15 Mobile App KPIs You Should Be Tracking

Owning a mobile app requires a consistent investment of your time and resources, particularly when it comes to measuring its performance. As an app publisher, you need to constantly monitor your app across different performance areas if you want to drive its growth and profitability. In short, you need clearly defined mobile app KPIs to measure its performance.

Without KPIs, you have no way of identifying where your app is excelling and where it’s falling short in its abilities. They enable you to get a high-level view of your app’s performance making it easier to set aligned operational goals. But what KPIs matter the most to app performance and how do you measure them accurately?

15 Mobile App KPIs You Should Be Tracking

When reviewing KPIs, it’s important to look at them in the broader context of which area of app performance they fall into: user acquisition, user engagement and retention, UX and growth and revenue.

User acquisition

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• Cost per install - CPI details how much you spend to acquire a new user. You can calculate it by dividing your total ad spend over a set time by the number of new users you acquire in that same period. 
• Cost per click - shows how much you pay per click on a paid ad. The goal here is to reduce your cost per click (CPC) by increasing the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads.  
• Return on ad spend - determines how much revenue you earn for what you spend on advertising. For instance, if you run a PPC campaign on one or several channels, your ROAS will show you how much direct profit you earned from it.
• App store conversion rate - the percentage of users who download your app from your app store page out of the total number of page visitors. App store optimization can help to increase downloads and boost your page’s visibility.

User engagement and retention

• Daily active users - DAU shows you how many unique users use your app every day. Monitoring your number of daily users can give you a better idea of how engaging your app is. 
• Monthly active users - MAU tracks how many users are using your app over a month. Depending on your app’s services, either DAU or MAU might be the more important metric to assess.
• Session length - the average amount of time a user spends in your app, from opening to closing it. Your app’s session length can help you determine if users are engaging with and getting value from its services.
• Churn rate - your churn rate is the number of users who abandon or uninstall your app over a given time. If your churn rate is increasing from month to month, you need to take a closer look at your app’s structure, services and performance to determine what’s causing users to leave.
• Stickiness ratio - an app’s stickiness refers to its ability to make users “stick” through the value it offers. The stickiness ratio is the number of users who regularly return your app, which you can calculate by dividing your DAU by your MAU.

UX 

• Load speed - load speed is the time it takes for your app to get up and running when users open it. The longer your load speed, the more time users lose waiting to engage with your app and the more likely they'll log off or exit.
• Latency - the time it takes for an app to respond to a user action (such as clicking on a feature or opening a message). Your app’s latency and load times are directly related, so it’s best to reduce them both as much as possible.
• Crash reports -if your app crashes for whatever reason, users aren’t able to log in or use it. If this happens frequently, it will drive down your app’s overall user experience and they’ll either delete or uninstall it. 

Growth and revenue

• Customer lifetime value (CLV)  - CLV measures the monetization a user brings to your app across all of their interactions with your app. It helps you determine profitability per user.  
• Average revenue per user (ARPU)  - the average amount of revenue your app generates per active user. ARPU can help to determine your app’s overall financial health, and should not be confused with CLV which measures the profitability of each user during their entire lifecycle.
• Return on investment (ROI) - ROI shows you how much value your marketing efforts are delivering over how much they are costing you. Your ROI needs to be greater than 1 otherwise you’re only covering the cost of your marketing without generating any returns. 

How Can Adjust Help You Track KPIs Seamlessly?

Adjust is a mobile attribution and analytics company, specializing in providing app marketers with a smart business platform, combining measurement for advertising sources with an advanced analytics suite. 

Numbers speak for themselves and Adjust understands that. KPIs are all about tracking and monitoring facts and figures. Adjust allows you to seamlessly track and monitor your KPIs, leveraging insights from various data sources collected across multiple touchpoints. Its advanced analytics capabilities help identify areas where you can drive growth and improvement, optimizing your app’s performance.

Adjust is the ideal solution for all app marketers and developers looking to scale their apps. We use Adjust to implement various marketing campaigns across our full Appic suite of Apps. 

Ready to Assess Your App’s Performance?

Measuring and reviewing your app’s performance against your KPIs consistently takes time, experience and careful consideration. At Appic, we specialize in app growth through marketing and analytics. 

We can effortlessly take on your app’s marketing and KPI measurements to achieve ongoing growth and scaling. If you’re not sure where your app is at in terms of KPIs and performance, we’ll do a free assessment to show you. Find out how we can help your app succeed and chat to us.