If you’re looking for opportunities to make more money with your mobile apps, you should be ready to constantly adjust and better your development strategy. And you’re unlikely to succeed without data processing. Information on user behavior and activity will help you find out if your platform requires any improvement, and if so, in what way.
The easiest and most self-evident way to get the necessary data is to resort to iOS and Android app analytics tools. But which tools should you choose? Let's figure it out!
Why should you use mobile app analysis tools?
Before proceeding to the description of the best analytics tool for mobile apps, we’d like to recall the basics.
What app analytics metrics need to be tracked?
Alas, there is no exact answer, it all depends on the specific project and your business model. However, we can give you a few tips.
The ideal app analytics tool
Most of the mobile apps have two key tasks:
-
solving a certain problem your user might have;
-
generating income (this will interest the program owner).
Therefore, the best app analytics tool has to meet the following requirements:
-
Efficient identification of traffic sources;
-
Sales Funnel Analysis;
-
Advanced reports with deep segmentation;
-
A/B testing;
-
Targeted Push Notifications;
-
Complete cohort analysis;
-
Convenient integration system.
Naturally, there is no such thing as an impeccable solution, and it's next to impossible to find mobile app analytics tools that ideally match the above parameters. Though, later in the article, we'll do our best to provide you with a couple of tips on the matter.
When to integrate mobile app analytics tools?
You must integrate chosen tools for mobile app analytics into your program at the stage of its development. Moreover, you should start looking for the perfect solution at the early planning phase. And bear in mind, you'll have to select the service individually, taking into account the tasks your application is going to carry out.
Now it’s high time to examine the list of mobile app tracking tools.
Best mobile analytics tools
So what does the modern app market (analytics-related) offer?
Google Analytics
Maybe Google Analytics (also called GA) isn’t the best app analytics tool, but it clearly belongs to the top five. And its reputation is well deserved.
Google helps you effectively analyze and process information about user behavior. The data obtained is turned into detailed reports on the frequency of visits, geolocation, conversions, providers, traffic sources, operating systems, and other parameters. This information is extremely important for everyone who is interested in promoting and improving their platform.
How does Google app analytics work?
The principle of operation of the Google desktop and mobile analytics tool is extremely simple.
See for yourself: on all pages of the resource, there is a special counter code, and its work is being performed as follows:
-
The user comes to the resource containing the GA code. Here, information about his actions is being automatically tracked and recorded. In addition, a list of special files is being generated for future visitor identification.
-
In addition to tracking user behavior, the Google Analytics counter sends data obtained to servers, where it’s being carefully processed.
-
At certain intervals, the server generates and updates user reports in GA. Of course, this takes time.
The above scheme is very rough, but the main thing is to understand the principle itself, right?
Key Benefits
Comparing the best mobile application analytics tools, we need to know what each of them is good at. Let's see how Google would please us in this regard.
-
Multilingual interface. GA can show reports in different languages, which means there is no language barrier.
-
Numerous options, including dozens of useful filters, hundreds of types of reports, and various analytics settings. This simplifies the data analysis process and makes it more convenient.
-
Huge expert community. Google Analytics is being actively used by millions of developers around the world. So if you encounter problems in the process of your work, you have every chance to easily find a solution (after all, the same problems are likely to have already been solved by someone else).
-
Universality. The service has been successfully implemented by both small business representatives and large corporations. What's more, the GA tool is really good if you want to make a small business big and need data to help you form the right development strategy.
-
Visualization of the process of user transition to the goal. We mean the path that the visitor overcomes when solving his task, such as: buying a product online, filling out a subscription form, etc. Visualizing the user's path will help you improve the usability of your resource.
-
Scheduled data export. GA data can be converted into a file of the desired format (XLS, CSV, PDF, etc.) and sent to the specified email address at the specified time, which is especially useful for web analysts and SEO specialists.
What data does Google's real-time website analytics collect and process?
-
Traffic data: the number of pages viewed, new visitors, sessions, and so on.
-
Your audience: location, user activity, etc.
-
Sources of users, that is, where each visitor came from, transient key queries, etc.
-
The popularity of pages and sections of a site or application.
But this is just a brief example of what Google app analytics allows you to find out about your resource. In fact, its capabilities are larger and wider.
Apple Analytics
As you probably understand, in this case, we're dealing with the mobile app analytics tool for iOS devices. Apple Analytics allows quickly accessing all the data on iOS applications (which data, we'll tell you below), and that's what so unique about it. You don't need to spend extra time searching for the necessary information, which means you can instantly respond to any changes that may affect your mobile product.
Platform history
Apple Analytics had been introduced to the public several years ago at WWDC 2015. Now this powerful mobile app analytics tool is available to all application owners and, of course, developers. It supports iOS 8 and later OS versions.
How to work with Apple Analytics?
The process of interacting with Apple Analytics is extremely simple and intuitive: you’re given access to the list of applications; next to each of them you can see data displayed for the selected period (30 days by default).
Such data is general in nature, and if you want to know more, you should tap the name of the application you’re interested in and follow the link.
Key Benefits
Apple has clearly created a product worthy of taking its place among the best tools for mobile app analytics (even if it focuses only on the iOS platform). But what are the advantages of the system? Let’s see!
-
No need to install special codes. You don’t need to write code to get started or use the SDK: Apple Analytics has done all the work required. Developers can see their apps' data in iTunes Connect.
-
Data confidentiality. User data is highly protected: each person decides whether to allow access to information about him.
-
The presence of numerous filters, including filters by location and platform (talking about iPhone or iPad).
-
Visibility of data display. Apple Analytics data is presented in daily charts so that you see how user engagement has been changing.
What information is Apple Analytics processing?
Apple Analytics gives you access to many important metrics to track in your mobile app, including those shown in the infographic below.
Localytics
Localytics is a well-known mobile app analytics tool for Android and iOS devices. The system is easy-to-use: to integrate it into your platform, you just need to take advantage of the provided API.
Localytics targets the world's leading B2C brands such as the New York Times and ESPN. And most importantly, it has been successfully used as an effective mobile analytics tool in almost 40 thousand applications on more than several billion devices.
Who might be interested in Localytics?
-
Marketers and web developers who need to track sales funnels and know statistics of downloads and deletions of applications.
-
Salesmen who are interested in integrating a service with CRM systems and combining contacts from a program with a client base.
Key Benefits
-
Access to useful features. Localytics isn't limited to standard analytic tasks: it also provides us with a marketing automation system, as well as smart targeting tools and convenient mobile app attribution tracking.
-
Many useful filters and settings. Localytics allows you to create reports on user behavior with filtering by device type, session duration, demographic data, events, and other parameters.
-
Creating push notifications with smart targeting.
-
Comparison tools. Localytics is aimed not only at simple analytics for mobile apps. It's also a platform helping you compare the behavior of convertible users with the activity of an uninterested audience.
-
Successful partnership. Localytics is a certified Twitter partner within the bounds of the Official Partner Program.
Firebase
Once again, it’s time to recall Google, which owns Firebase, a fast application development platform with an advanced mobile app tracking tool as its part.
Platform history
A few years ago, in the middle of autumn 2014, Google acquired the Firebase service and began to integrate it with Google Cloud. Next, the company started active work on improving the product, which resulted in a high-tech platform covering the entire app life cycle: from development and testing to the launching moment.
In addition, Google wanted to offer users an ideal app analytics tool and therefore created Firebase Analytics. This system provides a lot of cool features allowing you to track and analyze user behavior.
An updated Firebase with Firebase Analytics was presented at the I/O 2016 conference.
Key Benefits
-
Multifunctionality. As you already understood, Firebase is more than a mobile app analytics system. It is a complete application development platform.
-
No sampling. That is, the amount of data needed to be analyzed is unlimited.
-
Almost a free tool (the free version is supplemented by more advanced paid packages). This is important since many other mobile app analysis tools are paid systems.
-
The possibility to integrate with a large number of third-party services.
Adjust
Adjust is an international company of mobile app analytics, which in 2018 launched a free open-source tool allowing you to evaluate the effectiveness of applications. All that is required to successfully implement the service is a competent SDK setup.
Adjust collects statistics on the popularity of iOS and Android programs and helps developers, marketers, and application owners understand if their product has any chance to succeed in the market. They can set the characteristics of their platform (type, OS, the region of distribution, etc.) and get average app analytics metrics such as KPI, CPI, user retention, number of sessions, in-app user actions, and so on.
BTW!
Adjust uses its own mobile app tracking tool in preparing various reports on the iOS and Android market situation. And this best proves the effectiveness of the offered system.
Key Benefits
-
A very effective Apptrace tool: it collects data on the popularity of applications in App Store and Google Play and studies traffic sources (including Facebook ads).
-
Advanced reporting. Adjust allows you to create detailed reports that enable you to track application success.
-
KPI Management. The service offers the ability to assign desired KPI, which can be anything you like: user activity time, average revenue per user, life cycle cost, conversion percentage, etc.
-
Guest access, which digital agencies might find really useful.
-
A multilingual interface that simplifies the work with guides.
Criteo
Our next example of the best mobile analytics tools is Criteo, an international multi-functional platform. It solves several problems with the aim of attracting and retaining users: data analysis, an increase in the number of leads, sales growth, and more.
Platform history
Criteo first appeared in 2005. It started as one of the promising startups created by talented guys living in Paris: Jean-Baptiste Rudel, Frank le Ouet, and Roman Niccoli. In those days, Criteo was just a recommendation product offering users content able to interest them (or products, if it's about eCommerce solutions).
The success wasn’t long in coming: in 2010, Criteo opened an office in Silicon Valley, and two years later, in 2012, created Criteo Labs, the largest European research center working with data analysis and forecasting advertising.
Today, Criteo is a company worth several billion dollars and having about 30 offices around the world. Its mission is open access to real-time websites analytics (for mobile apps, as well) and the most innovative technologies.
Key Benefits
-
Collaboration with major brands around the world;
-
Effective algorithms: this desktop and mobile analytics tool is constantly learning and adapting by using real-life examples of customer behavior;
-
Smart recommendations system: in addition to statistics of recent views or popular products, the habits of a specific user are taken into account;
-
Dynamic Creative Optimization. The algorithms we've already mentioned allow us to dynamically optimize banners based on data about a specific user;
-
Universal Match, the system combining and synchronizing the entire history of targeted user actions.
AppsFlyer
We want to complete the list of mobile app tracking tools with the AppsFlyer platform. Its goal is to provide developers and application owners with the opportunity to collect data about the funnel of attracting users so that they can improve it if necessary.
Key Benefits
-
System control with a single panel and in real-time;
-
Collaboration with leading world brands: OZON, Pixonic, Genesis, S7 Airlines, Gismart;
-
High data accuracy;
-
Customer focus;
-
High level of information protection and data privacy;
-
Following the latest tech innovations;
-
An effective support team that quickly comes to the rescue;
-
Multifunctional dashboards, which can be customized to your liking.
