News

Apple Adds Discovery, Referrer Data to App Analytics Tool

• By David Ramel
• May 4, 2017

Apple has updated its App Analytics tool, adding data about how users discover an app and the other apps or Web sites that provide referrals.

App Analytics is available to anyone with a sales, finance or admin account to the company's ITunes Connect service. It provides metrics on user engagement, App Store impressions, Web referrers, marketing campaigns and more to iOS developers.

Those capabilities have been beefed up with new functionality, Apple announced yesterday. "App Analytics in iTunes Connect now provides insight on where customers discover your app, including App Store browsing and search, within other apps, or on the Web," the company said yesterday on its developer site. "With key metrics based on source types, you can see your top referring apps and websites, making it easier to optimize your marketing campaigns."

The product's Web site now includes two new categories of metrics: App Store Sources; and App Referrers.

Regarding App Store Sources, the site now says: "With App Analytics, you can see how many users discover your app while searching or browsing the App Store -- including tapping on Search Ads for your app -- to gain insight into how your marketing and metadata impact downloads."

The new functionality provides data on customers who viewed an app or tapped to download it for the first time while browsing various parts of the App Store such as Featured, Categories or Top Charts sections -- or from the Search box.

The App Referrers description says: "App Analytics counts users who visit your app's product page from a link within another app. Optimize your marketing campaigns by focusing on the apps that drive the most App Store impressions, downloads, and billings."

This service captures data from apps using the StoreKit API to load a product page, along with Apple apps such as Messages, but not Safari, whose metrics are provided elsewhere.

All of the above functionality works for devices running iOS 8 or tvOS 9 or later.