Workbook

HOW TO CREATE THE

APP ANALYTICS REPORTS
YOU NEED

Introduction

03

ABOUT THIS WORKBOOK

Section 1

06

ALIGN YOUR BUSINESS GOALS & ANALYTICS

Section 2

09

WHERE YOUR USERS ARE COMING FROM:

Attribution
Section 3

13

HOW ENGAGED YOUR USERS ARE:

Sessions & Cohorts
Section 4

17

WHAT ACTIONS YOUR USERS ARE TAKING

IN-APP: Events
Section 5

21

WHO YOUR USERS ARE: Audience Segments

Section 6

25

WHERE YOUR USERS ARE CONVERTING

(OR DROPPING OUT): Funnels

28

USING AN ANALYTICS PLATFORM FOR

FURTHER INSIGHTS

32

CHOOSING AN ANALYTICS TOOL

03

IN T RODUCTION

As an app owner, you know that launching your

app is only one step on the way to creating
a successful mobile experience. Whether youre
just entering the space, analytics are the key
to discovering what works in your app (and to
doing more of it).
But analytics alone wont provide valuable
insights if not evaluated through your brands
behind creating one are independent to you.
Your app analytics should be structured based
tailored, actionable insights.
Were tasking you with quite the undertaking
organizing and optimizing your metrics might
seem overwhelming, but with the right tools,
youll be able to easily (and effectively)
determine what you want to know, what your
app is telling you and how to achieve the
right results.

04

IN T RODUCTION
Introduction

ABOUT THIS WORKBOOK

In this workbook, you will gain the fundamentals necessary to
create analytics reports that will help your app succeed. By identifying and quantifying your measurement goals, including the key
elements of your analytics, you will be able to read your data accurately with an eye to the results that mean most for your brand.
This will enable you to make the right UI/UX changes, update your
user acquisition campaigns and run smarter marketing.
Weve provided lists, tables, and questionnaires to give you the
tools to structure your analytics and garner the most accurate insights possible.
Each section includes:
An interactive table to track your planning and data
Sample insights you can achieve with each
analytics report
Additional resources on how to utilize
your data

UNDERSTANDING THE TERMINOLOGY

Reading your analytics is like reading a book; you need to know
the vocabulary. Every app analytics platform is different, but
there is a standard set of terminology, which is used throughout
this workbook:
Attribution: The organic and paid channels for acquiring
app users
Sessions: The time from when a user starts using an app
until they close or background it
Continued

05

IN T RODUCTION

Segments: A group of users who did or did not do certain events,

or pair of events in sequence
Cohorts:
time frame: day, week, or month; a measurement of retention
Events: Actions that are completed by the user while interacting
Event attributes: Key or value pairs that are contextual to the
Funnels: A series of events that leads to a user converting
LTV: The lifetime value of a user and the primary measure of ROI

Notes:
Type your notes here...

06

SECTION #1
Section 1

ALIGN YOUR BUSINESS GOALS

AND ANALYTICS
Apps are still a relatively new phenomenon.
Their value lies in what they provide the
user, and how that value is different from or
better than any other app. Identifying this
will help you become a viable competitive
threat. In creating your UI, content, offers
and other app elements, you did so with a set
of goals in mind. Revisit these goals and use
them again to guide your way.

What is the primary purpose of your

application? Why did you create the app in
the first place?
How it helps:

Type your answer here...

07

SECTION 1

How does your app fit within the

company vision?
How it helps:

Type your answer here...

What is your unique value proposition?

How it helps:

Type your answer here...

08

SECTION 1

Who is your target audience?

How it helps:

Type your answer here...

Where is your target audience?

How it helps:
-

Type your answer here...

09

SECTION #2
Section 2

WHERE YOUR USERS ARE COMING FROM:

Attribution

Heres where all app marketers start: how do I effectively acquire

users? The answer is most likely a strategic combination of organic
and paid promotion, including App Store optimization (ASO), to drive
a diverse initial audience and figure out what works best.
Your organic promotion might include social media campaigns, an
app-specific website, ASO, email campaigns, press mentions, and other channels. Remember: 63% of downloads come from general browsing
in the App Store, so organic optimization is crucial. Essentially,
you need to make your app findable and shareable.
Every app is going to have organic acquisition, but not all have paid acquisition. This
is an opportunity to expose your app to a
much larger audience and set yourself apart
from the crowd. Ads and other forms of paid
acquisition also allow you to better target
your app to your ideal audience based on
what websites theyre visiting, what publications theyre reading, what forums theyre
visiting, and more.

STEP 1: Set your Budget

User acquisition costs are on the rise, but that doesnt mean you
have to spend a fortune to be successful. Most marketers stop at
measuring the cost after downloads: essentially, cost per user.
While this is a crucial metric in evaluating campaigns, it is by no
means a stopping point. In truly measuring, validating and evolving
your acquisition budget, you have to look at the lifetime value
Continued

10

SECTION 2
(LTV) of each acquired customer to derive the total revenue youve
earned after cost of acquisition. Using conversions, sessions per
user, LTV per user, and other monetization metrics, you can discover
the root ROI of each acquisition channel.

STEP 2: Identify your Ad Partners

Choosing an ad partner is another project unto itself, but there
are well-known players in the space you can use, including Facebook,
Millennial Media, Greystripe, Impact Radius, Fiksu, and others.
Identify the pros and cons of each, and align them with your budget
to put together a plan. Over time, as you track the results of your
acquisition campaigns, it will become clear which channels work best
for you, and those to invest more in.

STEP 3: Track Initial Attribution Metrics

Knowing which ad networks, publishers and content are worth investing further in depends on tracking the results of each campaign
you run. Assign your campaign budget, and measure the number of
new users from each one, including the initial measure of ROI: cost
per user.

Ad Network
Millennial Media

Publisher
Weather Channel

Campaign
April Sale

Budget
$3,000

#/New
Users
1,275

Cost/
User
$2.35

11

SECTION 2
These metrics will give you a strong sense of which campaigns are
working best to encourage downloads and bring in new users within
your budget.

ADVANCED
STEP 4: Track ROI and Value Long-Term
To accurately gauge success, you will need to go beyond these
initial attribution metrics and track sessions per user, transactions per user, and, most importantly, user LTV. For these long-term
revenue metrics, youll need an analytics platform that automatically tracks and updates over time. This gives you the ability to
track a host of ROI-based metrics without any manual work, with each
traced back to an attribution campaign, all dynamically updated.

12

SECTION 2

Sample insights you can gain from tracking

acquisition channels

Users acquired through Fiksu spend more on in-app

purchases, but have a lower LTV than users acquired
through Facebook
Spring campaigns perform better than Summer campaigns
on Pandora
Your ideal cost per user is under $3.00

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
5 Ways to Improve your App
Acquisition Strategy
App Users Acquired Through Facebook Perform
as Well as Organic Users
Major Enhancements to User Acquisition
Tracking at Localytics

Notes:
Type your answer here...

13

SECTION #3
Section 3

HOW ENGAGED YOUR USERS ARE:

Sessions and Cohorts
Downloads are just the first step: after
youve acquired users, you want to be able to
track how often those users come back, and
their value to you beyond just the app install. Repeat app opens show that your users
are engaged with your app, at least to the
point that they want to come back and give it
another try. And metrics like session length
and interval signal how long and how often
(respectively) users are using your app.

Session length is a measurement of time spent in the app during one

session.
Session interval is the time between the users first session and
his or her next one, showing the frequency with which your users
open the app.
Measure the actuals against your desired session length and interval, so that you know with accuracy how long users typically do
spend in your app vs. how long you want them to have the app open.
Then, track growth over time to see how engaged your users are per
session, how that fluctuates, and how it changes when you launch a
major update or a marketing campaign.
Continued

14

SECTION 3

Avg. Session
Length

Time Period
June 10, 2014 - July 10,
2014

15 sec.

Growth
(%)
-0.5%

Avg. Session
Interval
7 days

Growth
(%)
1.3%

STEP 2: Choose your Most Important Dimensions

While your #1 measure is going to be looking at how frequently
users return to your app by tracking sessions and engagement,
additional insights can be gleaned within that. Data splits are
some of the important attributes of your returning users, and
by choosing the right ones, you can pinpoint additional recurring
trends within sessions. Using this scale, prioritize your splits
by importance to choose which ones cast the most crucial lense
on your session data.

New vs. Returning

Location

Language

Device

Continued

15

SECTION 3

Carrier

App Version

Browser

OS Version

SDK Version

Jailbroken

Marketing Campaign

Marketing Source

Marketing Medium

ADVANCED
STEP 3: Automatically Track Cohorts
Once youve begun tracking sessions, youll want to move on to
tracking more intricate retention metrics. For example, event-based
cohort retention, which enables you to measure retention based on
engagement with a particular event. This pairs retention data with
in-app actions, giving you a detailed look at exactly how power
users are interacting with your app.
Generally, you can use cohorts to track the percentage of users who
return X number of days later after their first app open. These
analytics are more advanced, and require the use of an analytics
platform that automatically and dynamically collects and parses this
information.
Continued

16

SECTION 3

Sample insights you can gain from tracking sessions

and retention

iOS users spend more time per session in the app, but
Android users return more regularly
Your average session length is under 20 seconds in the US

June 17, 2014 returned after one day

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Sessions vs. Pageviews: Which Metric Should
You Measure?
Session Lengths As A Measure of
App Engagement
Feature Spotlight: Localytics Event-Based
Cohort Retention

17

SECTION #4
Section 4

WHAT ACTIONS YOUR USERS ARE

TAKING IN-APP: Events
Events, or actions taken, can be screens viewed, push or in-app
messages opened, articles shared, items added to cart, subscriptions
confirmed, purchases completed, or a number of other key conversion
events as identified by you. Knowing which events your users are
acting on signal which features are most valuable in your app,
which arent getting enough attention, and shed light on how users
are using your app (potentially, in ways you hadnt anticipated).
Defining your events is key to creating funnels for encouraging users down conversion
paths within your app. Essentially, knowing
what events you want users to complete most,
and what events work together to create a
funnel, allow you to put additional value
on how users interact with your app, and
in many cases, monetize those interactions
(more on funnels in Section #6).

STEP 1: Identify the Most Important Actions you Want

your App Users to Take
Think back to Section #1 and the goal of the app: in order to
achieve this, what are the things your users must do in-app?
What are the features you want them to interact with most? Use
those questions to discover crucial app actions, major updates
or a marketing campaign.
Continued

18

SECTION 4

Type your answer here...

Type your answer here...

Type your answer here...

Type your answer here...

Continued

19

SECTION 4

Type your answer here...

Note that there can be more than one event type that tracks to
your important actions, and there can also be multiple attributes
for each event. As a reminder, attributes are key/value pairs that
are contextual to the specific event being tagged. For example, a
Product View event may have attributes tracking the product category, whether it was shared, how long the user spent viewing it, and
anything else that may be helpful in understanding user behavior.
Heres a good rule of thumb: If it is a user action or verb then
it is probably an event. If it is a descriptor of an action or
adjective, then it is likely an attribute.
Important Action
Share articles and interact with the brand on
social media more frequently

Continued

Event Type/
Name
Social action

Attributes
- Platform (Twitter,
Facebook)
- Content (Article Name)
- Action (share, Like, follow)

20

SECTION 4

Important Action

Event Type/
Name

Attributes

Sample insights you can gain from tagging events

That todays front page article is getting a lot of views,
but fewer Facebook shares than you anticipated
How many users purchased your Deal of the Day item
That male users from Boston opened your Red Sox score push
message more than they did your Celtics one

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
The Beginners Guide to App Analytics
How to Tag Mobile Apps With Events &
Attributes Whiteboard Wednesday
Feature Spotlight: Localytics Event-Based
Cohort Retention

21

SECTION #4
Section 5

WHO YOUR USERS ARE:

Audience Segments

No two app users are the same, which is why its considered a
mobile sin to send push and in-app messages to your entire audience. What you can and should do is segment your users based on
similar behaviors and attributes to define audience subsets. Your
segments get to the heart of your analytics by tying users and
usage behavior together, allowing you to draw smarter conclusions
about what your app users are looking for and run targeted,
analytics-driven marketing.
Segments are created using a time period and
at least one completed event, such as shared
an article, subscribed to a newsletter, completed an in-app purchase, etc (as defined
in the previous section). You can then add a
second event to see who continued on to complete another action. Similarly, you can also
highlight users who completed one event but
didnt complete another.

Segment
Name
Purchasers

Continued

Time Period

1st Event

1/13/2014-7/1/2014

Product Viewed

2nd Event
(Optional)
Checkout

Custom
Dimension
Gender: Female

22

SECTION 5

Segment
Name

Time Period

1st Event

2nd Event
(Optional)

Custom
Dimension

STEP 2: Choose your Custom Dimensions

Once you have an event and time frame chosen, your segments can
be made richer by the use of custom dimensions that speak to user
attributes and behaviors more specifically. Your custom dimensions
will be different depending on which segment youre looking at
in one case, you might want to differentiate male and female trial
subscribers, in another, you might want to see one-time buyers
located in London.
Demographics Age, Gender, Location
Subscription Status

Free, trial and premium subscribers

Purchasing History Users who never buy, bought once, bought 2-10 times
Brick-and-Mortar Users who used your app in one of your locations
Multi-App Usage

Users who have one or multiple of your available apps

Degree of Usage

Light, moderate and heavy users

Ad Clickers
Continued

Users who clicked in-app ads vs. users who never click

23

SECTION 5
Your custom dimensions dont have to fit strictly into these groups.
Instead, use your events to help inform valuable dimensions: of a
particular event, what additional information do you want to know
about the users who completed it?

BONUS STEP
Run Segment-Based Messaging Campaigns
Personalization is the next big thing in marketing with mobile,
its no different. The benefit that apps offer, however, is the
ability to personalize app notifications based on segments, without
the need to collect additional (and in some cases, highly personal)
user information.
You can run smarter push and in-app messaging campaigns based on
your user segments, highlighting offers and content highly relevant
to each segment and boosting conversions. For example, you can send
a discount code push notification to users who have left an item in
their cart and didnt complete the checkout process.
For more on app marketing, try this free guide: A Beginners Guide
to App Marketing.

Sample insights you can gain from creating segments

Female users from EMEA buy more
Free trial users acquired in the last six months click ads
more frequently than paid users
60% of second-screeners start the subscription process but
then never complete it

24

SECTION 5

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
App User Segmentation Four User
Segment Examples
Exploring Custom Dimensions & Segments
6 Steps to Segmenting Your Evangelists
and Detractors With In-App Messaging

Notes:
Type your answer here...

25

SECTION #4
Section 6

WHERE YOUR USERS ARE CONVERTING

(OR DROPPING OUT): Funnels
The events youve defined within your app are what make up both
your organic and marketing app funnels. You will use these funnels
to determine how users are or arent converting within your app.
Organically, this could be a user who opens
your app, reads, and shares an article without any prompting. Your funnels can also
align to in-app and push messaging marketing.
For example, you can see how targeted campaigns converted, such as analyzing how users
who received a push message for a special
sale completed an in-app purchase.
Essentially, funnels represent a set of conversion steps (or a series of events) a user can take in your app.
Ultimately, your funnel should lead to one primary conversion goal,
such as user completed an in-app purchase.

Funnels can be created whenever: in advance of a marketing campaign, or retroactively to track previously undiscovered activity
patterns. The more detailed events in your funnel, the more granular the insights and clearer the drop-offs. Certain key conversion
goals should be tracked with many events in one funnel - however,
sometimes funnels are shorter, and made up of only a couple of
events.
Tip: Use the important goals and events you defined in Section 4
to choose the conversion steps you want to track in your funnels.
Continued

26

SECTION 6

Funnel
Name
Shopping
Process

Goal

Track in-app
purchases

Step 1

Category
viewed

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4
(Final
Conversion)

Product Viewed Added to cart

Checkout
completed

STEP 2: Track Funnel Success

The key to tracking your funnels is determining what the conversion
rate is and where the drop offs are happening. Identifying these
means you can then dive into the process and discover the bottlenecks; mainly, whats preventing users from completing the funnel?
You can also use this data to run marketing campaigns for those who
have dropped out of a funnel by using specific motivators, such as
discount codes to prompt completion of an in-app purchase.

Funnel
Name

Shopping
process

Users
Started

1,400

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Conversion
Rate

Conversion
Rate

Conversion
Rate

Category
viewed: 68%

Product viewed: Added to cart:

43%
22%

Completion
Rate

Checkout: 11%

27

SECTION 6

Sample insights you can gain from tracking funnels

Users who start the registration process by signing in via
email quit more frequently than users who sign in via a
social network
Theres a bug preventing users from being able to
successfully access their carts
The pop-up window that displays on articles is preventing
users from bookmarking content

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
How to Identify Conversion Hot Spots in
Your App
A Step-by-Step Guide to Analyzing
App Funnels
Successful Funnel Management Practices
Whiteboard Wednesday

Notes:
Type your answer here...

28

USING AN ANALYTICS PLATFORM

FOR FURTHER INSIGHTS
This workbook gives you all the tools you need to discover your primary app goals, structure your analytics to
speak to those goals, and optimize your metrics tracking
according to your brands needs.
Tracking whats happening naturally in your app and identifying usage patterns gives you a deeper understanding of whats successful
and what needs work. But as your app audience grows, your campaigns
become more complex, and your strategy evolves, youll need an app
analytics and marketing platform that can keep up and eliminate any
manual work youre doing.
Plus, there are certain insights you can only glean from a dedicated
analytics solution. Lets take a look at a few:

SCREEN FLOW
Much like funnels, in which you can tag events and identify user
drop-offs, you also want to see how users are navigating through
your app screens
having to complete an event. When your
users open the app, where is the first place they go? What screen
is it? Is it one that contains a possible event? Discover how users
flow through your app, which screens they gravitate towards, and
general usage patterns.
Continued

29

ROI AND LIFETIME VALUE

Beyond just attribution tracking, youll want to discover the monetary value of all of your users over time. You cant manually track
each transaction and calculate how each user segment contributes to
your ROI (and you dont want to). As your app evolves, there will
be a greater need to measure and report on exactly how much money
its generating, who your most loyal users are, and how to encourage
engagement and profits.
Continued

30

MARKETING CAMPAIGN SUCCESS

Once youve got app analytics in place,you should consider what
to do with them. Analytics serve as the foundation upon which to
improve your app, and truly have little value when not used to improve app ROI. You may have a stellar app product, but what sets
your app apart from the 800,000 other in the App Store? Instead of
building the minimal valuable product, reach higher to build the
minimal desirable product.
These insights can (and will) inform UI/UX changes, version updates,
evolving design and new features. But engaging users is also about
running marketing campaigns to engage, retain, and convert current
app users. Using push and in-app messaging to provide special offers
and discounts, notify of app changes, encourage sharing, and other
campaigns, you can keep app users coming back for more.
Continued

31

Notes:
Type your answer here...

32

CHOOSING AN ANALYTICS TOOL

Depending on the status of your app, there are a number
of free and paid tools to consider for tracking analytics.
Choosing the right one depends on your budget, number
of users, analytics requirements, and interest in
app marketing.

BUDGET
Free tools are great, and if youre just getting started in launching your app, a free solution could be the right choice for you.
While you can use Google Analytics for your app, its not recommended, as it is built primarily for websites, and doesnt provide the
app-specific analytics you actually need. Instead, try starting with
a community-model product, or a vendor who has a free alternative.
Or, you can always try a free trial to decide which platform is
worth the investment (the good old try before you buy option).

NUMBER OF USERS/DATA POINTS

The size of your app will influence the product package you end up
choosing. As your app grows, so will your need for enhanced analytics and data capabilities. Keep this in mind when deciding on
analytics, and leave room for growth.
Continued

33

ANALYTICS REQUIREMENTS
Do you absolutely need to track user sessions? Do you need the
ability to easily define events within the platform? Are the analytics and marketing features closed-loop and tightly integrated? Knowing your must-haves upfront allows you to cut through the noise and
quickly discern what solution will work best for you.

APP MARKETING
The easiest way to go about choosing an analytics platform is to
choose one that also has built-in marketing. That way, you have
analytics that dynamically feed into your marketing, and marketing campaign data that lives in your analytics, without the need
to import and export again and again. For example, this will allow
you to run a push messaging campaign to a certain segment of users
youve already been tracking for months, without the need for two
disparate systems.

App Status
Beta

Continued

MAUs
5,000

Data
Points
230,000

Analytics Needs
Ad attribution, analyses export

34

Potential
Vendors
Localytics

MAUs

Data
Points

Analytics Needs

Professional
Professional plan: Fits all needs
plan: Free under Free under
10,000 MAUs
500,000 data
points

Looking for additional

insights and real-time
analytics tracking?
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app usage and marketing with
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