session duration
Average session duration = total app usage time / total number of app sessions.
Average number of daily sessions per user
Average number of sessions per user per day = number of sessions per day / number of active users per day
Retention rate
Customer retention rate is a key metric for apps: it helps save budget on acquiring new users and increase revenue through repeat purchases. It’s simple: the customer is satisfied and loyal, and you don’t need to introduce them to the brand from scratch. How do you calculate the retention rate? Define the period you want to track the numbers for: a day, a month, a year, and so on. In analytics, a month is the most common period and is usually enough to launch a campaign or test a hypothesis.
RR = ((Количество клиентов на конец периода - Количество клиентов, пришедших за весь период) / Количество клиентов на начало периода) * 100%
What RR percentage is considered successful? There are plenty of opinions on this, and of course the industry matters. But the higher this metric is, the better.
How can you increase RR?
If your retention rate is low, something is wrong. Perhaps the product registration form is too complicated, or you’re unable to communicate the benefits of your product. The reason could be anything, but there are several proven ways to increase RR:
- Develop communication
Provide value to customers through content, instructions, and presentations. This way, you can increase brand awareness in customers’ eyes and help them solve their problems.
- Collect feedback and act on it
Customers like to be heard and listened to.
- Make things convenient
Analyze the UX design. Maybe the app is too complicated?
- Run promotions and special offers for regular customers
Churn rate
The opposite of Retention Rate is Customer Churn Rate—this is Customer Churn Rate, which is the number of users who have unsubscribed. You can calculate the index if you know the total number of users and how many left during a certain period of time. It’s important to choose the right time period, which should largely depend on purchase frequency. For example, if you have an annual subscription, there’s no point in calculating churn monthly, because the repeat purchase will only happen a year later.
Churn rate = (Lost customers / Total number of customers) * 100%
If you see a high churn rate, it’s worth analyzing the reasons. As with RR, there are no standard values. It all depends on the field and the specifics of the business. The lower the churn rate, the better.
