Top Product Metrics for Mobile App and Game Success [Survey]

With so many product metrics out there, it’s easy to drown in a sea of data. What KPIs really matter for monitoring your app’s performance? Which metrics shed the most light on revenue, engagement, and retention?

You also could be at risk of tracking the wrong metrics. This can be a huge time-waster, and present countless missed opportunities for optimization.

To solve these problems, we surveyed more than 500 developers, analysts, and product managers. The results showed us which product metrics are most likely to help you maximize your app’s potential.

Top Product Metrics for Mobile Apps and Games (By Category)

Our first point of call was to identify which product metric categories are most prevalent to track for mobile games and apps. 

We managed to compile all of the results into five clear categories: Acquisition (18.8%), Activation (14.5%), Engagement (20.3%), Retention (17.4%), and Monetization (20.3%). 

As you can see, Engagement and Monetization were the joint-most mentioned types of product metrics. This indicates that maximizing revenue and understanding user behavior are high priorities.  

Now that you have a holistic view of which product metrics our surveyors were most enthusiastic about, let’s break down each category and explore the most popular ones.

Most Mentioned Acquisition Metrics

Standout acquisition product metrics:

• CPI (Cost Per Install) dominates this category with 31.9% of mentions. This highlights this metric’s key role in working out the cost efficiency of acquiring new users. For mobile app developers using paid campaigns, CPI is an absolute must.
• With 156 mentions, Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the second most popular acquisition metric. This implies that analysts and developers value the effectiveness of ad creatives.
• While not as frequently mentioned, Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and Organic vs. Paid Installs were also frequently mentioned. This suggests an interest in how much each acquisition costs and the impact organic strategies have on paid campaigns.

Other acquisition product metrics: User Acquisition (UA), Acquisition ROI, Conversion Rate, Install-to-Activation Rate, and CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions). 

Most Mentioned Activation Metrics

Standout activation product metrics:

• About half of relevant mentions singled out Time-to-Value (TTV) as especially important, This indicates that developers and product managers care deeply about how quickly users get value from the app.
• Onboarding Completion Rate consisted of about 35.45% of activation metrics found in the survey results. This metric is integral to ensuring new users get up to speed and get immediate value from the app. It also suggests the concern of high drop-offs during onboarding.

Other activation product metrics: First-Time Open Rate, First Key Action, First-Session Durations.

Most Mentioned Engagement Metrics

Standout engagement product metrics:

• Daily Active Users (DAU) and Session Length were mentioned by more than 300 respondents respectively. Both metrics show how important it is to track the length at which users interact with your app.
• While not as prevalent as DAU, Monthly Active Users (MAU) was also frequently mentioned.
• Session Frequency also had many mentions (156), showing that the frequency at which users engage with an app is also crucial to track.

Session Length Example: According to Jon Morgan, CEO of Venture Smarter, “One of our games saw a 30% increase in session length after we introduced new daily challenges.”

Other engagement product metrics: Sessions Per User, Playtime, In-App Events, and social engagement metrics like friend invites and group participation.

Most Mentioned Retention Metrics

Standout retention product metrics:

• There’s a relatively even distribution of key retention metrics. 
• Churn Rate represents close to a fifth of results (19.44%), highlighting the need to measure the percentage of users who have stopped using the app.
• Different stages of the retention life cycle dominate this category. Of the three, Day 30 Retention Rate edges it, suggesting that a month is the prime point at which many developers and analysts judge an app’s success in retaining users.

Day 7 Retention Example: Morgan says, “We improved our 7-day retention rate by 10% by sending personalized push notifications to re-engage users.”

Other retention product metrics: Cohort analysis, in-app/game progression.

Rongzhong Li from Petoi says that “combining these metrics provides a holistic view of what’s working and what needs adjustment, ensuring the game stays engaging and profitable.”

Most Mentioned Monetization Metrics

Standout monetization product metrics:

• With 365 mentions, Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) leads the way. This suggests that many apps, especially ones with wide user bases, strongly emphasize per-user revenue.
• The next most-mentioned monetization metric is Lifetime Value (LTV), with 321 mentions. According to the survey’s results, Conversion Rate is also a highly regarded monetization product metric.

Other monetization product metrics: Average Revenue per Paying User (ARPPU), Conversion Rate, and In-App Purchase Revenue (IAP).

Other Product Metrics

There are plenty of other metrics that submitters in our survey consider extremely important to their app development efforts. 

For example, DesignRush’s CTO Gary Kustnetsov claimed that his team is starting to track virality metrics like the K-Factor. 

“[This] shows how well current users bring in new users through referrals or social sharing.” 

He went on to say that less common metrics like this one have positively impacted the mobile games he has overseen. 

Other product metrics mentioned: Funnel Analysis, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and Performance Metrics.

Most Mentioned Product Metrics Across Categories

We have compiled the most frequently mentioned metrics across all of the categories that we included in our survey and ranked them based on how frequently respondents mentioned them.

Product Metric	Number of Mentions	Frequency of Mentions (%)	Metric Type
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)	365	62.3%	Monetization
Day 30 Retention	361	61.6%	Retention
Daily Active Users (DAU)	353	60.2%	Engagement
Day 1 Retention	352	60.1%	Retention
Day 7 Retention	343	58.53%	Retention
Lifetime Value (LTV)	321	54.8%	Monetization
Churn Rate	313	53.4%	Retention
Session Length	312	53.3%	Engagement
Conversion Rate	293	50%	Monetization
Time-to-Value (TTV)	276	47.1%	Activation
Cost Per Install (CPI)	273	46.6%	Acquisition
Monthly Active Users (MAU)	237	40.5%	Engagement

Overall, the survey results suggest that app developers, product managers, and data analysts prioritize Monetization and Retention metrics the most. These product metrics are seen as strongly focusing on improving user engagement and boosting revenue.

Engagement metrics are also frequently mentioned, suggesting the importance they play in measuring how much users interact with apps.

FAQs

What are product metrics in mobile apps?

In mobile apps, product metrics are the data that highlight how app users engage with a mobile app or game, and how those metrics impact business. Typically, product managers, data analysts, app and game marketers, and developers use these metrics to understand how successful their app currently is.

Why are product metrics important to track?

Tracking product metrics for your app or game is essential for many reasons. Benefits include:

• Better understanding of user behavior
• Adjusting feature prioritization
• Making data-informed decisions.

Use the Right Product Metrics for Your App

In conclusion, consider focusing on monetization and retention metrics such as ARPU and Day 30 Retention. These metrics provide a solid foundation for boosting retention and revenue. Engagement metrics (like Session Length and DAU), also contribute significantly to understanding user behavior. 

But as Kuznetsov highlights: “Combining engagement metrics with churn data can show if a certain feature isn’t working well and needs to be adjusted to retain users.” 

The key is to combine these metrics and measure what aligns most with your app’s goals.