The mobile phone has come a long way from a device that could only offer approximately 30 minutes of talk time for a 10-hour battery charge back in 1973 to the smartphones of today that are giving communication over phones a whole new meaning. Smartphones have made the world more connected than ever before and are changing the way we work and manage our days. Smartphone users across the globe and across economies are growing at an extraordinary rate with over 1.4 billion smartphones sold in 2015 alone. According to a study by Social Media Today, on an average people spend 1.8 hours on their smartphone, and mobile applications account for approximately 89% of this time. There were over 25 billion iOS apps and 50 billion Android apps downloaded in 2015 and 37% of website visits today come from a mobile device. With over 2000 new applications being released on the Apple Store and Google Play store every day, it is quite clear that we are moving fast towards the ‘app economy’ where mobile applications play a crucial role in driving business and growth. Clearly, the mobile app space is also quite competitive. Research suggests that almost 50% of users uninstall an app soon after installing it. So how can organizations make sure that their apps can succeed in this competitive economy? The answer lies in mobile analytics.

As mobile devices become ubiquitous with our daily lives, organizations across the globe are looking at mobile app analytics to gain powerful insights to drive better customer journeys and make their apps more efficient. But what exactly is mobile analytics? Mobile analytics can be effectively summed up as “measuring and analyzing data generated from mobile platforms and properties like mobile applications and mobile websites” and gives you clear insights into the mobile performance indicators. It helps organizations understand what exactly is working and what is not working in the favor of their application and helps them make data-driven decisions and make their application smarter and better for use. This, in turn, helps drive conversions by measuring engagement and understanding how mobile users are interacting with the application. Measuring performance data, platform data, engagement data, and contextual data helps organizations gain insights into app performance, determine their return on investment, and fine-tune the app to align it better with their business goals.

In this blog, we take a look at some of the reasons why mobile analytics is becoming the next big thing

Personalization

Personalization dominates the world today. Mobile analytics is becoming increasingly important to drive personalized experiences for the users and enhance marketing efforts and effectiveness. Marketers can leverage analytics to deliver customer-targeted push messages. Such messages increase the app-open rates and generally convert three times more than generic push messages. With the help of clear insights from contextual data, marketers can also identify new customers and figure out ways to convert them into users by understanding the users’ in-app behavior, identifying their pain points while using the app, and looking at their preferences. By integrating app analytics with marketing campaigns, organizations can even win back churned customers by delivering targeted messages and customize offers.

Mapped Customer Journeys

Data from app analytics provides insights into customer data to understand customer behaviors. Since most of the research takes place on a mobile device first (according to Smart Insights, “48% of users start any research they make on a mobile device by using a search engine”), via a search on Google or on social media, understanding customer behavior across these different channels in a unified matter becomes essential. This helps in understanding user experiences and designing marketing strategies that not only focus on customer acquisition but also on customer retention by creating enhanced digital experiences.

Enhanced Mobile Experiences

Mobile app developers today are under constant pressure to provide elevated mobile experiences. With the help of mobile analytics, developers can identify how their users are interacting with the applications and get answers to critical business questions. Businesses can learn things like which products are being viewed the most, during which phase customers are abandoning carts, the effectiveness of check out processes and assess how and when users are paying for upgrades and in-app purchases etc. So, for example, if an eTailer faces frequent cart abandonments, he/she can take a look at analytics and identify the real reason behind this and rectify the problem and increase conversion rates. Behavioral analytics from mobile apps helps developers understand how the users are engaging with an application by evaluating event data and helps them tailor the product to meet the business goals. Analytics gives intelligent insights into not only the number of app users but also the depth of use which helps developers determine which features need to be fine-tuned and which need to be rendered redundant.

Improve Marketing Outcomes

Given the rise of mobile, organizations need to design mobile-specific in order to remain in the eye-line of their customers. A report by Aberdeen group revealed that companies using mobile analytics witnessed an 11.6% increase in brand awareness. With the help of sales and conversion data generated across mobile channels, marketers can do a comparison analysis and examine the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives. With the help of analytics, they can assess the kind of content their users respond to, the functionalities they prefer, the tactics which reap highest returns etc. Analytics provides hard data in answer to these questions and helps marketers design successful marketing campaigns that can drive sales.

With the help of mobile analytics, organizations can understand the entire user experience right from ‘detection to download’ and helps them take data-driven decisions at each stage of the application lifecycle. With this approach, developers and marketers can effectively create elevated mobile experiences by gaining deep user understanding based on actual user behavior and not on assumption. They can, thus, design a product that meets their users’ needs and as a consequence, remain relevant in an extremely competitive market.