How to Use App Analytics to Identify Your Ideal Target Customer

• Although there are nearly four million apps available, 49% of
  smartphone owners depend on just six to 10 apps each week.
• On Android devices, app retention is 27% after the first day of install.
• On Apple devices, app retention is only 23% after the first 24 hours.

Understanding user behavior is fundamental to creating deeper engagement with your app and standing out in a packed marketplace. Tracking specific actions, segmenting audiences, and optimizing for these users is the key to launching a successful app marketing campaign.

In this post, we’ll cover audience factors and KPIs to consider, and how mobile marketers can start reaching out to their ideal target customers.

Audience factors

Demographics

It’s important to understand exactly who you’ll be targeting. Knowing this information will help you create a user persona that will guide your marketing strategy.

App analytics can provide user demographic attributes such as age, gender, education, household income, and language preference. While these are basic characteristics, they can be combined to create a detailed profile: your target customer may be a married woman who has two kids, is employed, holds a university degree, uses a credit card, and lives in San Francisco. And as such, you should tailor your app marketing campaigns accordingly.

Location

While location is a part of a user’s demographic, mobile marketers can get more precise with geographic targeting. Beyond country, state, city, and zip code, marketers can identify the exact locations of users, whether they’re at the airport or the mall. Knowing this information is crucial because four in five users want ads that are customized to their specific location.

Behavior

Behavior patterns are important to track because they give insights into how users engage with your app. Measurable in-app behaviors can range from visited pages to purchase intent.

App analytics can provide you with a more granular view: for instance, you can see whether a user has triggered a specific action X number of times in total, or during a set period between two dates. You can see what your audience is using your app for, and when they might be most responsive to your marketing efforts. Check out our powerful app analytics tools like Attribution Analytics and In-App Marketing to gain more granular insights.

Device

The mobile device your audience uses—specifically the manufacturer, model, and operating system—is another key factor. For example, if you’re selling luxury products, you can target presumably affluent users who own the latest high-end devices. Or if you know your audience has upgraded their iOS, you can take advantage of that operating system’s new features.

KPIs to track

Monitoring relevant KPIs through your app analytics can help you identify your most active and profitable users. These can include:

• User Acquisition: The method through which your users can find your app. This may be organic search, paid search, or in-app referrals.

• Average Revenue Per User: The total revenue of your app (price + in-app purchases), divided by your total user base. The ARPU will show you the value of each individual user.

• Retention Rate: The length of time a user engages with your app—from when they first download and install your app. Retention is difficult to maintain, as we’ve noted before, so identifying those who actively use your app for more than a month will help you find a worthwhile audience to target.

• Session Length: The length of time a user engages with your app during one session—from launching your app to closing it. Session length can vary depending on the type of app: an e-commerce app session may take an average of 2.85 minutes while an entertainment app session may last up to 5.59 minutes.

Building on your target audience

Once you’ve identified your target audience, you can use this information to find and create lookalike audiences. These are prospects who share similar traits with your existing customers. By taking a highly targeted approach, you might earn a 40–60% click-to-install conversion rate, as James Peng, Head of Mobile Acquisition at Match Group, suggests.

Using app analytics to find and understand your active user base will provide you with a strong starting point for optimizing engagement. You’ll be able to increase the number of users across multiple channels, re-connect with prospects who have dropped out of the sales funnel, or target potential customers who haven’t downloaded your app yet.

Mobile marketers who examine their analytics and measure important KPIs will gain a better understanding of how to monetize user behavior. Strategic marketing will allow you to remain competitive in an ever-growing landscape.