In what would appear an obvious extension of their current analytics products, Google have announced the beta launch of their mobile app analytics service and opened it up to a variety of mobile devices (including Apple) with their analytics SDK (software development kit).
The launch email from Google offered the following summary:
“Mobile App Analytics provides end-to-end measurement of the entire customer journey within a mobile application. It enables mobile developers and marketers to create more successful apps and user experiences by measuring metrics at all stages: from acquisition metrics such as new/active user; engagement metrics such as visitor flow, loyalty, and app crashes; and outcome metrics such as goal conversions and in-app purchases.”
With a number of established players already providing these services the pricetag will be the obvious attraction of the Google service to many however it is still going to need to provide the data people need in order to stay relevant.
The beta is launching with a reasonable set of features including
- Acquisition and User Analysis Reports – discover your best sources of new users
- Engagement Reports – see how users interact with your app
- Outcome / Business Impact Reports – identify whether users are accomplishing your goals including complete tracking of in-app purchases
Google ran an hour-long session at Google I/O 2012, their recent developer conference, “Measuring the End-to-End Value of Your App” with Neil Rhodes, Nick Mihailovski, Mike Kwong explaining how to measure the end-to-end value of your app, and improve its performance to drive usage and retention: