App development doesn’t guarantee the success of any business. Business needs to monitor the app performance, to ensure that the customers continue using the app and get a pleasant app browsing experience. In short, business needs to monitor and measure user engagement.
But what is user engagement in mobile apps, and how can it be measured?
User engagement is a key measurement to analyse how much value you are offering to your target audience and in the marketspace. It helps you understand if your mobile app offers the required results and how they are impacting your business operations online. Additionally, the user engagement rate helps in understanding the feasibility of your mobile app in the current situation. A positive inclination of user engagement rate also means that the mobile app’s user experience is seamless too.
User engagement is the measure of value your users derive by engaging with your mobile app. It can be measured in terms of frequency, timespan, and quality of user interactions.
Let’s deep dive into the key metrics that can help to assess your Mobile App’s User Engagement.
8 Key Metrics To Assess Your Mobile App’s User Engagement
User engagement can be assessed through various metrics that reveal how much value your mobile app perceives to the users on various parameters. These key metrics will help you to understand how much you have accomplished your business goals technically and how far you need to go.
Total Count of Installs
The total number of users helps you measure the total number of cumulative downloads or installs of your mobile applications since the launch. However, this measurement does not help you understand how many users are using your mobile app since they have installed it. You can only track the mobile user acquisition of your mobile app through this metric. This measurement also does not show how many users have uninstalled the mobile app.
To calculate the total number of users, you should first check the number of new downloads in any given specific timeframe. Secondly, you should check the download attributions, from where the new users are downloading your mobile app. Both these will help you to know your app’s value since launch and ensure new user growth.
Periodical Active Users
Active users are the second most important metric to measure user engagement. Rather than giving you the total count of how many users have downloaded your mobile app, this metric will provide a count of how many are actively using your mobile app. This measurement will help estimate how many users who have downloaded your mobile app are regularly interacting with it. Therefore, helping you to understand your mobile app’s usability and trajectory growth.
You can count your active users periodically like on-
- Daily basis
- Weekly basis
- Monthly basis, or,
- Yearly basis
An upward trajectory will portray that there are new users, conversion, and revenue generation. Additionally, it will help you get in-depth knowledge about the market and your target audience. You will get to know for how long they are engaging with your mobile app- which is the next topic of discussion.
Average Session Length Of Users
The user’s session length can be defined as the period at the point when the user is opening and closing the mobile app. The session length precisely determines the time gap between the user’s first activity and the last. Therefore, from session length, you can calculate the average time users spend on your mobile app.
The average session length is calculated by dividing the individual session lengths by the total sessions in any particular timeframe or timeline. From this, any app owner can know and analyze how much time their target audience usually spends on the app. If the time is low, it indicates there is some problem with the user engagement and gives you a scope to work on it with any mobile app development service provider in India.
Frequency Of Each User’s Session/Session Interval
The session interval is the time that elapses or the frequency between two consecutive sessions length of any user using your mobile app. Tracking the frequency of the session of the active users accessing your app is also elemental for measuring the user engagement of your mobile app. It is essential to measure the effective user engagement rate because it determines how frequently they are coming back to your mobile app.
So how will you know if the current user experience is prompting higher user engagement? If the session interval or frequency between two sessions is shorter for any user, you have a growing audience. If the session interval is increasing, you need to make some adjustments in your mobile app.
Lifetime Value
Lifetime value is the most important user engagement metric as it determines how much you are monetizing from your mobile app. The lifetime value helps estimate how much you have earned from a user before they uninstall or cease using your mobile app. In other words, we can say how much in total any user spends on your mobile app.
This core user engagement metric can help you analyze the-
- Average purchase value, which can be calculated by dividing the total app revenue in a specific timeframe by the number of app purchases over the same period.
- The average purchase frequency rate can be found by dividing the number of purchases made in a specific period by the number of unique users who made purchases in the same period.
- The user value is by multiplying the average purchase frequency rate by the average purchase value.
- The user lifespan is calculated by the average number of years a user makes in-app purchases or uses your app in general before uninstalling it.
Finally, from the user lifespan, you can calculate the lifetime value. The lifetime value equals the average user lifespan multiplied by the user value.
Hence, the lifetime value helps you make the decisions like how much growth your mobile app projects, and whether you should further invest in it.
Exit Rate
Exit rate is a metric of user engagement that calculates how many users left your mobile app after visiting many screens. There is a thin line of difference between exit rate, bounce rate, and churn rate. Though all sound similar, the exit rate is calculated by dividing the total number of visits to a screen on your mobile app by the total number of drop-offs or exits from that particular screen. This metric will help you know how many screens are converting or not serving any value to your revenue at the least.
Retention Rate
The rate of retention can be defined as the measure of the mobile app’s ability to make the customers/users come back. It is usually counted for the users who come back within 30 days. The retention rate is calculated by dividing the monthly users by the number of installs of the mobile within the same month.
You can easily count the number of customers you have retained therefore improving your brand’s credibility and value in the market. Focusing on retaining customers is more important than running behind the new customers. This is so because they become loyal customers and will appreciate the value of your business and boost the revenue.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate is the last but the most crucial metric of user engagement. This calculates how many of the users turned into paid customers. It is one of the most concrete ways to measure how much revenue your mobile application is generating from in-app purchases. The conversion rate is the rate of percentage of the number of users that completed the desired action divided by the total number of users.
This rate clearly states the percentage of paying customers and how much it is contributing to your profit and growth.
Conclusion
User engagement is an important aspect of improving the value of your mobile application as well as your online business. These metrics will offer you a scope to improve the user experience and online journey of the customers on your mobile application.
After you are through will the data collection and understanding them, you can take these simple steps to keep your users engaged-
- Optimize the flow and interface of your mobile app
- Customize the user experience and user interface
- Make the app more user-friendly with seamless navigation
- Send push notifications to remind the customers and help them retain
- Always update and optimize your mobile app
All these will accelerate the performance of your mobile application and improve your user engagement. Check in with Esolz Technologies, the best mobile app development company to strategize how you can improve the user experience and therefore boost your revenue.