Top 50 KPIs and Metrics that Matter the Most for your Mobile App

Estimated reading time: 18 minutes

You’ve built an app which came out to be stunning, both In design and also visually treating. But you know what, it could miserably fail if you don’t appreciate the Key Performance Indicators.

So you’ve built an app which came out to be stunning, both In design and also visually treating.
But you know what, it could miserably fail if you don’t appreciate the Key Performance Indicators.

You have obviously created an app hoping it would be widely accepted by the audience you have targeted and the app should serve the purpose, but how would you know that?

It’s the Key Performance Indicators, which will tell you, what is contributing to your app’s success and what is not. And where you need to do some rework and where should you enhance.

Figuring our mobile app’s performance and metrics is a really important aspect in today’s mobile app development market because as the number of apps increases the expectations for the app’s performance has relatively increased, in return demanding a high performance from your
app too.

So, the question is.

How would you determine what’s working for you and what’s not? What measures would you take to reach your ultimate goal of your app?

It can only start by determining the KPIs and metrics that matter the most for your mobile.

So how does these Mobile KPIs work?

Understanding the vast range of KPIs and how should they be applied to your app is not an easy task.

KPIs help you to evaluate your app and therefore attract the attention and resources of buyers, investors, and shareholders.

Defining unique KPIs means determining what a good performance looks like and how to capture and measure the various indicators along the way.

Tracking KPIs should be a part of your development and marketing strategies, including which success metrics and performance metrics are the ones that should be considered the most valuable or important.

But there is something you need to know, there are almost as many mobile app metrics as there are apps, which brings you a lot of confusion. It’s your call to understand what you should be following and what you shouldn’t.

So we wouldn’t be discussing all the KPIs which are available out there, but there are some KPIs that measure the general performance of a mobile app.

Almost everyone in the mobile app development or marketing should be aware of these list of KPIs, but it’s your call on which metrics should be considered for your app.

So here we go!

App downloads

Number of times that an app is being downloaded to a device is probably something, which obviously needs to be tracked; it shows the popularity of your app among the masses.

It’s a simple way to determine your app’s popularity, and it also is a foundation to many other KPIs which we would be discussing.

Installations

Only because a user has downloaded your app doesn’t mean your job is done. There could be issues with the installation.

I have faced this issue numerous times, despite quick download, the app struggled to install, which is bad and people don’t really give another chance.

You should also be tracking actual installations on the various devices that your audience use.

Learn About Importance of Effective UI/UX in Mobile App Development 

Uninstallations

Anybody can decide to uninstall an app when they find it not really useful or does not serve the purpose of the download or some other reason, and while they do some don’t leave a review or rating or any sort of feedback.

If the uninstallations are related to some sort of update or changes you have made in the application, you need to know what exactly was the reason for the uninstall.

Registrations

Deciding whether or not to register is another sign that users are buying what you’re selling, at least figuratively.

On top of that, you can use their email addresses or other contact info to market future upgrades and other apps to them.

Subscriptions

If you are offering subscriptions, you need to keep a track of all the subscriptions, signups and also unsubscribe.

On top of that, you need to keep a track of how long does an average user take to sign-up or create an account after the installation; it will help you understand how the users behave and what you could do to make them sign-up faster.

Glitches and Crashes

Every app has its own glitches and crashes at some point and but the frequency of these errors is not recommended.

This can be solved before the app is launched and also post-launch. Pre-launch you need to go through checks during testing and clear all the bugs, 100% bug proofing is non-existent so minimizing the crashed to the higher extent is important.

And also customer reviews do help a lot to fix this post-launch. Fixing and preventing app crashes will help to make the user experience better and retention rate.

Upgrades

When offering the user to upgrade your app to a premium version, you need to keep a track of a couple of things.

How long does the user take to upgrade, and what premium packages are the users more interested in.

And don’t forget to keep a track of how many users are using the free version and from how long. This is helpful in evaluating your app revenue and find out which features could be made premium or attractive so that you can convert the free users to premium users.

Growth rate

You need to track this because it will help you make sure your user base is growing, but also how it’s really growing.

Growth may differ with the introduction of new schemes or updates or new features, you need to track what period of the time the app gained more users.

It basically helps you plan your strategy.

Retention rate

Learn About Role Of Wireframes In Mobile App Development

Retention is nothing but gaining your users back who have either uninstalled or deleted their user accounts. This could only be done when you can know the reason why they left and improving the areas where the users are expecting.

Higher retention rate, the more positive implications there are for the future earnings from the app.

App Session

The number of sessions you generate is an important indicator of popularity and users glued on to your app.

Usually, the more sessions a user creates and that an app receives the better.

Also keep in mind that in digital analytics, a session is defined as a user or device-specific group of interactions that occur on your website or app within a given time frame.

So yeah! Defining what a session means for your app or project is essential.

Session also depends upon the type of app, if it’s a business or any financial app, a user shouldn’t be spending too much time in figuring out things.

Also, don’t forget to calculate the daily active users and monthly active users.

Session Length

Time spent by a user on your app per session is the session length.

In general terms, more time a user spends on the app, the better it is for every reason an app is created, but you should also take a look at the session length as it relates to the number of crashes and uninstalls and see if there is any correlation.

Moreover, you really don’t need the users to stay longer to convert or take a desired action, and the number of session intervals, AOR, or depth of sessions may be a more useful KPI to track.

Session interval

The time between each session a user takes, like if he uses the app daily weekly or monthly. If
the app is used daily then what is the frequency.

In mobile app terms, shorter intervals are usually better, but this KPI can also be tagged to when there are content updates or other timely events to tak3e into consideration with your app.

Let’s assume, if there is new content to view every morning then your session intervals are likely to be 24 hours or so.

If your app isn’t tagged to a particular time of day or event, shorter session intervals might be more desirable.

Session Depth

Session depths are the number of interactions per session, or how far the user navigates or explores through the app, before exiting the app.

For example, if the user is on an e-commerce app and browsing through, making a purchase or just navigating through one section to another will give you an idea on how you could improve
the content of your app.

Take a note of sessions and try to fix issues if any.

Average pages per session

The number of unique pages or URLs that a user hits during each visit, averaged.

Usually the higher the number, the better for your app, especially if you rely on advertising for monetization.

More screens are obviously more advertisements and views.

Daily Active Users

Number of active users who use the app every day is the daily active users, the average
number of daily active users does show you the growth of your app and helps you in making
changes or taking your app to the next level.

Monthly Active Users

Not every app serves the purpose of daily use, there are some apps which you won’t really be using on daily basis like Financial apps, and not every user uses all the apps every day.

Don’t forget that users are generally tracked as unique visitors who may visit for multiple sessions, so it is important to pay attention to both KPIs.

Social media shares

The number of times your app is recommended or shared on social media.

Obviously, higher the number of shares, better it is for the app. But also look when and where the app is shared and in what context.

Because you know how social media is, don’t be popular for the wrong reasons.
It is important if you have any social media functionality or integration build into your app.

Brand Awareness

There are tons of ways to define brand awareness, which also includes how many times does your brand appears in the search engine results, on various social networks, or the “reach” of your brand.

It is quite obvious that more users directly implies more awareness of your brand, and you would obviously have better business results.

But don’t forget to take a note and analyze the diversity of brand mentions online.
Churn rate

The rate at which active users leave your app in the form of unsubscribing or uninstalling your app.

Do I need to say that you need to take care of it?

Of course, you would want to turn down the churn rate, and a higher churn rate is potentially like a ticking time bomb, sort it out!

There could be many reasons for churn rate, either the content is boring or your app crashes more often or it’s just not so much interesting and serves a purpose as it used to.

How do you lower the churn rate?

Update your app in every way possible, add new content, fix bugs make your app faster. Basically, try to get to the roots of the increasing churn rate.

Financial KPIs

The reason you’ve started your business is to grow financially and your app is just another investment which will help you achieve your goal.

So how do you make profits with your app?

You need to take a note of how your app is and will generate revenue using the below metrics.

Average revenue per user

So the average amount of value or cash generated per user through in-app purchases, ad impressions or clicks, subscriptions, paid downloads, or any other form of monetization. Multiplied by the size of the user base or the number of active users this figure gives a good rough idea of the value of the app as a whole.

Lite time Value

How do you calculate this?

It’s nothing but the amount of revenue generated by a single user either by purchases or subscriptions or any other transaction combined with the average revenue per user it can be a great way to determine the total perspective or value of an app.

Time for the first purchase

Time of first purchase is nothing but the time when the user first subscribes to something or purchases a product through your app, you need to keep a track of the average first purchase of all the users and try working on making it shorter.

Upgrade your content and also the app to give the user a better experience.

Purchases

Simple the purchases of your app need to be tracked. This is relatively simple and obviously necessary number to track if your app involves any kind of exchange of funds, whether they are in-app purchases, upgrades to a premium version, subscriptions, or an e-commerce play.

Customer Acquisition cost

The revenue you spend on gaining a new user is the customer acquisition cost, how do you do that?

Advertising! And advertising involves a lot of things, including the time, factored in for marketing costs. You can determine this number by averaging the total gross revenue during a given amount of time by sales and marketing costs incurred during the same time period.

Cost per Acquisition

Cost per acquisition is the cost it took to make a single user to download the app.
It doesn’t have to be new users, but actually from a new behavior something like signing up, upgrading into a premium user or any other upgrade, in-app purchases, or giving access to new features.

Keeping a track of these gives you an estimation on how to improve the acquisition.

Customer Lifetime Value

No! this is not the same we have discussed earlier, I am not repeating things.
The lifetime value of a customer based on the net profit they generate overtime, which in this case is based on their spending in and on the app in proportions to the cost required for their acquisition.

A user pool with a high average CLV is a tremendous asset for a mobile app, and don’t forget that successful apps tend to have an excellent CLV to CAC ratios.

Effective customer acquisition cost

Nothing but he effective or actual cost of acquiring new customers, which includes organic discovery methods, paid to advertise, and time spent or other expenses incurred during the marketing process.

This can be calculated by comparing the new customers you have gained to the total number of impressions generated by marketing campaigns and factoring in the cost of those campaigns to achieve a final number.

Effective cost per mile

Effective cost per mile is nothing but the milestone you have set for yourself for generating the impressions.

Which includes organic and paid marketing efforts along with the cost of time spent or any other extra expenses incurred.

How do you calculate this?

By factoring in the number of impressions or views generated by marketing efforts divided by the number of customers gained.

Paid Conversion rate

In this KPI you would only calculate the rate of conversion through paid advertising, which includes PPC advertising, display ads, social media advertising through Facebook or Twitter platforms, sponsored posts or reviews, or any other method of marketing your mobile app that involves a direct exchange of money for mentions or views of your mobile app.

Organic conversion rate

This is nothing but the conversion of users through unpaid mediums, such as organic search engine results, word of mouth mentions on social media or blog posts, influences, or social media trends, app store listings, or any other way of marketing your mobile app that does not involve indirect paid to advertise.

Learn About Why Mobile App Fails 

Return on Investment

It’s not just the app cost you need to consider but the investment got any marketing tactics or techniques, calculated by dividing the number of gains in customers or revenue that you have generated by how much you have spent on marketing, which includes the time spent or any expenses incurred.

Cost per Install

The cost per install measures your customer acquisition costs for customers that installed your app when they see an advertisement, the ads you have posted and not the organic ads.

User Experience KPIs

These KPIs are the most important factors for the growth of your app post-release, if you are not successful in following these, there is nothing that could help your app grow.

Using these KPIs and others to track, measure and therefore improve on it might be the most important activity that you can engage in as a mobile app developer or marketer.

Loading time

Your app needs to load fast, faster than any app in your competition or at least try to be faster. The amount of time it takes an app to load from the initial tap of being ready to use is what we are talking about.

Loading times are proportional to the content in your app, using high-quality images is most recommended but that doesn’t mean it slows the app, faster app loading is a priority.

Devices

Another relatively simple KPI to define and track, this is simply which devices your audience use to access your app.
Depending on your target clients, it is important to know if they usually use tablets versus smartphones, or Android versus iOS, or any other device.

What does this do? It simply helps you in improving the performance of your app.

Carriers

Just as the devices used to access your app, it is really important to know which carriers your users tend to prefer, especially If you are targeting a particular region or a country.

Because different regions and countries have different carriers.

Operating system

Ok, I’m not putting any of my opinions here, it’s not about Android vs iOS, it doesn’t matter in what platform your app is but it should work well in both.

If there is a high crash or uninstall rate for either one or a strong preference for the apple or android realms, that is something to consider and understand why that is the case and remedy any problems that these preferences may indicate

Screen Dimensions/Resolution

This KPI is related to the devices that your customers use to access your app, but before you do the updates, you need to consider this KPI.

It could cause flaws like lagging and crashing which will result in uninstalls and crashes.

Permissions granted

Keep a track of access or permissions each user is allowed to for your app.

The value and importance of this metric depend on how many users are actually interested in the features you are providing and what features to be added or removed.

API latency

API latency is the time interval between your API proxies being called or triggered and their
response or load time.

In general, you would want this number to below.

This KPI is tied to load time and the corresponding user behaviors.

Mobile App Marketing KPIs

We could make a number of KPIs related to marketing your app, but we are only going to discuss the ones that will help you track your preferred or most effective methods which are mandatory.

Along with measuring your app’s growths and mentions on social media and blogs or any other platforms, you should also be reporting on any paid advertising and monitoring your app store analytics to see what is driving and downloads.

Install Source

The source from where your user came to know about your app or discovered your app, which made them install, is what you need to know.

It will help you get rid of other sources where you might be paying a lot, like an ad campaign, which might not be bringing in users compared to other sources.

Alternatively, if you are generating traffic through organic resources, try improving them for even better results.

Virality and K factor

It’s nothing but your app or name of the app going viral through the mouth to mouth sources or because of your mobile app marketing.

We have seen many apps going viral for no reason and there are a lot of better apps in the same category doing badly.

Virality can be measured in a variety of different ways, but one common method is to calculate the K factor by multiplying the number of mentions in organic or paid promotions.

However you track Virality, it is important to determine one way of tracking it from the beginning and sticking with it for the most complete and cohesive results.

Channel Breakdown

There are obviously different channels you would be providing your users to access your app, keep a track of all the channels and how is each channel behaving.

This will help you improve the ones, which do not get you much traffic.

Geometrics

The geographic location of your users may affect in-app purchases and ad revenue, so it is important to track.

It can also inform your future mobile app marketing campaigns by letting you know where your app is doing good and where you should be targeting and use strategies to improve in poorly performing locations.

Demographics

Demographics contains the information of gender, country and also the age group of the audience who are using your app.

Tracking this will give you a complete idea of your app’s customer base information; it will help you make your app better for your target audience.

Cohort Analysis

Your user base can likely be grouped in a variety of categories or collectives based on their demographics and behavior.

Grouping them and taking a note of the patterns in their behavior can be a valuable learning experience or source of knowledge about your current and potential customers.

Behavioral Metrics

The way your customers behave which are quite unique to your app can be a valuable information to analyze.

This KPI can be applied to both how the user has arrived at your app and what do they expect from your app once it has been installed.

Tracking this will let you create a collection of user profiles and it will help you develop and introduce new features into your app. You no longer have to experiment with adding features.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

The most important part of your marketing strategy which will actually bring a difference in how your app reaches your customers.

Learn About  Our Mobile App Development Services

There is probably no better way to promote your app in an app store.

ASO is the only way by which your app will rank better in an app store.

Keywords

The keywords are the main tools for ranking your app better, this will help users discover your app.

From your apps name, developers name to the screenshots and descriptions and also the logo will help you in making your app rank better.

So you need to check on what keywords would work better for you.

Category ranking

Monitoring your ranking over time and studying how they affect your app’s performance is really important.

Better your performance better your ranking.

Views to installs

Number of times that a user has viewed your app listing before he/she actually installed it.
Usually, the lower the number of views to install, the better it is for your app because it shows
that your advertising and app store listing is more effective.

Reviews and ratings

More the positive reviews, better your ranking and downloads of your app.

Apps are relying more on reviews and ratings now, than ever before.

But don’t get disheartened with the low rating and reviews, they are a source to learn and improve your app and make it better than ever.

Conclusion

Implementing KPIs will only benefit you in making your app better than it can ever be.

It could be a bit daunting to track all these, but they are all interrelated and when you actually get started implementing KPIs you would get in with the flow and your app will do great.

And hey! If you don’t have an app yet, we would love to help you build one. Contact us!