Keeping smartphone users interested and engaged with your app is a challenging task these days as hundreds of new products are uploaded on app markets every hour.

But once you understand favourite features and primary needs of your users,  you can make educated decisions on how to market, update and make money from your app analytics.

On both iOS and Android, there are plenty of data points available to analyze as well as things to change and improve. So, answering questions which mobile analytics tools to choose and why is the purpose of this article.

3 categories of mobile analytics: in-app, performance and marketing.

App marketing analytics gives coverage of things like:

1. Installs – how many times the app has been installed and the path which led to it
2. Registration – when and why people decide to register or NOT, which is even more important
3. Content Viewed – what should be paid more attention to
4. Shares – which platform is a link to your app is shared from, what is its content
5. Events – This is analytics set by you to find out when people have followed the “Also liked” button
6. Opens – switch overs from other apps, follows to deep links, a time when the app is opened
7. Purchases
8. Invites – the demographic factor of those who invite and who is being invited

The biggest difficulty with the above-mentioned information is usually a lack of understanding of what to do with it.

A lot of the platforms we recommend below, however, offer ways of making sense of it.

So that you can grip the most important factors and use them in your marketing strategy.

In-app analytics tools
In-app analytics – things that users do within your application.

If they always come back to the homepage or if they follow deep links?

Who your users are – demographics.  For example, the most frequent users of your apps do not necessarily coincide with the most valuable – so how to change one into the other?

The category can be subdivided into three sections: device – whether the model or OS version has any effect on their behavior, user demographics – gender, age and location and also whether they’re new users or coming back.

User behavior – what brings or doesn’t to income and conversion. These include tracking clicks, time spent on the page, lead conversion pages, their content and design.

App performance analytics tools
App performance analytics – is concerned more with “machines” itself.

It is about identifying tech problems, crashing and crawling points on different devices, errors, API latency and data transactions without which all the marketing in the world is moot.

How to select an app analytics platform

As you probably understand by now, the choice of an analytics platform will logically result from your immediate objectives.

Here is a list of things to look for or ask yourself.

Pricing

Some platforms provide free analytics tools for basic features, but perhaps you don’t need the full features list. However, you need to be aware of key features and ways to grow the services you receive, when you need them.

Key features

Some platforms offer a specific key feature, such as A/B testing, push notifications, or a focus on metrics for games. Some don’t. Find out what the platform’s unique selling point is and whether it is important to your app. Don’t forget to check if it specializes in ios app analytics or googles mobile analytics.

Support provided

If everything else is equal you might be interested in documentation and hotline support.

SDK size or Implementation Difficulty

The implementation process is sometimes as little as one line of code, however, some might slow down the app and affect performance. Good mobile app analytics tools should be compatible and easy to use.

Google Analytics for mobile

Google Analytics for apps is a free and universal, but difficult to customize the tool.

Countly

They define their product as a free and constantly updating mobile analytics platform. With this platform you can track users behavior inside your mobile app.

It functions as iphone app analytics and android app analytics. Supported by Windows Phone and Blackberry.

Free 30 day trial.

Allows you to measure the effectiveness of the app based on your users experiences.

Localytics

Localytics will allow you to customize, is available for iOs and Android but will require a developer to cater for your specific needs.

Free 30-day trial

Up to 11,000 free active users monthly

Pay according to features needed

Completely customized analytics.

It is more aimed at goal conversion and gives you full visual of the app performance.Can be successfully used in a monetisation/social sharing optimization campaign.

Flurry Analytics

FREE

Similar to Countly, Flurry lets you see inside the user experience, engagement, conversion, retention, revenue in real time. It also gives you insight into how your advertising campaign is performing.

App Clix

The AppClix API lets you access and organize processes in app analytics the way you want. This is definitely for technical people who love deep understanding of data.

AppClix can also be purchased for a lower (for small developers) or higher (for big business solutions) monthly fee.

You can upgrade at any time by paying difference in price.

AppClix is one of the most advanced mobile analytical software for serious tech-friendly specialists.

App Figures

It  can track all your mobile apps simultaneously. It has options for multiple users and different access level and interface settings.

It has great reporting module which provides download and export reports and data history.

Free 14 day trial

App Figures shows you what’s happening on the App Stores. If you have several apps across different marketplaces and you focus on getting downloads, then updating statistics information is a key.

App Annie

With App Annie Analytics you can gather your app store data automatically, monitor, visualize and analyze important trends. What is more you will be able to store your historical data safely.

App Annie shows you what is happening in the stores right now and helps you to be flexible in identifying here and now opportunities. It’s a great tool for when you’re building your download rate.

Bango

Final Thought

At least one of these platforms will suit your needs and budget, and it is always nice to have options. Knowledge is power! The more metrics you know, the more useful statistics you track, the higher your chance or improving your mobile app and reaching the right users and customers are.

Take some time to examine each one and find out which will.