Google Analytics: Understanding Your Mobile Audience

You've set up your Google Analytics IDs and started collecting information, but what does it all mean? With all of the raw data that is collected, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. So, lets take a look at a few easy metrics you can view to get a sense of how your app users are interacting with your mobile apps and mobile website.

Page Depth (Mobile Web) and Screen Depth (Native Apps)

The Page/Screen Depth view is a useful tool to get a sense of how much users interact with your app. While Visit/Session Duration will give you a general idea of how long users were viewing your app, the time is a lower bound and not an exact measurement.  It also does not show how much content they consumed during that time.  The Page/Screen Depth measurement will show how far into the app users explored.

Mobile Web:

Audience > Behavior > Engagement > Page Depth

Native Apps:

Behavior > Behavior > Session Duration > Screen Depth

Your content should be organized so that the majority of the visits are within the first 3-4 pages.  Having some traffic at larger depth quantities is good - it means that people are exploring everything the app has to offer, but remember that mobile apps are as much about convenience (quickly see event information, check out a new video, etc) as being a prolonged immersive experience.  If the majority of visits are occurring at large depth quantities, this could mean that the content your users want to see most is buried too deeply in the app, and it should be made more accessible for a better user experience.

Content Tracking

Now that you have a general idea of how people are interacting with the app, you can see specifically what content is most popular.

Mobile Web:

Behavior > Site Content > Content Drilldown

There are two types of entries you will see on this report.  A webpage icon next to the path denotes a single page while a folder icon is for all of the pages further down that path.  Click on one of the folder icon entries, find "Primary Dimension" and then click on "Page" to see the analytics for specific content in your app such as events, music, and video.

Primary Dimension > Page

Native Apps:

Behavior > Screens

Because of the differences in how native apps and mobile websites are constructed, the "Screens" report for your native apps is used to review the same information as "Content Drilldown" from the mobile website. You will notice that this view lacks the folder system from before, so in order to isolate a specific type of content, use the Search box on the left and enter in "/music/", "/video/", etc to see a narrowed down list of results.

Search

Operating System

Another useful tool in understanding your audience is the ability to see what kind of device they are using to access your content.  While this example will focus on the Operating System, you will see from the examples that other interesting information such as service provider, mobile browser, and much more can also be seen.

Mobile Web:

Audience > Technology > Browser & OS > Operating System & Pie Chart

Native Apps:

Audience > Devices and Network > Devices > Operating System & Bar Graph

In either case, selecting "Operating System" from the list of Primary Dimensions will display the traffic your apps receive from iOS and Android devices.  Using the "Pie Chart" and "Bar Graph" views can help visualize this data instead of just looking at the raw values.

Push Notification Tracking

As you know, Push Notifications can be one of the most powerful tools in keeping your users engaged and up-to-date on events and new content in your App.   By setting custom date ranges and changing the time scale of the general Audience Overview report, you can easily monitor the effectiveness of Push Notifications that have been sent. Since Push Notifications are specific to the native apps, we will only be looking at that set of Google Analytics data.

Audience > Overview > Set Date Range & Click 'Hourly'

As you can see, there are noticeable reactions to two push notifications that have been sent out.  Hovering your mouse over the chart will also reveal the number of visitors to the App on an hour by hour basis.

Comparing the Push Notification log to Google Analytics

Keep track of your Push Notification reactions over time to see what kind of messaging techniques attract the greatest response.  Google Analytics has an additional tool that can be useful for achieving a further granular view of how users react to Push Notifications.

Real-Time > Overview

By having the Real-Time Overview display active after a Push Notification is sent, you can monitor the response.  If your message directed your users to view a specific piece of content or alerted them to changes in an upcoming event, you will not only be able to see incoming traffic, but if the specific Screens related to that content in the App have been visited recently.

Stay Tuned

A future update to the mobile apps will include the ability to track exit links via the Events report, giving you the ability to monitor when users have clicked ticket or donation links, visited sponsor sites, and much more.

Want to Learn More?

If you want to learn even more about Google Analytics, we highly recommend visiting Google's Training & Certification program to fully develop your analysis skills.