Essential knowledge for App promotion and operation: App channel statistics!

In this article, the author will tell you: What are the channel statistics methods of App? How should we choose the appropriate method in actual promotion? Also, how to select App channel statistics methods?

1. The importance of App channel statistics for App promotion and operation

(For those who understand the importance of App channel statistics, please go directly to the second part)

The focus of competition in App services has shifted from functional competition to market and operational competition, and the promotion and operation of Apps cannot be separated from the support of App channel statistics.

Currently, there seems to be no too many technical barriers to the development of App functions. For example, there are many companies that can develop Tik Tok and Toutiao. However, the reason why ByteDance has achieved great success beyond its predecessors is due to its strong App promotion and operation capabilities.

Excellent App promotion and operation requires excellent App channel statistics for channel evaluation and analysis.

As far as App channel promotion is concerned, without a professional and excellent method to accurately count the effects of channel promotion, and without knowing the actual user activation volume brought about by the investment in each channel, App promotion will fall into a situation like "a blind man riding a blind horse, facing a deep pool in the middle of the night".

Therefore, App promotion and operation personnel must be familiar with various tools and methods of App channel statistics, and make accurate analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of App channel promotion based on them, so as to evaluate the App promotion and operation behaviors and make necessary optimization adjustments, so as to achieve accurate investment and management of App channel promotion and achieve the best App promotion and operation results.

2. Introduction to App Channel Statistics Method

Overview of domestic and foreign App channel statistical methods:

In order to choose a good App channel statistics method, you must first have a systematic and overall understanding of the App channel statistics situation.

Let’s first briefly talk about the differences in App channel statistics between the domestic and international markets. Because the domestic market and the Android market are severely fragmented, domestic App channel statistics, especially Android channel statistics, are much more complicated than those of the international market.

The situation abroad is relatively simple. Apple's official App store has always dominated iOS. Although there are third-party app stores such as Samsung and Amazon on Android, the degree of fragmentation is far less serious than in China, and Google Play is still the absolute mainstream channel.

Both provide easy-to-use data statistics tools, especially Google. After all, advertising is their core business, and mobile advertising is also an important channel for buying traffic. Google naturally provides users with powerful tools for advertising channel effectiveness statistics. As the ruler of the iOS ecosystem, Apple also provides App channel statistics tools for its own application market.

Of course, the statistical tools of Apple and Google serve their own ecosystems and are not compatible with each other. This requires a third-party service provider to integrate the App channel statistical methods of the two major mobile operating systems to facilitate mobile developers to use.

This article only briefly introduces the situation in overseas markets, and mainly focuses on analyzing the statistical methods of App channels in the domestic market.

The statistical method of domestic App channels is different from that of overseas markets:

iOS channel statistics method:

It is not possible to create channel packages on iOS, so the channel statistics on iOS must be package-free channel statistics.

1) Statistics of free-packaging channels (Apple official)

Apple's official iOS channel statistics based on its own operating system are undoubtedly authoritative, but because the iOS ecosystem is too large, Apple currently does not provide a very complete solution.

Although Apple's official iTunes Connect can provide channel statistics for marketing campaign links, the data has a certain delay, and channel links need to be created manually. In addition, statistics will not be displayed if the number of installations is less than 5. Of course, there is no channel statistics compatible with the Android system.

2) Fill in the channel identification code statistics (invitation code/channel code)

In some App promotion activities and user invitation activities with rewards, since Apple's official channel statistics have problems such as insufficient data and no real-time data display, they are not suitable for counting the performance of promotion personnel or the performance of user invitations.

In the past, the usual method for this type of performance statistics was to ask newly installed users to fill in a channel identification code so that the system could identify the performance of field sales personnel and users who “bring new users with them”. Its essence is to count the source of a user's installation channel based on the channel code identified by the user.

Of course, this method is gradually being replaced by third-party free-packaging channel statistics because it is more cumbersome to fill out and users are more reluctant to use it.

3) Statistics of free packaging channels (third party)

This is a method based on channel link statistics. It does not require the creation of a channel package or the filling of a channel identification code to identify the source of the App installation channel. The biggest difference from Apple’s official statistics on free packaging channels is that it is compatible with Android.

At the same time, considering the problem mentioned in the previous article that the official iOS statistics method is difficult to take into account the details of channel statistics due to the huge ecosystem, third-party free-packaging channel service providers have made many improvements in details to meet users' complex, detailed and real-time data statistics needs.

Take openinstall as an example: it can automatically generate a large number of channel links. It is not only compatible with the Android system, but also can count small channel data in real time, and can meet the needs of statistical performance of installation without filling in invitation codes.

If this method is used to directly count the installation and activation data of each channel through channel links, the step of filling in the channel identification code in the above method 2 can be eliminated, and the user experience will be better.

At the same time, due to its characteristics of not requiring packaging, not requiring coding, and being able to simply and flexibly support massive channels, it can be widely used in areas such as mobile advertising effectiveness statistics. For example, well-known brands such as Tianyancha and Wozhuliangyuan, which have invested heavily in online and offline advertising, have currently adopted third-party non-packaging channel statistics as a tool for monitoring advertising channel effectiveness.

Android channel statistics method:

1) Channel subcontracting statistics

Whenever a new version of the App is released, a channel package with different channel parameters is created for each channel and distributed to the corresponding promotion channel to realize the statistics of download activation volume of each channel.

2) Fill in the channel identification code statistics (invitation code/channel code)

Just like iOS’s method of filling in channel identification codes for statistics, Android also used filling in channel identification codes as an important method for channel statistics.

The reason for doing this is that the number of users and field sales personnel is too large, and it is impossible to create an Android channel package for each of them to count their channel performance, so users have to fill it out manually.

As mentioned in the iOS statistics above, this method is being replaced by the statistics of free packages channels that do not require filling in invitation codes.

3) Statistics of free packaging channels

Basically, it is consistent with the previous iOS free-packaging channel statistics. It is a statistical method based on channel links. In essence, it generates a channel link for each channel (even each user) for statistics.

This method can achieve the effect of installation without filling in an invitation code in a reward-based invitation campaign (the system needs to automatically generate a channel link for each of the tens of thousands of users) while ensuring accuracy, and can also optimize the user installation experience.

Just like iOS package-free channel statistics, if this method is used to directly count the installation and activation data of each channel with channel links, the step of filling in the channel identification code in the above method 2 can be avoided, and the user experience will be better.

3. How to select the statistical method of App channel

Through the above introduction, we have clearly understood: What are the channel statistics methods of App? How should we choose the appropriate method in actual promotion?

First of all, you need to clarify your own needs, including: the promotion channel resources at hand, the characteristics of the target group, the mainstream operating system of channel users, the specific form of promotion activities, etc., and make the selection based on the specific situation.

If there are not many promotion channels, using Android channel packaging and Apple's official channel statistics can meet basic statistical needs.

If you only promote it on Android channels, using some third-party Android quick packaging tools can also improve packaging efficiency.

If large-scale promotion is required, advertising and channel purchases in many small channels are obviously not suitable. Channel packages one by one are the most suitable. The package-free channel statistics compatible with iOS and Android systems are the most suitable.

If you conduct a field promotion or invitation campaign with rewards for App, you will need to count the performance of each field promotion staff or the number of new users brought by each old user.

In essence, each salesperson and user is a channel, and the number may be very large. For example, some large banks’ full-staff sales may have the performance of hundreds of thousands of people that need to be counted, and App user reward invitation activities may need to count tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of user reward invitation data. In this case, non-packaged channel statistics should be used.

In short, the ultimate value of channel statistics must be realized in the optimization of App operation and promotion.

The purpose of choosing the right channel statistics tool is to conduct channel analysis and value assessment, shorten the trial and error process of promotion as soon as possible, and optimize the App promotion and operation plan, which is the ultimate goal.

App promotion and operation personnel must make good use of channel statistical data and actively adjust and optimize them to truly achieve the effect of App channel statistics, which will help the efficient promotion and long-term refined operation of the App.

Author: Looking up at the stars

Source: Looking up at the stars