Question
- What metrics can I use to understand how my app is doing?
Solution
Launching your app in the Thinkific App Store is just the beginning of your app's journey. Now that it's out in the wild, it's up to you to maximize the number of users who install your app and then convert them into paying customers. Here are a few recommended metrics to monitor:
- Trial to paid conversion rate
- CAC or Customer Acquisition Cost
- Event milestones
- Product NPS
- The app.uninstalled webhook
Thinkific generally suggests offering either a limited trial or free tier on app store apps. This minimizes installation friction, and allows app creators to build lead lists that can later be marketed to. The bigger the marketing funnel, the more opportunities you'll have to make tweaks and land sales.
- Your trial to paid conversion rate is the percentage of users who start a trial of your app and then pay for it. If you had ten new trials and two paid, your conversion rate would be 20%. Tracking this metric is useful when making changes to your app. Did your conversion rate increase as a result of making an improvement?
- CAC or Customer Acquisition Cost is a measure of how efficiently you’re gaining new, paying customers. To calculate it, add up your marketing and sales costs, then divide it by the number of paying customers you’ve acquired over the same period. The higher the CAC, the more you needed to invest to land each customer.
- Record Event milestones for important events performed in a user's trial. For instance, if you had a site scripts app that's a fillable site pages form, you may create an event for when the form is updated, or when someone submits the form for the first time. These help you understand and later incentivize the behaviours of high-converting trials.
- Product NPS is a popular marketing metric that helps you understand sentiment towards your app. Collecting NPS over time indicates how your app is performing for your customers. It also gives your customer's an opportunity to provide meaningful feedback that will help you understand their needs.
- The app.uninstalled webhook is easy to set up when a user installs your app and provides transparency when they choose to uninstall your app. Amongst the included metadata are ‘reason’ and ‘detail’, which can provide insight into why they uninstalled your app.
Ultimately, the number of installs and revenue (for paid apps) are the greatest indicators of an app's success, but tracking these metrics can provide more granular insights into where your app is succeeding and where it can be improved!