Photo by Charles Deluvio

When there weren’t many mobile marketing tools on the market, it was easier to choose the right one. Now, with such a variety of platforms for application analytics, it can be confusing. We have analyzed the features, pros and cons of the most popular of them and compiled our own rating.

You need different tools for different types of tasks. This also applies to analytics. It is rarely possible to be limited to just one system. For quality work on a mobile app, you need tools for product and marketing analytics. What are the differences between them?

In conventional mobile marketing analytics, it’s fairly easy to determine which user actions count as a conversion – for example, buying a product or registering. With product analytics, however, things are a little more complicated. Determining goals and action sequences is less obvious because each app has a unique structure and feature set. And so each user has his or her own unique path. That’s why in product analytics you have to spend a lot of time configuring events accordingly.

Product analytics is more focused on retention and engagement. Marketing analytics focuses on conversions and traffic sources. When it comes to apps, the primary measure of success is not just the number of downloads or purchases, but how many people continue to use and interact with the product. The data collected through product analytics helps answer questions about the stages of the user journey: when they leave, what features they use most often, how often they use the app, and so on.

Marketing analytics tracks traffic and uses tools to analyze traffic. And in the case of product analytics, a huge part of what is measured depends on personal, and in some cases even sensitive, data about users: home addresses, phone numbers, first and last names, sometimes even medical records. Product analytics tools are designed to collect all of these events and tie them to a single user ID. This gives insight into how each app user is progressing along the path to purchase. In this way, product analytics works with more sensitive data. To summarize: product analytics are aimed at improving the app itself and user experience and retention; marketing analytics are aimed at analyzing the results of a marketing campaign and increasing the effectiveness of promotion.

The answer is short: both.

Among analytical systems, there are those that can solve several types of problems simultaneously: both for marketing analytics and for product analytics. But a good option would be to integrate at least two analytics systems.

Below are the ratings of marketing, product and market analytics systems. The ratings are based on our personal experience with each system.

An analytics platform with in-depth analysis of internal app events, cost and ROI reports.

Pros:

Most accurate, easy to use.
Constantly updated and supported by AppsFlyer.
Marketing Analytics.
Mobile attribution.
Deep links.
Active protection against fraud.
Installation tracking as a result of TV ad launches.

Cons:

Support in English.
High cost.
Data describing specific events such as installs, purchases, website visits are only stored for 90 days.

Paid/Free: Paid.

Suitable for: Medium and large businesses. Less suitable for startups.

A mobile marketing solution used to understand and analyze customers in-app. Works on platforms such as Cordova, Android, iOS and Windows. With this platform, you can segment customers based on set criteria and goals, as well as perform A/B testing. You can also sync this data with a BI platform or dashboard.

Pros:

Works with more than 1,500 partners, including Facebook and Twitter.
Displays key performance indicators.
Ability to cohort analysis.
Ability to create audiences.
Anti-fraud.
Attribution analysis.
Easy campaign performance tracking.
Minimalistic interface design.

Cons:

High cost.
For applications with low traffic, the price may be higher than that of competitive analytics systems.
No dedicated manager on small plans (only email support, but in Russian).
Not the most user-friendly interface for work.
Not very understandable and clear documentation.

Paid/Free: paid.

Who is suited to: it is especially convenient for agencies – in Adjust there is a convenient integration with partners.

A platform for application development. Useful features include: analytics, crash reports, hosting and A/B tests, reporting in the form of tables or graphs. For events, pathway reports are also available – the “Sequences” report. In it, you can specify the sequence of events and analyze how users progress, for example, by game levels. In Firebase, you can track returns, events, conversions, activity and user retention metrics.

Pros:

Data on in-app user activity, conversions, and the revenue they generate.
Test Lab crash reports (for Android).
App performance monitoring.
Integrates with most Google products useful for usability and user analysis.

Cons:

Firebase has no detailed reports on app user sessions.
Integrates with only one advertising partner, Google Ads.
Limited customization.

Paid/free: free.

Who it suits: a universal tool that suits everyone.

It is a universal tool that covers both mobile and web analytics. Mixpanel helps analyze the customer journey and user behavior, as well as app monetization. The tool also helps identify app problems and prevent user churn, find better content and increase engagement. Among the features: cohort analysis, A/B testing, real-time data updates.

Pros:

Friendly interface, easy to create funnels.
Real-time activity tracking.
Behavior alerts: product usage notifications.
Ability to track events individually or create event sequences (funnels).
Automatic integration is being improved.

Cons:

The server side uses NoSQL, so there may be problems when managing large chunks of structured data.
Limitations in the free version.
High cost.

Paid/Free: Paid.

Suitable for: Those who want to build quality sales funnels.

Amplitude is a mobile (iOS and Android) and web analytics application. It uses behavioral analysis of mobile users and allows app developers to predict retention, visualize interactions, group users by actions, etc. Key features of the product include real-time analytics, sales funnels, retention tools, detailed user segmentation and more.

Pros:

Easy-to-use interface.
Customizable monitoring dashboards.
Integration with third-party tools.

Cons:

No presentation of aggregated data.
No step by step startup guide.

Paid/Free: Paid.

Suitable for: Those who also want to get statistics for the site.

Mobile Action is a useful tool for competitor analysis, keyword research, position tracking and optimization in app stores.

Pros:

In addition to analysis, the platform gives recommendations for optimization.
Very powerful and handy tool for ASO and for working with competitors.
Analyzes the selected category of the application and suggests keywords, queries with which give the highest percentage of downloads.

Cons:

Event analytics. Although the tool allows you to analyze data such as user activity, time spent on the app, etc., these features work better in other programs.

Paid/Free: Paid.

Suitable for: companies of any size. The service offers rates from “Startup” to “Large Business.” There’s a free trial that gives you access to all the premium features for a week to see which ones you really need.

Sensor Tower offers a solution for mobile marketers, app developers and industry analysts who need to understand their competitors and want to do optimization in app stores.

Pros:

Pretty accurate data.
Speed of operation.
Monitoring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.
Can spy on competitors’ keywords.
Ability to connect application analysis by revenue and downloads.
Gathering information on market trends and publishing analytical reports.

Cons:

There may be performance failures (rare).

Mobile analytics and market data platform. It can be used to track competitors and determine the most effective marketing activities. App Annie can measure over 50 different metrics to improve mobile strategy, including revenue, number of competitor app downloads, user demographics, usage, and more.

Pros:

Statistics on millions of apps to find out which store, country, category or device is setting the growth rate.
Competitor information, including market share, growth trends, and changes in rankings over time.
Sorting through user reviews to understand whether an app update was successful or not.
Demographics and analysis of user base matches with other apps to refine product development and promotion strategies.
Ability to optimize ASO and pay-per-view (thanks to keyword search).
User-friendly reports and interface.

Cons:

Paid and very expensive

Paid/free: paid.

Who is suited for: big business.

Even though there are many competitors, each application has its own individual characteristics. Therefore, the first thing to do when choosing an analytics system for mobile marketing is to clearly define what information to analyze and what functions of the application are the most important at the moment. And depending on this form your list of tools.