In order to ensure you can scale your mobile app and be able to effectively present data to investors, you should be looking to build a mobile app tech stack. This allows you to better understand your user’s behaviours and to further develop your capabilities and grow.
Your investor benchmarks may be achieving a particular amount of app installs or may more focus on regular users, whatever your core objective is, its crucial to understand where your users come from, how they are using your app and identify the core components which grows their loyalty.
Through building a considered mobile app tech, you can access a wealth of data which in turn will allow you to improve the user experience and offer you the collateral to convince your investors that your startup is worth supporting.
What do we mean by tech stack?
When we use the term tech stack, this refers to the use of a combination of software products which can then be used to understand the effectiveness of your marketing and how that translates to users in your app.
Different programmes offer you different capabilities, including mobile attribution, marketing technologies and analytics, to measure your user’s activities. If you have a mobile app you are probably already aware that it’s not as simple as implementing a pixel to get all of your data.
Mobile attribution
The first thing you should consider is mobile attribution which will afford you insights into where your users are coming from and what they do once they have used your app. Through this, you can more effectively identify opportunities for growth and re-engagement, this can include looking at their behaviours immediately after app install or how they progress through your onboarding funnels and eventually become an active user or customer.
When looking at user tracking, many pieces of attribution software will log user interactions as ‘events’. This can be anything from entering their personal details to clicking a button to access an FAQ – this helps to build an understanding of how your users are utilising your app.
It’s important to implement software to understand your mobile app attribution, as this will provide you with sources of traffic, your audience and conversions through external ads. You can then understand which sources lead to the highest percentage of your goal events being triggered, allowing you to refocus your efforts to be the most efficient, allocate budget more effectively and optimise the use of your marketing resources.
- AppsFlyer is one of the prefered leading mobile attribution platforms. It also offers marketing analytics which can support you as an app startup to make more informed decisions which can lead to improved performance in the future.
- Adjust, similarly provides impactful reporting on the performance of your mobile app. The ‘mobile measurement company’ have built a platform which affords you the capability to track your acquisitions and understand the sources of each user, with the ability to work alongside over 2000+ partners including Facebook and Twitter.
- Branch offers people-based attribution which supports your bottom line. Through offering their users cross-channel visibility, branch allows you to connect each touchpoint, from every conversion channel to build a complete understanding of customer intent.
In-app marketing and retention
Engagement and retention are two metrics which app startup companies cannot afford to ever overlook. These provide valuable insight into the success of the application and can help to determine if any changes need to be made to improve these figures.
Understanding how active your users are and how regularly they return to your app can help you determine your apps ‘stickiness’, which defines how engaged and loyal your users are. If your app relies on conversions or monetisation, then your key objective will be tied to ensuring users are engaged and encourage repeat use.
- Intercom offers app startup companies the capability to grow more efficiently by providing them with the tools to acquire, engage and then retain their customers, through targeted content and after-support.
- Lean Plum is a platform tailored to offer app creators a way to create a bespoke customer journey that results in higher engagement and retention rates. Focussing on improving impact, the software allows you to test and optimise your activities to ensure growth.
- Urban Airship offers a range of services, with an engagement solution serving as one of the key products. Through a mixture of push notifications, in-app messaging, message centres and analytics, Urban Airship allows you to tailor your retention strategy to ensure you’re connecting with users at the right times.
- OneSignal also provides an interface which allows you to send out emails and notifications from one place. The platform provides the capability to A/B test notifications, segment the target audience, optimise using localisation, track conversions and a bunch of other useful functionalities.
Mobile app analytics
Although you will typically have access to a wealth of analytics through the other tools that you use, a designated analytics tool may allow you to elevate your understanding of your audience and build a holistic view of areas you can make improvements.
Without analytics, you’ll really struggle to gain a good understanding of your user’s usage and behaviours, which can reduce the likelihood of reaching your overarching goals. It also means you may face more questioning from any investors without sufficient data to back-up your next steps.
- Mix panel allows you to better understand your app’s performance, allowing you to make data-driven and overall better-informed decisions in relation to how users use your software. The offering is scalable and allows you to understand the interactions associated with your app. Mix panel also integrates with attribution and in-app partners allowing you to create highly complex workflows based on multiple events or actions.
- Appsee moves beyond simply offering your business metrics, with real-time insights into user behaviour. The software features the capabilities to see your app through the user’s eyes with user recordings, understand touch gestures using heatmaps and track funnel conversion rates to better understand drop-offs.
- If you choose to use Adjust for your mobile attribution then it could be worthwhile looking into their analytics offering too. The completely customisable event tracking allows you to set specific conversion goals whilst cohort analysis means that you can better segment your users by a huge number of variables to identify behaviour patterns.
Building your marketing tech stack for a mobile app
Deciding on a tech stack to suit your mobile app isn’t always straight forward but it’s best to explore a range of options before you settle on the tools you want to use, You should ensure that the ones you do decide to implement give you all of the information you need to move your business forward.
It can be tempting to immediately opt for the lowest price point, but more often than not, this can result in reduced visibility of your range of data and less understanding of your users. Take some time to truly understand each of the features that each tool offers to ensure that you don’t have to try and roll back at a later date which is likely to cost you time and money.
If you need further advice on how to build the most optimal tech stack for your startup or need support in building your marketing capabilities, then get in touch with us today.