The mobile has won. Experts are pitching that global mobile app revenue is expected to reach $776.5 billion by 2017. This growth in mobile app usage has led businesses to flee traditional analytics platforms and move to smarter and predictive platforms.
In this new mobile dominated world order, Google Analytics’ days may be short lived. While a great product, other tools may have surpassed it in the race to mobile domination.
Let’s see 6 apps which have an upper hand over GA and understand their differentiating feature.
Localytics
- Multi Platform Presence. While Google Analytics can only be used to track activity on Android and in some cases iOS, Localytics has a presence across multiple platforms including iOS, Android, HTML5, Windows and Blackberry.
- In-app messaging and push notification. With these two features, Localytics gives you the power to better engage with your users (push notification) and also prolong user sessions (in-app messaging) to create a stronger connect.
Understand Localytics better with this case study.
AppSee
- Visual Analytics for Deeper Behaviour Insight: While Google Analytics uses traditional reporting tools that measure standard metrics, AppSee is predominantly and pleasantly visual. With features like touch heatmaps and user recordings, AppSee helps understand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’. Google Analytics doesn’t really have another contender in this section.
Understand AppSee better with these case studies.
Flurry
- Benchmark App Performance. Perhaps after you have sent out an update, your app usage numbers have improved. While this is a good news, is it good enough to keep up with the competition? Benchmarking helps you identify this. You can benchmark your app’s performance against Flurry’s database and compare key usage metrics of your application against calculated benchmarks for any category.
- Deeper Understanding of User-App Interaction: Flurry’s User Paths feature explores how customers navigate through an event and clearly identifies hiccups around app usage. A tool unavailable in GA.
- No data sampling. Flurry doesn’t sample app data like Google Analytics. It gives a holistic view of your entire user-app interaction data once the app crosses 500,000 visits.
Understand Flurry better with this case-study.
Mixpanel
- Retroactive funnel analysis – Google Analytics funnel analysis is forward looking. It forces customers to specify the steps of their funnel in advance. This isn’t the case with Mixpanel. You can build your funnel at a later stage and still receive accurate user analysis reports. No need to plan in advance.
- Better data accuracy – GA is known to rely mainly on tracking its users via a cookie. The problem is that the average time of a cookie expires in 30 days. Mixpanel, on the other hand, utilizes a user_id or any other id that makes sense for your app which will last longer than a cookie.
Understand Mixpanel better with this case study.
Segment.io
- Live Streaming: The Live Stream features lets you watch analytics events in real-time. You can see how people use your app and be rest assured about your data streaming.
- Wearables & IoT Integration: Unlike Google Analytics, you can add app data to Segment from iBeacons and smartwatches and compile customer data at one place. This gives Segment a big advantage over GA especially in a market where there is a demand for wearables.
- Own your Data: In a raw format. This eliminates getting locked-in with a single service provider with complete control over data and reduces switching cost to zero.
Understand Segment better with this case study.
Countly
- Open Source: Countly is highly flexible in terms of the feature set it offers. In Google Analytics, you are constrained to work with the features they choose to implement, and thus having to mould your apps to work best with the analytics platform. Countly, on the other hand is an open source project which allows you to make changes on the go to meet your project needs. The freedom to host Countly on your own server allows you to scale as needed.
A right set of tools can always help optimize your app to reach peak performance and gain that holistic view that you always craved for. What are your favorite tools? Let us know in the comments below. You can also keep up with the conversation with us at Twitter.