There’s a lot that goes into making an app successful. Having the right logging system can make an impact, as can having the right tools to monitor and assess your storage and functionality. However, many app developers fail to do one simple task to assess performance: setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
If you don’t have a standard way to measure processing, you won’t be able to compare one incident against another, and you won’t have the best possible insights into your app performance. Here are various KPIs you can set to measure your success.
Mobile Downloads and Installations
One of the best, high-level ways to assess the performance of your app is to look at the mobile downloads as a KPI. Having this number adds tangible value to your app, which will be necessary if you’re looking for investors or assessing your next steps. The number of mobile downloads indicates the popularity of your app among users. As your ratings increase and more users discuss how much they love your app, more people will download it to try for themselves.
An increase in mobile downloads and installations indicates that an ad campaign has worked or your users are trying and enjoying your app enough to talk about it, and not running into any serious processing issues that are making the app difficult to use. A lull or decrease in downloads shows that you need to rethink how you’re putting yourself out there.
Uninstallations
To get better insights regarding your app processing, you can’t shy away from the ugly; you need KPIs that measure negative data. Uninstallations show the flip side of the mobile download coin. Similar to trying to maintain a low bounce rate on Google, you’ll want to measure and keep your rate of uninstallations low as well. After all, a million installations aren’t really that impressive if you have 999,000 uninstallations.
It’s particularly important to keep an eye on uninstallations when assessing processing, especially after adding an update or making a change. While a certain rate of uninstallations is expected, if there’s an anomaly in your data you know there’s a problem. Perhaps there’s something that needs to be debugged before your users are comfortable using the app. By looking into the detailed performance analytics, you should be able to determine if there is a correlation between processing and the uninstallations taking place.
Session Statistics
Just because someone has downloaded your app doesn’t mean that they’re using it. An app download could sit on someone’s phone or tablet for months without being touched. That’s why you should look into the session statistics to get a better idea of when and how your app is being used.
First and foremost, look at how often the app is used. Is it opened daily? Perhaps multiple times a day? How long between sessions? This KPI indicates that someone is engaged in your app and pleased with how it operates. You’ll also want to look at the session length. How long are users logged in, and does the length of time make sense given the purpose of the app?
Finally, look at their activity within the app and subset of performance testing. Are they getting to the home page and leaving? If that’s the case, there could be a processing issue to look at, such as loading time. Alternatively, are they clicking around and exploring the app? Unless they’re looking for the help page, this activity is usually a good sign that things are going well.
Revenue
Revenue is a significant KPI that will tell you how well your app is doing, both on a functional processing level and in terms of success with users. Depending on your app and business model, revenue KPIs can look a little different from app to app. It might mean assessing how many in-app purchases are made. Beyond looking at the purchases made, it’s worth looking at how many users are visiting purchasing pages but not making the conversion.
Other revenue KPIs might include revenue from advertisers. Again, there are various ways that this can be arranged, specific to the business model and the app in question. Whether you get paid by click or for ad space on your app, this metric can indicate how well this aspect of your app is performing.
Rankings and Reviews
Whereas your statistics and analytics give you a quantitative approach to measuring processing, your app’s rankings and reviews give qualitative data for a well-rounded approach. Usually, your ratings and reviews are the first place users will go to report a processing problem, and they often provide valuable– if sometimes rudely stated– information regarding your app.
In regards to setting a KPI to reflect this, you may set a targeted max number of poor reviews or a minimum number of positive views. You can look at this as a whole number, ratio or percentage. You may also set a target range for your monthly ratings, such as not dipping below 3.5 stars.
By setting standard KPIs and looking at the big picture when it comes to your app processing, you’ll be able to boost your app’s performance both in terms of how well it runs and how well it’s received by your users.
