You’ve just worked tremendously hard and built an excellent mobile app. While this is great news, there’s still quite some work to be done beyond marketing it.
As a business owner or app developer, your priority should not only be to deliver an app that works well or looks good. You also need to monitor how well your mobile app meets your business goals.
This is why companies and individuals consistently use analytics to gather and analyze data that help them understand how users interact with their products.
There are tons of benefits to enjoy from tracking mobile app metrics. In this article, we’ll share a few and then show you 13 mobile app analytics tools that we recommend.
Table of Contents
Why Are Analytics Crucial for Your Mobile App?
No doubt, the chances of a mobile app experiencing sustainable market success are closely related to the amount of value it offers its users.
In practice, delivering great customer satisfaction can be quite challenging. This is largely because user behaviors and market trends keep changing.
However, mobile app analytics tools can help you bridge the gap and ensure that you don’t keep wondering what the next best feature update could be.
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With app analytics, businesses efficiently track user activity such as app opens and usage time during in-app sessions. Different teams can then use the reports generated from these analytics tools to improve various elements of your software.
In a bid to improve your app’s performance, there are lots of metrics you can choose to measure, depending on your business needs.
However, all trackable app usage metrics generally fall under these four categories:
User engagement
Customer acquisition
App performance
Customer satisfaction
For newbies, deciding what metrics to focus on can be rather confusing. The fancy acronyms often associated with them don’t seem to make things easier, either.
Let’s take a quick look at a few key metrics app owners should be measuring irrespective of their niche or goals.
Downloads. Downloads reflect the number of times your app is installed on a unique device. It’s a good measure of the market’s response to your product.
Uninstalls. On the flip side, you also need to track the number of users uninstalling your app. This gives a more balanced idea of your app’s performance.
Retention rate. App retention measures the percentage of app downloaders who actually continue to use your app. It can be calculated on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis.
Retention rate = Number of active users / Number of installs
Cost per acquisition (CPA). Shows how much you spend acquiring a new user.
CPA = Expenditure on ad campaign / Customers acquired
Average revenue per user (ARPU). Helps to keep track of revenue targets. It is also calculated on a periodic basis (daily, quarterly, etc.)
ARPU = Revenue generated / Number of active users
Lifetime value (LTV). This metric is vital for predicting expected revenue over a specific period. It uses existing data to speculate how much a user would spend before abandoning your app. Calculating LTV accurately often requires a couple of other metrics.
To gain a comprehensive idea of your app’s success, there are a couple of other metrics you need to track. But those listed above are generally a good place to start.
13 Popular App Analytics Tools to Consider
If you’re looking to track your app’s analytics metrics, there are lots of dedicated digital tools out there that can help enhance your results.
We’ve put together a list of 13 options that we recommend.
Google’s solution to mobile apps analytics is Firebase, a mobile and web app maintenance system. Beyond analytics, the platform is also used to build applications as well — web, Android, and iOS apps.
As you would expect, this Google service is a robust all-in-one solution that packs a lot of features ranging from analytics to hosting and A/B testing.
For low-traffic apps, all these features are available at fairly reasonable pricing. For bigger, more established apps, it may set you back a significant sum.
It supports Android, iOS, C++, Unity, and integrates with other relevant Google products such as Google Ads and AdMob.
Pricing
Firebase’s pricing is highly scalable and starts with the completely free Spark plan that includes analytics, performance monitoring, and A/B testing, among other products.
The paid Blaze plan is fully customized, with room to pay for only the features you need.
For example, real-time database storage goes for $5/GB.
UXCam is another powerful mobile app analytics tool. The service is ideal for improving your app’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with the help of in-depth user behavior analysis.
App developers, UX designers, and product managers use it to sniff out app issues.
UXCam focuses on leveraging user history to avoid future problems. As a result, it also delivers a more hassle-free user experience.
The platform allows you to watch recordings of past user sessions and replicate crashes. This makes troubleshooting effortless and can save the developer a lot of maintenance time.
With a better understanding of your user journey, you can record significantly higher conversion and retention rates.
You can use UXCam for both iOS and Android apps, and it supports multiple other platforms such as React Native, Unity, Xamarin, and Flutter.
Pricing
UXCam offers a free plan that allows you to monitor 5000 monthly sessions with one user license. For more sessions (up to 250,000), you need to upgrade to the custom Premium plan.
Additionally, large organizations may want to check out the more expensive, fully custom Enterprise plan.
Each plan includes a 14-day free trial, but the paid plans require you to submit a form to request a quote or demo.
Based in San Francisco, United States, Mixpanel focuses on the same features as the analytics tools previously mentioned on this list.
While they boast that the tool is ideal for companies of all sizes, small company owners may disagree.
No doubt, the user interface is user-friendly. However, new undecided users may find it hard to justify the pricing structure.
In essence, the tool comes with interesting analytics features such as funnel analysis and cohort analysis. All your analytics needs are attended to with different tools such as Insights, Flows, Formulas, and Live View.
With the help of the Insights feature, you get to see the top events within your app in the last 96 hours.
In the same vein, the platform allows you to track billions of events every month through a preset series of steps.
If you’re particularly concerned about your user retention rate, the Addiction Report feature may be just what you’re looking for.
Mixpanel works with iOS, Android, and web.
Pricing
Mixpanel’s pricing is highly scalable based on Monthly Tracked Users (MTUs). The free plan allows you to track up to 100,000 MTUs.
However, you do not get advanced analytics features that help you track the impact of specific user groups on your conversion.
The paid Growth plan starts as $17/mo for 1,000 MTUs (when billed annually) and can go up to $213/mo for 25,000 MTUs. For more resources, you would need to contact sales to subscribe to the Enterprise plan.
Each of these paid plans includes advanced features you won’t get on the free plan.
When it comes to mobile app analytics tools, free reliable options are quite rare. Fortunately, Flurry represents a completely free platform for app owners with no budget for analytics.
Just like every other tool on this list, Yahoo! Developer Network’s solution to mobile analytics covers all the basics.
Flurry is an easy-to-use platform that brings all the utility you need to one dashboard.
It takes only about five minutes to integrate into your app. In no time, you can monitor your app’s new and active users and gain insight into important session activities.
As an addition, you also get to know how your ads are performing.This option will help you maximize your campaigns on different advertising platforms.
Aside from that, if your app ever runs into any issues or bugs, the crash reporting feature will save you a lot of troubleshooting time.
Flurry boasts of attracting 250,000 developers who use their software in 940,000 apps. With all this utility for free, it’s not hard to see why.
Moreover, Flurry extends support beyond the conventional mobile web.
Therefore, iOS, Android, Unity, and React Native. Blackberry and Windows Phone developers can finally get to track their apps’ metrics as well.
Pricing
All Flurry features are entirely free to use. As such, for what it’s worth, Flurry is an incredible bargain.
If you’re wondering how they deliver this, Yahoo does expect you to use AppCircle, AppSpot, and other products in their network to fully optimize your app and business.
However, a freebie is hardly possible without one or two trade-offs. The significant trade-off here is the support speed.
As many may expect, the tech giant, Apple, also offer their contribution to the app analytics world.
However, if you were looking forward to a robust solution, you should get ready for a disappointment here. Apple’s approach to analytics for iOS apps can be described as decent at best.
With Apple App Analytics, what you get is a significantly limited number of capabilities. In essence, you’ll be tracking only three types of data: usage, sales, and app store data.
In other words, you’re keeping tabs on your user engagement, in-app subscriptions, and app store impressions.
If you want some more detailed data-based insights into user activity and how to improve your marketing strategy, you may have to look elsewhere.
It’s clear, though, that Apple doesn’t intend the tool to be a heavyweight all-in-one solution.
This explains why they do not charge a fee to use the service, provided you’re subscribed to the Apple Developer Program.
The platform supports only iOS apps. That said, if you’re an iOS developer on a tight budget, it may be a good place to start.
Pricing
Apple iOS Analytics is completely free to use for developers already subscribed to the Apple Developer Program.
This subscription comes in two packages: the basic $99/year Developer Program or the $299/year Developer Enterprise Program. These packages are suited to individuals and organizations, respectively.
Adobe is a household name even non-tech-savvy folks are familiar with. Aside from its popular multimedia production tools, Adobe also provides a powerful feature-packed solution for analyzing your mobile apps.
When using Adobe Analytics, the main focus of the analytics strategy is user retention.
From campaign acquisition tracking to audience segmentation, the platform provides all you need to gain insight into your typical user’s journey within your app.
You can take advantage of the Mobile Starter project, which delivers you industry-leading mobile reports and visualizations.
Similarly, the Adobe Experience Cloud SDK is arguably one of the best solutions for evaluating user activity and optimizing user experience in real-time.
Adobe Analytics supports multiple platforms such as iOS, Android, React Native, Xamarin, Unity, Flutter, and web.
Pricing
Adobe Analytics strictly targets enterprises.
You can choose from one of the Select, Prime, Ultimate plans. These plans differ mainly in the number of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems you can integrate (5, 15, and 200, respectively.)
To get a complete idea of the pricing, you’ll need to contact sales by requesting a demo.
The final price will depend on the number and type of resources you opt for. Whatever you choose, you can expect a significant impact on your budget.
Facebook Analytics is another solution from a major company that definitely deserves a mention.
The key selling point of this platform is its omnichannel advantage it brings to mobile app analytics.
Beyond tracking user actions in your app, it also leverages the power of Facebook demographics to further understand your audience across multiple devices.
Demo of Facebook analytics dashboard
What you get is an analytics strategy that helps you deliver a highly user-centric mobile experience and well-optimized ad campaigns.
The machine learning-powered analysis provides, in one report, all the data you need to take immediate strategic action.
Android, iOS, and web developers can make use of this robust solution to solve all their analytics needs.
The endgame of every mobile app analytics effort is to consistently improve your marketing campaigns. Localytics focuses squarely on this. This is evident from their tagline, “Your Results Matter.”
To deliver on this marketing analytics claim, Upland Localytics analyzes your app sessions extensively and helps you spot user trends and patterns.
With these insights, you get a wholesome perspective of the factors that trigger specific actions within your app. You can then use this knowledge to drive your marketing and user engagement strategy.
Localytics supports both iOS and Android.
Pricing
Pricing info is not readily available on the Localytics website. However, according to Mobile Dev Memo, the product is priced based on the volume of the data you intend to track.
They offer a free Community edition. The paid versions include the $95/month Premium edition, $895/month Enterprise edition, and Enterprise Analytics and Marketing edition.
Relatively new to the game, AppAnnie does a remarkable job in using data from your mobile app to grant you a competitive edge in the market.
The tool meets your analytics needs by employing products divided into two categories: Market and Analytics.
Products in the Marketcategory offer you relevant and intelligent insight into what other app owners are doing.
On the other hand, Analyticsproducts let you understand your app, its users, and performance.
After launching Ascend, an analytics-based ad solution, AppAnnie became the first in class to deliver real-time side-by-side analysis of market data and your own product data.
The platform supports iOS, Android, mobile web apps. You can also integrate data from multiple third-party apps such as AdMob and Unity Ads using App Annie Connect.
Pricing
AppAnnie’s free plan lets you see app store top charts, rank history, web visualization, and basic ASO features. However, if you want more powerful features such as app usage estimates and SDK insights, you need to sign up for a Premium plan. Each of these plans is priced based on your needs. You need to contact sales to clarify.
Countly is an open-source enterprise-grade tool that offers a cloud edition you can host on your own servers.
The idea behind this platform is that it’s often insufficient to merely acquire new users—a lot of effort has to go into retaining them.
With Countly, most of your focus will be on tracking events, new users, and their usage time. The user-friendly dashboard makes all of this fast and seamless.
It is also possible to monitor internal errors and get alerted by email or phone anytime one occurs. The issue report lets you see what triggered it.
You can use Countly for a wide range of mobile apps, including iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry, web, and even other IoT platforms.
Pricing
On the free Countly edition, you can monitor 10,000 user sessions monthly. To expand the available features, you’ll need the custom Enterprise edition.
SmartLook is a web-centric tool with an equally powerful module for mobile apps.
One of the service’s most interesting features is screen recording. This feature allows you to apply several filtering options to monitor highly specific user information.
You can further link recordings of registered users to your personal database using an Application Programming Interface (API). Similarly, you can create custom events, funnels, and rule-based heatmaps.
SmartLook is available for Android, iOS, and web apps.
Pricing
SmartLook offers one free and three paid mobile analytics plans.
The Startup Mobile plan costs €48/month (up to 100,000 monthly sessions).
On the other hand, the Business Mobile comes at €96/month for the same number of monthly sessions, but includes 6 event definitions and retains 12-month data history.
Collecting mobile app insights doesn’t have to be only quantitative, there’s a qualitative side to it too. You have got to allow app users to express their voice, report issues and ask questions as well! Dry numbers don’t provide that type of app insight.
By adding Shake to your app, you will allow your users to send their feedback back to you whenever they feel like it, or describe bugs they stumble upon. Without ever leaving your app for a second.
Shake then does its magic and apart from the user feedback you will receive on your central web dashboard, you will automatically see user’s device, OS, location, app build, a list of granted permissions, device language and whatnot. So that in a case you have to assist the user or explore and fix their issue, you’ll already have all the actionable tech data at hand.
Shake SDK can be added for free to your Android, iOS, React Native and Flutter apps.
Pricing
Shake offers one free-forever, and one paid plan.
That Premium plan costs $50/month and allows you to then collect unlimited feedback from your app testers and users, both internally and in production.
Conclusion
No doubt, analytics tools are an integral component of any successful mobile app marketing strategy today.
However, considering the myriad of options available, picking the perfect fit for your app is often a pretty tricky task.
It’s important to note that there’s no universal solution for all mobile apps. Every tool performs excellently in different departments.
Therefore, we recommend you to match the optimum platform for your project goals based on the key points we’ve reviewed above.
Petar leads Shake (DECODE’s sister company) as CEO, delivering the product to a growing number of happy, innovative clients. Day-to-day, he ensures the engineering, design, product, marketing and sales teams all work in harmony. Before moving to Shake, Petar led DECODE.
Although an engineer by schooling, his natural talent soon saw him making an impact on the marketing, sales and branding side of things. Petar’s passions include architecture, skiing, sailing, and a good glass of red wine.
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