You spend months, maybe even more than a year, building your app with a well-defined target audience in mind. Your research process is thorough, so you know that the audience that your app will resonate with will be youthful and tech-savvy.

A month after launch, you open your app’s analytics to see in more detail what your target audience of suburban teenagers thinks of your app. Low and behold, when you look at the demographic data, you’re surprised to see primarily 80-something-year-old ladies from Florida accounting for all your downloads.

While this anecdote may be extreme, the point we’re trying to make is that no matter how thorough you are in identifying your target audience pre-launch, this prediction isn’t always accurate. It’s essential to use analytics post-launch to navigate where you miscalculated and learn more about your actual audience.

Data to Consider

Modern app analytics arm you with a lot of information, and we like to break this information down into three distinct data types:

1. Demographic Data: Demographics for our purposes will refer to age, gender, language, education, and location.

2. Interaction Data: Interaction data refers to the user’s behavior while using your app. This can account for specific actions users take within the app, what they are primarily using the app for, and what times of day they are most active.

3. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): This is the performance-based data that is important for understanding your app’s level of success. This includes data such as retention rate, daily active users (DAUs), monthly active users (MAUs), and user acquisition source.

Using Demographic Data

The demographic data of your app’s audience is important to understand. Suppose there is a specific reason for targeting users of a certain age group and location. In this case, you want to see that this is the group you are reaching. Using the demographics data on your users will help you determine if your ideal target audience is being reached or if adjustments should be made to your marketing.

Suppose your app is a game utilizing in-app purchases. In this case, you should be targeting your marketing efforts towards those in the 25–34 year age range, as this group accounts for 49% of money spent in freemium games. By using post-launch analytics, you can see if you are reaching this target audience. If you are not, you can strategize about how to market your app to this group more effectively.

Using Interaction Data

Understanding how most people use your app is critical, especially if your app is packed with features.

Say you were out at the bar one night. You got a little overzealous and made a bet that you could pack 50 distinct features into a single app. After launch, you know you’ll have to trim a lot of fat from this monstrosity, but how do you know which features to build upon and which to hack off? Using your app analytics, you can see exactly which elements get the most use by your audience.

Understanding what your target audience likes and does not like within your app gives you a clear understanding of what changes to make from version 1.0 to version 1.1.

Using KPIs

KPIs are a way to gain insight into your app’s performance, but it also provides a lot of valuable information about your target audience. KPIs are a distinct type of data, but you also want to use them jointly with demographic data to learn more about your audience.

For example, by studying MAUs and DAUs, you can identify which users interact with your app daily and monthly. It is also beneficial to analyze the demographics of your MAUs and DUAs to see if you can identify trends. These are the users who are regularly using your app.

If you find that 40–50-year-old males from the East Coast account for 75% of your daily active users, then you may want to think about devising a strategy to best monetize users in this group.

Additionally, you can use retention rate and demographic information to determine if there is a particular group of users who delete your app in less than 30 days. A poor retention rate among one specific group may mean that marketing to them is not worth your time and resources.

Final Thoughts

Understanding your target audience pre-launch is essential, but it is just as important to use app analytics post-launch to confirm who is using your app. Understanding your audience will help you make smarter marketing decisions.

Camber Creative has been in the app business for a long time, and we’re experts when it comes to using analytics. Let us help make your next project a success.