Matt Tubergen is VP and GM of Taptica, a performance-based mobile advertising network. Matt has over 10 years experience in the mobile app and content industry, bringing large brands and gaming properties to market.

Matt's previous positions include senior management roles at THQ and W3i along with supporting multiple successful start ups as founder and co-founder.

In this soup to nuts series on mobile analytics we have explored all aspects of using data to help us make more informed decisions.

We covered App store analytics last week, for instance, and post-install analytics in a previous article.

In this piece we will go deeper into pre-install analytics and mobile marketing.

Funnel for all

Understanding mobile marketing and advertising is hard. The mobile app ecosystem seems to change daily with new rules, channels, partners and platforms.

What's more, there's an ever-increasing number of new services and tools that promise everything from App Store features to guaranteed revenue.

But, while things may change in terms of the ecosystem, the fundamental dynamics of building a funnel and driving new users does not.

And luckily the technology is at a point where we can track and analyse the performance of these fundamentals regardless of market changes.

Let's dive in

The term funnel is often used to describe the entire process as potential touch points users encounter toward a specific desired event or action.

There is no exception for this on mobile. Thus, the rules of the game still apply. All marketing activities can have impact on the funnel to acquire users. We can refer to this as the user acquisition funnel.

At the top of the funnel we have vast amounts of users viewing, considering or even ignoring information about our applications. At the bottom of the funnel is a user who has been converted and is utilising the product to the fullest extent.

Paid media activities, cross promotion and even a review from an app review site can, in many ways, be tracked. Not only tracked, but also analysed for performance for the purpose of improvement.

But what can be tracked on mobile?

Typically the funnel events look similar to the following, most of which can be tracked and analysed in some way.

Typical conversion funnel metrics for mobile marketing activities include:

- Impression/Views

- Click

- Install and/or first run

- Each subsequent session

It may seem like a bit of on over simplification, but if you can just track the above metrics across your primary marketing activities, you would have great insight into the performance and value of each of your marketing activities.

Sadly, most companies are not tracking these events and remain unaware of which things they should be doing more or less of.

As I stated before, analytics are only as powerful as the decisions we can make with them. Find what works, do more of what does and less of what does not.

But how do I track these funnel events?

There are multiple services and tools these days available for tracking your funnel.

Taptica, the company I work for, certainly provides these types of materials and integrates with dozens of partners to provide this info.

However, we're not the only ones in the market to help with this type of analysis. Here are a few additional recommendations:

Mobile App Tracking by Has Offers: the most widely used to track click sources, installs and a few post-install events

Ad-x: In our opinion one of the best tracking services for a full pre- and post-install source with a great level of accuracy.

Flurry: One of the most widely used post-install analytics services recently implemented a source tracking service as well.

With this you can see click source, install and even track cohorts though to most post-install events such as purchases or repeat behaviour.

Next time

Next week we will wrap things up with a full review, recapping the points we covered in this series.
To find out more about Taptica and the services it offers, take a look at the company's website.