The 5 most important metrics for your app analytics in 2023

The really important metrics

There is a lot you can track when it comes to analytics and measuring metrics and insights. Ultimately, what metrics you want to track depends solely on your business model and your goals. But there are a good handful of metrics you should track anyway since they are known for being the best for growing your business and understanding your user base.

The best part about these crucial metrics is that you can track them without invading your users' privacy! Yes, measuring them without storing any sensible user data is possible. That's amazing!

We at TelemetryDeck are dedicated to giving you all the essential insights you need without snooping on your users. Learn here why the different metrics are important and how they work, and then take advantage of the opportunity to test TelemetryDeck's privacy-friendly capabilities for free!

Conversion rate: measuring the success of your app

A "Conversion" is an action a user takes to make them reach an ultimate goal you defined. For some apps, a conversion is a payment; for others, it might be posting an update or starting a workout.

Let's say you want all users to purchase an item - if 60 of 100 users make a purchase, your conversion rate is 60%. So the higher, the better.

The conversion rate allows you to measure the overall success of your app in one number. To dive further into your data and figure out how far along your users are coming in your checkout process, you can use so-called funnels!

They can show you exactly how many users dropped off at specific points, pages, or steps of an app during the checkout process - making it easy to find potential bottlenecks to work on!

User based metrics

Your users are the heart of your app, making it feel alive with every launch and use. Therefore, tracking the number of users is a great way to determine how your app is doing over time.

There are two important metrics to track: Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU).

With these two metrics, you can already tell a lot about how your app performs. Starting with how many use your app in the given time period or how many new users the next month has brought forth, you can extend those metrics to tell you the ratio of new to returning users, too!

Retention and churn rate: key metrics for a thriving app

Talking about returning users: the retention rate will tell you just how many users return to your app over a period of time. Using the MAU/DAU metrics, you can calculate the rate by dividing the number of users at the end of a period, minus the number of users acquired during that period, by the number of users at the start of the period. A higher percentage means a better retention rate, which means your users love your app!

The metric Retention over time indicates, on a monthly basis, how many users have been loyal to the app up to the current date. A high Retention rate over time implies that the app has a dedicated user base and can effectively engage and retain its users, which is a strong indicator of its potential for long-term success.

On the other end, we have the churn rate. The one you most likely want to avoid being high - well, as long as it's not your business model.

The churn rate tells you how many users stop using your app. The lower the churn rate, the better the satisfaction of your users. Calculating your churn rate is as easy as calculating the retention rate. You subtract the number of users from the end of a period from the users at the beginning of a period, then divide that by the number of users at the beginning of a period.

Stickiness: the satisfact-o-meter

Stickiness refers to how well your app keeps your users engaged. Do they spend a long time in your app? Do they keep coming back after closing it? It measures how well your app holds their attention and keeps them coming back for more.

Things you can do to increase stickiness:

• making your app easy to use for easy onboarding
• the content is engaging and valuable
• also the obvious ones: customization, gamification, and adding social features

The key for creating a sticky app is in understanding the needs of your users. The more you understand them, the more you can tailor your app to meet their needs, and the more likely they are to stay engaged and keep coming back.

Sessions: a time well spent

App sessions are a perfect way to look at your users' time in your app! And you want that time to be as enjoyable as possible! That's why app sessions are super important - they give you a peek into your users' world and how they interact with your app. Are they spending hours upon hours in your app, completely absorbed in the experience? Or are they quickly losing interest and moving on to something else?

Like the Conversion rate, this metric helps you pinpoint hurdles in your app and get a sense of what works well. The longer the session, the more engaged your users are! If you notice that your users are dropping off after a certain point in your app, take the opportunity to make your app more accessible and enjoyable for your users. With some optimization, you can turn those short app sessions into longer, more exciting adventures!

Measuring session time can be done in two ways: daily session length and accumulated time in-app, and both are crucial for understanding your user base.

Depending on your business model, you want them to spend as much time as possible in your app or as little as possible. A streaming or video-on-demand app would likely cause the sessions to be high, while an app for supporting mental health and physical activities might want to see lower session times.

The daily session length provides insights into how frequently users use the app and how long they use it each time. Accumulated in-app time, on the other hand, provides a more comprehensive overview of user engagement over time. It can help you identify patterns and trends in usage over time. For example, a sudden increase in accumulated in-app time could indicate that users have received a new feature or update well.

You can make informed decisions about optimizing your app for the best user experience by analyzing session length.

Also very important further metrics to track

Some metrics are more important to track than others, but as we mentioned in the beginning: it always depends on your goals. We don't want to gatekeep what is best for you to track, so here are additional measurements to look out for.

Check for compatibility by tracking devices and OS versions

You want to have a deeper look into the update behavior of your user base whenever you decide to incorporate a new feature to your app that is only accessible in a new version of a device or an OS.

Tracking metrics like device types or used OS versions will help you understand your users more and future-proof your app. If your user base quickly switches to new OS versions, they also tend to update your app soon after a new update. That's an essential behavior to track down, especially regarding security updates. In combination with other metrics, you can pin down potential bottlenecks and help your users switch to newer versions.

Measuring insights of new devices or OS versions will help you plan the timing of open beta or public releases when adding new features to your app.

With TelemetryDeck, you can always check all the different versions your users use. Choosing the right display type, like a bar or donut chart, will directly show you the most used versions and which new ones are on the rise!

View flow & top actions: where are your users going?

Imagine you are building a house and putting in the most fun and extraordinary rooms: a home theater, an indoor pool, a hobby room, etc. Of course, you also add all the necessary rooms like bedroom(s), kitchen, and toilet. People are moving in, and you want to know if they are happy with their new home. After asking them, you find out they don't even use the super cool rooms you build for them. What a bummer!

That also happens a lot in app development. We focus so much on super cool and fun features that we don't even know whether it is worth it. Tracking the view flow can help you identify how your users use your app and how they navigate through it and thus help you focus on the important bits of your app!

The same applies to tracking the top actions or top events a user creates. What feature of your app is used most? And why is that so? When you identify your users' intentions, you can - again - focus on what's most important to them to improve their experience!

Permissions and features

Permissions often seem an annoying necessity, but they yield a lot of power regarding the privacy and security of your users' data!

You can only access user data necessary for your app's functionality, but users also have the power to grant permissions how they see fit. That applies to permissions like notifications, location data, contacts, camera, microphone, and more!

Being transparent about the data you are collecting will build trust and loyalty toward your app. It also helps users feel like they are in control of what they are sharing, even if that means they can not opt out of some data collection.

Collecting data is not a bad thing per se. It all comes down to intention and how we, as developers, deal with it. So building trust and being as transparent as possible is key to a solid relationship with your users.

Permissions also help you understand the importance of features in your app. Like the view flow, you can identify important and primarily used features. Features like dark and light mode, font size, and themes also show what the majority of your users like or dislike. Giving them options - in most cases - is the best way to guarantee satisfaction, especially when it comes to customization.

Geo metrics, locales and translations

Whether you are addressing a global user base or not, tracking these metrics will help you understand your user base even more. Not only will it help you figure out where most of your users are located and what languages they speak, but you can also use that to improve the experience of your app.

Users can easily navigate through an app when they feel seen and understood in their local and cultural differences. Adjusting features of the UI and UX can lead to increased user satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately driving the app's success, which in return can lead to better engagement and higher conversion rates - most probably visible in session times and stickiness of the users.

Load time and performance

As app developers, we should not underestimate the impact of load times and performance issues. A slow app can drive users away, while a fast, responsive app can keep them engaged and coming back for more, which will reflect in retention rate, stickiness, and conversion rate. By closely monitoring your app's performance, you can identify areas for improvement and make optimizations to ensure your app runs smoothly and quickly.

Where and how can you improve the performance of your app?

• compress assets like images, videos, etc.
• cache redundant data and network requests
• optimize your app‘s code
• reduce the number of external libraries and scripts
• lazy loading techniques to only load in what is needed
• minimizing HTTP request size based on the view flow and top interactions

When it comes to reducing the number of external libraries and scripts, analytics software has its fair share of needing to be load-time friendly. Most analytics software tends to "call back" multiple services, especially regarding the advertising of user data.

With TelemetryDeck, there's no significant load time, and we build our systems and network communication with the best loading rates in mind. That's what makes us the perfect, lightweight analytics app on the market!

Number of app crashes

This might be the most obvious one so far: Crashes can lead to frustration and a loss of trust in the app. By tracking crashes and understanding the root cause, you can take proactive steps to fix the problems and prevent future crashes, leading to a better overall experience for your users, especially regarding reproducible crashes that keep showing up at the core functionalities of your app. Keep an eye on app crashes and take action to make your app the best it can be!