3 Steps To Measure The Success Of A Mobile App

A successful mobile application is the purpose of each software owner. How can that purpose be achieved? The answer cannot be that simple. Preparations and planning matter; software design, development and deployment matter; marketing and promotion matter. A successful app is a result of well-planned and implemented strategy. Measuring the success of a mobile app is much more than counting the number of downloads. Aside from the essential ROI, you'll have to study various information about app's usage and user behavior - namely interest, engagement and retention.


1. Interest


Measuring starts with waking the users' interest - and counting it.

• Number of downloads. That's what was mentioned above - it matters, but it's not the only thing to consider.
• Number of users. You can measure the interest in the app, knowing the number of users. This can be the rate of active users to compare with the number of downloads. This can be the number of new users over a certain amount of time. Measure how many people download and use the app, and monitor whether the app gains or loses popularity.
• You can also track the statistics on devices and platform versions your app is used most on - that's vitally helpful.

2. Engagement


After interest comes engagement. It's relatively easy to attract customers, and it's much harder to engage them into being loyal. What can you actually value here? It's all about frequency and depth of visits.

• Each app serves its own purpose, and each has its own expected frequency of visits. Some can be used almost every hour, some are used once a day, some even more seldom. Measure how frequent visits are, and compare with the number of users. That's how you can see how loyal your users are.
• You can also see how much time is spent within the app, and how deep the app is used (namely how many screens are viewed by users, and whether users get to the most important screens). See how well the app performs its purpose - for example, you can track the number of in-app purchases. Thus you will be able to see the engagement and plan further actions. If the app is used twice, it's quite likely to have caught the attention, and will be used again (so keep an eye on the bounce rate).

3. Retention


Engaged users become customers - here you achieve retention. But you need to constantly keep the app up-to-date, relevant for users, and properly supported. Think what else you can offer to encourage more frequent use.

• Read the feedback on the application store (or perhaps on your dedicated website) and consider users' opinions (add what they want, remove what they dislike). By tracking the use of features you'll know which are the most important ones. Meanwhile you can make the application more attractive for users and more profitable for you. That's about updates. Every application needs updates to maintain relevance of features and content.

Measuring the success of the app with analytics, you are enabled to bring changes to your strategy and make it more efficient; for example, concentrate on certain means of promotion. There is no success without investments of resources and efforts; having these statistics will help you push them to the right direction, track returns, involve and retain more and more users.

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