New Feature Spotlight: Google Analytics for Mobile Apps
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 | 10:15 AM
Labels: Announcements
Last week, we introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google Analytics. To help developers, this launch includes features that make it easy to see how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for mobile apps.
As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: pageviews and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger pageview requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted with the app.
Developers can also track visitor actions that don't correspond directly to pageviews using Event Tracking. These user actions can include views of embedded videos, button clicks, downloads and more. App developers can then use this data to understand which features are most popular and inform decisions about which features should be promoted or prioritized for further development.

Redfin, an online brokerage for buying and selling homes, recently tested Google Analytics on their mobile application. Watch this video to learn more about their experience:
To get started using Google Analytics to understand and optimize how people use your iPhone or Android mobile app, check out the SDK and technical documentation.



3 comments:
Sebbi said...
Will this work with other mobile os's too when one adapts the sdk? Like with Windows Mobile, Series60 oder Blackberry?
3:02 PM
Greg said...
Hours have been spent on getting this to work yet it does not track. I have also yet to find anyone else using this SDK for tracking iPhone apps.
It's a great idea, but does not appear to be ready for the public who do not have inside contacts at Google.
Google Analytics requires a domain with code on it to verify. The documentation for both the iPhone and Android libraries don't mention if you have to actually host a dummy page with code on it. In either case, it does not show at all in the analytics account.
If Google is promoting this product, you should provide more detailed posts and direction. There is NO info at all on the forums.
3:12 PM
Chrix Finne said...
@ Greg-
Thanks for the feedback! You can post your comments/questions in the Analytics Tracking Help forum, sorry there wasn't a link in the blog post:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Analytics/label?lid=71c0c8b3ee7e649c&hl=en
As for your issue with domain verification, as long as your app correctly implements the Analytics SDK it should verify as receiving data. You do have to create a fake but descriptive URL when signing up for a new Analytics web property, as described in the SDK documentation here:
http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/mobileAppsTracking.html#howItWorks
Hope this helps!
Chrix Finne
Product Manager, Mobile Analytics
1:11 PM
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