Building a Mobile App Analytics Dashboard from Scratch in 2024

Monitoring a mobile app's performance is crucial for its overall success. However, tracking app performance can be challenging for many businesses. About 30% of users need help identifying helpful app data, while 41% need to learn how to process large volumes of data from different sources.

A mobile app analytics dashboard captures the correct data from your mobile apps and presents it in visually appealing charts. This tool provides insights into how users interact with your mobile app and gives a quick overview of your app's performance. Thus, it is an efficient tool for presenting this essential information and deriving valuable insights.

This article will guide you through building interactive mobile app analytics dashboards for your business and share the key metrics you should track for app success in 2024.

What is a Mobile App Analytics Dashboard?

A mobile app analytics dashboard is a specialized dashboard designed for mobile apps. It tracks user behaviour within your app and monitors their interactions. It helps you identify potential churn risks and discover what causes your users to churn. Furthermore, it tracks your mobile app performance to spot bottlenecks and optimize it for better efficiency.

Here is an example of a sample dashboard created using Houseware. This dashboard showcases a trend chart depicting the number of home page visits and another visualization for analyzing funnel performance. You can customize this dashboard to display relevant parameters that directly resonate with your business needs.

Benefits of Mobile App Analytics Dashboards

Mobile app analytics dashboards unify data from various sources to offer a complete picture of your users and mobile app. Let's learn about the benefits of these dashboards in detail.

Visualize Data for a Better Understanding

The dashboard offers an understandable solution to review and monitor valuable information at a glance. It presents crucial customer and app information through graphical charts, plots, tables, and more. This data representation allows you to understand your customers and their needs better. Further, it helps you improve your existing campaigns and company processes.

Monitor App Performance with Live Insights

The mobile app analytics dashboard displays accurate information regarding customers and your mobile app in real-time, so you have the latest app data at your fingertips. It offers intelligent insights into how customers interact with your app, including their feature usage, navigation patterns, etc. This helps you monitor your app performance to boost customer experiences and improve the overall functioning of the application.

Track and Measure Crucial KPIs for Data-Driven Decision-Making

A mobile app KPI dashboard guides you in refining your product according to how your customers interact by offering deep insights into user behaviour and preferences. It helps you track various KPIs and ROI across different campaigns. This supports informed decision-making that is based on data rather than hypothetical assumptions.

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7 Steps to Create a Custom Mobile App Analytics Dashboard

Here is a step-by-step guide to building an excellent mobile app KPI dashboard that would make it easy for anyone to measure user engagement, retention, and other metrics.

1. Gather Your Data

Identify the data sources and collect the necessary data for your mobile app analytics dashboard. Tap into your app's databases to gather relevant user information. Integrate your mobile app with an intuitive analytics platform like Houseware to capture relevant user data, such as user sessions, click events, session frequency, etc.

As a warehouse-native platform, Houseware eliminates the need for tedious data integrations. Instead of cutting, copying, and pasting data from multiple sources, it directly works on top of your existing data warehouse. Thus, you can easily leverage and analyze your app data without hassles and generate contextual insights.

Ensure that this collected data is accurate, up-to-date and available in a standard format. Identify anomalies, remove duplicate entries, check for missing entries, and correct any errors. Remember, inconsistent data may cause confusion and increase your chances of making mistakes.

2. Choose the Right Metrics and KPIs

Choosing the right KPIs and product metrics that align with your app objectives helps you set a solid foundation for your mobile app KPI dashboard. Understand the purpose of your dashboard thoroughly to determine the best mobile app KPIs.

Some commonly tracked metrics in these dashboards are user acquisition metrics, user engagement metrics, and user experience. We shall explore these metrics in detail in the later sections of this post. It is advisable to track 3-4 metrics instead of relying on a single metric to do the work for you.

3. Create a Prototype Using Wireframing Tools

Sketch a rough dashboard layout using a wireframing tool and highlighting the placement of various elements on the dashboard. Plan what charts, graphs, or tables you will include in your dashboard based on your business goals and KPIs. This will ensure you are more focused when you build your dashboard. It will eliminate the need to experiment with various visualizations to check if they output the desired result. Thus, speeding up the dashboard-building process.

Create high-fidelity dashboard mockups to provide maximum information about your app data to all your stakeholders. Understand the type of information you wish to convey and choose your charts accordingly. For instance, line charts are ideal for showcasing trends over time. Similarly, bar charts are the best for comparing items in the same category. Include titles in all charts, share the measurement units, and more to provide context.

4. Follow Dashboard Design Principles

Excellent dashboards are clear, user-friendly, and interactive. They present the correct information at a glance through appealing data visualizations. It is essential to follow dashboard design principles to build a powerful dashboard.

Another thing to remember is to crowd some visualizations in one dashboard only. Every team in your company has its unique requirements. For instance, a software developer might want to see data different from that of a sales or marketing manager. Hence, tailoring your dashboard according to individual team requirements will simplify the data monitoring process. They will be able to have a quick overview of key metrics about their roles without any hassles.

Share this dashboard design mockup with the key stakeholders and gather their feedback. Do not hesitate to rework the design if required.

5. Build Your Interactive Dashboard

Once the design is finalized, it is time to start building the dashboard. Follow the dashboard design mockup to create the visual design and layout using the plug-and-play tools offered by Houseware. This is the front end of your dashboard.

Now, connect this front end to your data sources for data retrieval. Configure the logic to fetch the data from chosen sources and process it accordingly.

Make your dashboard more interactive by including various filtering options, date range selectors, drill-downs, and more. Enabling data customization will help you gain deeper insights into your app's performance, user behaviour, and other app trends.

Provide an option to export the data visualizations and insights as detailed reports. Ensure you support standard report export formats like PDF, CSV, XML, and XLSX.

6. Test Your Newly Created Dashboard

Test your dashboard thoroughly with accurate app data to ensure it works as expected. Monitor the data visualizations closely to spot any bugs or usability issues. Conduct tests on different devices and screen sizes to ensure their compatibility.

Share the newly created dashboard with your team members and gather their feedback on the design and functionality. Address any issues or enhancements to improve the overall dashboard experience.

7. Generate Mobile App Analytics Reports

Publish your mobile app KPI report directly from your dashboard and share the same with your team members for better decision-making.

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The Mobile App Performance Metrics Your Dashboard Must Track

You have successfully learned how to create your business's mobile app dashboard. Let's now focus on the different mobile app KPIs you should track.

Remember, this is a generalized list. The metrics you must track largely depend on your mobile app and business goals.

1. User Acquisition

User Acquisition metrics help you measure the success of your user acquisition campaigns.

• App Downloads - Measures the total number of users who downloaded your app from the app stores over a certain period.
• New Users - Measures the unique number of users who used your app for the first time.

2. User Engagement

User engagement metrics monitor user engagement within your mobile app by tracking when, where, and how users interact with it.

• Daily Active Users (DAU) - Tracks the total number of active users engaging with your product on any given day.
• Weekly Active Users (WAU) - Tracks the number of active users engaging with your app over seven days.
• Monthly Active Users (MAU) - Tracks the number of active users interacting with your app over 30 days.
• Average Session Length - Measures the average time a user spends on your app over a certain period.
• Stickiness - Measures how frequently your users return to your app.
• Retention Rate - Measures the percentage of users who continue to use your app over a certain period.
• App Churn Rate - Measures the percentage of users who stop using your app.
• Uninstalls - Tracks the number of users who uninstall your app daily, weekly, or monthly.

3. App Performance

App performance metrics measure how well your app performs at any given time.

• App Load Time - Measures how long your app will load and be functional.
• App Crashes - Tracks the number of crashes or instances where the app does not function as expected during a specific period.
• App Uptime - Measures the percentage of time your app is available for your users.

4. Revenue-Focused Metrics

Revenue-focused metrics help you measure the financial performance of your app.

• Lifetime Value: Measures how much value individual customers bring to your business.
• Customer Acquisition Cost: Measures the amount you spend on acquiring new users.
• Return on Investment: Measures your earnings for every app promotional campaign.
• Cost per Acquisition: Measures the money spent on acquiring a single customer.
• Cost per Install: Measures the amount spent on a single app installation.

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Wrapping Up

Mobile apps are complex, and you often require deep analysis to monitor their performance. With the help of a mobile app analytics dashboard, you can convert large amounts of user and app data into appealing charts for identifying the issues and making necessary improvements. Houseware offers incredible mobile app analytics dashboard-building tools for understanding your user's actions, monitoring app performance, and tracking the right mobile app KPIs.

Turn your data into actionable insights with Houseware. Book a demo with our team to learn how Houseware can help you build intelligent mobile app analytics dashboards.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you measure the performance of a mobile app?

You can measure your mobile app performance by tracking key metrics like user acquisition, engagement, and retention rate. Leverage a mobile app analytics dashboard to view all this crucial data through interactive graphs and charts.

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