Importance of app analytics

Everyone has heard the phrase ‘In GOD we trust, everyone else should come with data !’. Well, the phrase has changed slightly as follows: ‘In GOD we trust, everyone else should come with easy to understand data !’. Across the globe, the one thing which is constantly changing is the options that are available to customers: be it apps, productivity tools, fashion, food, education etc. Hence, no vendor can take their dominant position for granted. App Analytics plays a key role in generating insights useful for all stakeholders.

What is App Analytics?

‘Application analytics provides insights into the usage/performance/behaviour of an application by producing real-time analysis through visualization of data.’

Who benefits from app analytics?

Types of Insights from app analytics

• Direct

  • Number of users

  • Screens used

  • Time spent on the application

  • Time taken by application to respond to queries based on different criterion

  • Performance benefits realization post new release deployment

  • New features usage

• Derived

  • Peak app usage time leading to extra monitoring during those hours

  • Decline in usage by a customer leading to possible attrition

  • Specific usage pattern by customer leading to possibility of automating certain workflows in the application

  • Drive product roadmap based on features usage

Like the saying goes ‘Well begun is half done’ ; the slight modification is ‘Well logged is half done’. The key to generating useful insights is to log optimum events onto the database and log files.

The key mindset change that needs to be adopted during product development, is to think ahead about key parameters that will help generate insights & capture user behavior. For this a good amount of collaboration across stakeholders at the start is required. This crucial step if done diligently can work wonders for the product.

There are many frameworks/off-the-shelf tools available in the market & cater to generic & some very specific requirements. Some notable ones are Splunk, ELK, Google Analytics, MixPanel etc.

To summarize, App Analytics is crucial to drive process improvements, track RoI of product features, have insightful customer conversations & above all retain customers & gain new ones.

So, lets get started on App Analytics!

By Rohit S. Kothawade, AirVision Fares Manager, Sabre Corporation