When it comes to publishing a successful mobile game, every detail matters. But when it comes to tracking, improving, and maintaining the success of a mobile game, the devil is in the data. Data analytics plays a substantial role in the behind-the-scenes of a mobile game – it gives an insightful reference point for everything from mobile game marketing to monetization, and should never be overlooked or underestimated.

In this article, we’ll give you a quick run-through of 6 basic mobile game data analytics that matter. Whether you’re a mobile game publisher, developer, or marketer, these metrics should definitely be on your radar. 

Installs

The success of every mobile game is hugely measured by the number of installs: essentially, the number of people who have downloaded the game. Not only is this metric the baseline figure needed to track other analytics off of, but it’s also a huge indicator of your user base. Tracking installs gives you insight into your mobile game’s growth and, over time, you can look at patterns to create forecasting models and plan future strategies. 

Daily Active Users

DAU (Daily Active Users) measures exactly what it sounds like: the number of users that use or play your mobile game on a daily basis. This metric will help you better understand the usage of your mobile game on a day-to-day basis, as well as individual users’ daily habits surrounding the mobile game. A long-term look at this metric can tell you a lot about return users and give you some insight into retention. Essentially, this metric provides you with a numeric figure for unique users that play your mobile game every day. 

Monthly Active Users

Since we’ve already covered DAU, the MAU (Monthly Active Users) metric is rather straightforward: it tells you the number of unique users playing or interacting with your mobile game on a monthly basis. 

While DAU and MAU give you a simple numerical figure as to how many unique users log onto your game, be it on a daily or monthly basis, they don’t give much insight past that. That being said, tracking your Daily Active Users and Monthly Active Users can indicate the mobile game’s level of growth over time. 

Retention Rate

Retention rate is an indicator of users’ return rate, meaning how often they return to your mobile game after first installing it. Tracking retention rate gives you insight on users’ loyalty and satisfaction with the mobile game. A high retention rate means that you’ve succeeded beyond the first step, which is user acquisition – it indicates that your mobile game has a good user experience that is resulting in longevity. To determine retention rate, you must track whether a user has interacted with your mobile game on multiple occasions after install. 

Churn Rate

On the flip side, churn rate tracks the rate at which users stop playing your mobile game. Just like retention rate can tell you a lot about your user experience and the point at which you retain users, churn rate tracks the point at which users bounce off of your mobile game. Tracking churn rate over time will tell you a story about your mobile game experience and what needs to be tweaked about it. This can be extremely beneficial in helping you determine your incentivization strategies and potential engagement campaigns. 

Session Length

Another metric that’ll signal engagement level is session length: the duration of time that a player spends on your mobile game in one sitting. Because session length is measured on the basis of a single session, it can be an informative look at the elements of your game that keep users engaged and playing. With such insight, you can know what to focus on introducing more of in order to keep players more engaged. Tracking session length over your entire user base will give you an average session time, which you can then use as a reference to see which users are spending above-average time playing your game and then reward them accordingly. Similarly, you can also incentivize users with below-average session lengths to try to increase their engagement.

Although there are many more fundamental mobile game analytics that are worth tracking, these are great to start with. Mobile game analytics are insightful KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that help measure how your mobile game performs while also giving you insight on user behavior. 

The data analytics team at Tamatem Games plays a fundamental role in assessing all of our games’ performances, which then largely feeds into our marketing strategies and our user acquisition efforts. By giving us solid, number-backed evidence, our data analysts are truly the unsung heroes behind Tamatem Games’ continued success.