Millions of apps compete for attention. To stand out and retain users, you need more than just a great user interface and polished design—you need insight into how people actually use your app.
Mobile app analytics show you exactly where users struggle with your app, where they give up, and where they surprise you with unexpected behavior. Read on to discover what these tools can track, which metrics matter most, and which platforms do the job best.
What is mobile app analytics?
Mobile app analytics track critical data about your mobile app’s performance and user engagement. They monitor operational health by catching things like errors, crashes, and performance bottlenecks. At the same time, they keep track of behavioral data, like user flows, feature adoption, and engagement patterns.
This data helps you make informed decisions on product development and marketing. Understanding user behavior gives app developers and marketing teams the statistical basis to make data-driven decisions about how to design and promote. This directly affects growth and retention.
For instance, if you find that 75% of your users abandon your checkout process at the payment screen, a mobile app analytics platform shows you whether the form is too long or a particular payment method is causing errors. If data shows users who enable push notifications have four times higher retention rates, you could redesign your onboarding flow to better explain the benefits and get users to opt in earlier.
What to track with mobile app analytics
Here are some of the many performance metrics you can track with mobile analytics tools:
User engagement
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Downloads. Of the many key metrics that signal user engagement, the first and most important is how many people download your app in the first place. Track total downloads, installations by new users, and conversion rates from various channels to measure the effectiveness of mobile marketing campaigns.
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Session time. Once users are on your app, measure the frequency with which they’re using your app—and the average duration of each session—to inform how to optimize for user retention.
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User flow. User flow measures how users navigate your app to help you identify potential bottlenecks in the user experience.
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Retention analytics. Track how many users return to your app over a given interval—daily, weekly, and monthly—to identify long-term user engagement, often referred to as “stickiness.”
App performance
- Load performance. How fast does your app open when someone taps it? This mobile metric helps you benchmark performance and identify slow-loading features that might frustrate users.
- Crash reporting. Worse than slow load times, app crashes can turn users off in a hurry. Comprehensive crash tracking (i.e., detecting when your app unexpectedly closes) helps you monitor app stability and prioritize fixing the highest-impact bugs.
- Platform performance. Analyze app performance across a variety of devices (different smartphones, tablets, or computers) and operating systems (mainly iOS and Android) to ensure your app maintains a consistent user experience across the board.
- Data usage. Track your app’s data consumption, battery usage, and file storage to help optimize performance and avoid user complaints.
Conversion
- Funnel analysis. A funnel analysis checks how users progress through conversion paths—from onboarding to registration and purchase—to help you understand where they drop off and what you can optimize.
- In-app purchases. Tracking purchase conversion rates and average transaction values gives you a broad look at the effectiveness of your monetization efforts, and helps you identify which customer segments are your most valuable.
- Cohort analysis. Segment by user behavior data—like their app download date or the first feature they used—so you can track trends in your user base over time and use those insights to guide product development and marketing campaigns.
- A/B testing. A/B testing two different versions of app features, interfaces, or content can help you determine which version drives better engagement, retention, and conversion rates, providing a strong statistical basis for how to design and market your app.
Marketing effectiveness
- Attribution tracking. Multichannel attribution tracking lets you see which marketing campaigns, touchpoints, and channels drive the most app installations, so you can track your complete user journey and optimize where you spend your marketing budget.
- Customer acquisition cost. CAC measures how much it costs to acquire a new user from a given channel and adds key context to your attribution tracking. Used in tandem, they can help you identify your most cost-effective strategy for growth.
- Retargeting campaign performance. When users start to drift away from your app, you might try to keep users engaged with a retargeting campaign. Tracking subsequent engagement levels, as well as the revenue generated from retargeted users, helps optimize these channels.
- Customer lifetime value analysis. Once you have a few years of data, calculating the total value a customer brings over their lifetime—and mapping it against your cohort analysis and segmentation—helps you allocate your budget more strategically.
Best mobile app analytics tools
Here are the top mobile app analytics tools available to app developers and marketers:
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is a mobile app analytics platform specializing in event-based tracking, best for software-as-a-service (SaaS) and ecommerce apps that need to measure complex user journeys. The platform builds detailed user profiles you can segment by behavior and demographics, letting you compare how different groups interact with your app.
Features
- Event-based tracking with custom event parameters
- User segmentation based on demographics and behavior
- Multifunnel comparison
- Cohort analysistools
- Individual user profile tracking with complete action history
Pricing: MixPanel offers a free tier that covers most basic tracking needs. Paid tiers start at $28 per month for up to 10,000 events monthly.
Firebase
Firebase is part of Google’s app development platform and closely integrated with much of Google’s broader ecosystem. For teams already using other Google services, Firebase lets you share data with tools like Google Ads for ad campaigns and BigQuery for advanced data processing.
Features
- Automatic tracking for core engagement metrics
- Native integrations with Google ecosystem
- Built-in A/B testing capabilities
- Machine learning tools for predicting user behavior
- Real-time dashboard with customizable reporting
Pricing: Firebase Analytics provides free and unlimited reporting on up to 500 distinct events.
AppsFlyer
AppsFlyer specializes in channel attribution, providing tracking across all major platforms. Marketing teams can use it to identify their best-performing campaigns and highest-value user acquisition across channels.
Features
- Multiplatform attribution tracking
- Real-time fraud detection and prevention
- Audience segmentation and customer journey mapping
- Integration with major advertising networks and marketing analytics platforms
- Custom API access for further integrations
Pricing: AppsFlyer offers a free tier with up to 12,000 conversions for the first year, with premium add-ons and additional conversions available for a fee.
Amplitude
Amplitude focuses on statistical analysis, leaning on its monitoring capabilities—like automated data quality assessments and user journey mapping—to surface patterns and predict future behavior based on what it finds.
Features
- Cohort analysis with predictive user forecasting
- Compass feature detects significant changes inuser behavior data
- Cross-platform user journey tracking
- Automated anomaly detection
- Custom API access for further integrations
Pricing: Amplitude’s free tier allows you up to 10,000 monthly tracked users (MTUs) and 10 million monthly user actions, while paid plans start at $49 per month for up to 300,000 MTUs.
UXCam
UXCam records user sessions and creates touch heat maps to show how users navigate through apps. The platform also uses algorithms to identify patterns where users struggle to use the app properly or abandon tasks altogether.
Features
- Session recordings and touch heat maps
- Automatically identifies patterns where users are struggling
- Crash replay functionality showing the exact user session preceding a crash
- Anonymized user data collection
Pricing: UXCam offers a free plan with basic features up to 3,000 monthly sessions, with paid plans available through custom quotes.
Best mobile app analytics FAQ
Can Google Analytics be used for mobile apps?
Yes, Google Analytics 4 measures user activity on mobile apps by adding the Firebase SDK to your app to pass data back to your GA4 platform.
Why track mobile app analytics?
Tracking mobile app analytics gives you insight into how users interact with your app, which tends to provide more data than website analytics alone.
What mobile app analytics should be tracked?
To start out, monitor session time, user flow, and retention. On the technical side of things, study your app’s load performance, crash reports, and data usage to find areas for improvement.
