Home What Are Developers’ Options for Tracking Actionable Data in Mobile Apps?

What Are Developers’ Options for Tracking Actionable Data in Mobile Apps?

Analytics company Claritics has announced a new version of its “social intelligence suite” with full HTML5 support to help developers analyze data from mobile Web apps, iOS and Android platforms from a single framework.

There are a variety of companies that are trying to capture actionable data for developers to use to inform their design and management strategies. Claritics is one of the first to add HTML5 to that suite. What are the other trends in mobile analytics that are helping developers inform their projects?

This is how Claritics describes the insights developers can get with its new HTML5 support:

  • Which platforms deliver the most engaged users at the lowest cost of acquisition?
  • How does user behavior differ across multiple platforms and devices?
  • What is the difference in Average Revenue Per User across different platforms?
  • Which content is most or least popular and how does consumption vary by platform?

Claritics is betting on Facebook making a significant ecosystem for HTML5-based Web apps and its platform includes Facebook support on top of its iOS and Android options.

Claritics is not alone providing cross-platform support for analyzing data. Some of the rising names in the analytics ecosystem are Socialize, PlayHaven, Apsalar, Localytics and Flurry among others. There is a Boston-based company that is working with mobile game developers called Sonamine in an emerging vertical dubbed “predictive analytics.” Let’s take a look at how each company approaches the issue of providing actionable data for developers.

SocializeSocialize provides a SDK that can be dropped in applications to allow users to comment and engage with each other from within the app. Socialize can then take that data and map it along an interest graph that then becomes actionable data developers can use to inform their decisions. Socialize is unique in taking the social approach to aggregating mobile data.

PlayHaven – The beauty of PlayHaven is not just how it tracks data, which is not too different from how other companies do, but in what it allows you to do with that data. PlayHaven, used mostly in games, looks at data and trends in real-time to give the marketing department tools to help drive interaction and in-app purchases. Developers can then go into the app through PlayHaven’s dashboard and act on the game data accordingly without having to resubmit the app through the Android Market or Apple App Store.

ApsalarApsalar is a lot like PlayHaven but instead of just games, it tracks actionable data across all applications. Apsalar bills itself as MEM, or mobile engagement management. The Apsalar team is working on news ways that developers can use mobile data to inform their design decisions and monetization strategies. We will have more on what Apsalar is cooking in the near future when they are ready to announce their new projects.

Localytics/Flurry – These are two companies taking a more traditional, Google-like approach to tracking actionable data. Localytics provides and API for real-time, cross-platform data made simple through a publishers dashboard. Flurry is a more mature version of Localytics that provides demographic information across custom events and breaks it down into customer and audience segments. These are two companies to watch as their software is easy to install and provides valuable insight from a granular application level across platforms.

Sonamine – Imagine putting PlayHaven together with Localytics and you get Sonamine. The company tracks user behavior in games to create comparison-based data that predicts what a user will do next and when. For instance, when are users most likely to buy their first in-game purchase? Is it after the fourth time they open the app? How is that different if they are male or female between the ages of 18 and 24? Sonamine wants to create actionable data streams for the future by analyzing the behaviors of the past with remarkable accuracy.

There are other companies in the mobile analytics ecosystem that provide similar approaches to the ones listed above, including Kontagent, Webtrends and Medialets, as well as umbrella services such as Google’s Admob and Apple (which does a lot of its tracking through iAd). Claritics has differentiated itself with its new HTML5 developer support but it will not be long before the ecosystem copies or catches up.

What approach do you use to track actionable data in your native or mobile Web apps? Let us know in the comments.

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