作者：Chethan Ramachandran（Playnomics）

移动营销领域发展速度，所以为何还要使用那些已经无法准确体现你的应用状况的过时指标呢？以下是今年你应该关注和忽略的5个指标。

5个重要指标

1.用户粘性：市场上有许多衡量用户粘性的不同方法：回报率、会话频率、会话长度、会话之间的时间、体验强度、平均每周体验天数等。无论是哪种应用类型或题材，当涉及计算用户粘性时，你就应该考虑到每个亚指标，并根据公司最重要的元素进行权衡。例如，我们Playnomics开发了一个整体的“粘性积分”概念，它考查的是关注度、忠诚度和密集度这三项子积分。市场营销人员使用我们的平台可以快速查看这些积分的运用方法并理解其运行方式。

2.回报天数：获取新用户，无论是通过自然还是购买获取，都是移动开发者的必经之路。即使在获取新用户上投入成百上千万美元，了解你的每安装成本（CPI）并优化渠道表现，你还是无法预测每位用户的准确投资回报。这里就涉及“回报天数”这一概念。 当获取一名新用户时，要知道在他们使用的头几天中，他们会多久就实现投资回报（ROI）。这可以通过CPI对比预期用户生命周期（LTV）来计算。知道这一信息后，你就可以更明智地做出该从哪个网络购买新用户，该避开哪个网络的决定了。

3.预期流失率：用户留存率在移动行业中是一个热门话题，因为了解用户群何时会面临流失的但可以让你知道自己的应用表现如何，还可以显示你的营销工作是否到位。在确定某用户群的流失概率后，就要面向他们设计可增加其粘性和延长其生命周期的内容。

4.剩余生命周期：这要与预期流失率一起考虑，知道用户的预期剩余生命周期，用户还有多少使用或体验的天数，可以让你获知你的应用粘性有多强，以便你制定吸引该用户的额外内容决策。在特定情况下，这有助于开发者做出游戏设计决定，鉴别出玩家很可能流失的游戏环节。

5.预期终身价值：了解用户在其整个生命周期中会向应用投入多少价值，这一点是极为重要的营销指标。这不但有助于获取用户，还能帮助做出游戏设计和营销决策。例如，你认为某个用户属于低价值状态，那么你就可以将其交叉推广到另一款也许可容易让他们付费或者通过广告在其身上创收的应用中。你可以借此向高价值（或者具有高价值潜力的）用户提供能够增加用户粘性和留存率的VIP待遇和内容。

Cost_Value_Matrix(from drewsmarketingminute)

市场营销人员需要重新考虑或弃用的5个指标

1.应用商店排名：由于应用排名方式的不断变化，以及长期稳居榜单前10名的难度与日俱增，我们已经没有必要过份关注应用排名情况。那些无缘前10名榜单的应用，无论是哪种类型的，都有可能随着时间发展而培养出庞大的用日元基础并发挥出色表现。

2.DAU和MAU：日常和月活跃用户（DAU，MAU）是存在已久的两个指标。虽然它们可以让你迅速获知自己的服务器负荷量以及应用的发展潜力，但却并非应用寿命和成功的唯一指示器。DAU和MAU在每天和每月都会起伏不定。除此之外，如果一款应用拥有高流失率，但却并没有获得持续的新用户，那么它就会迅速死亡。另一方面，一款应用如果DAU和MAU数量都较少，但流失率很低，用户消费率很高，那么它的收益最终会比拥有两倍用户的应用还高。

3.每安装成本（CPI）：这是用户获取过程的重要组成部分，但只有与用户ROI和回报天数一起考虑时才派得上用场。如果你在一个用户身上花25美分，在14天后获得10%的回报率，或者花1.5美元获取一名用户，在7天后获得110%的回报率，这两种哪一个更可取？虽然后者的最初成本将增加6倍，其回取却更高更直接。

4.平均每用户收益（ARPU）：ARPU或ARPPU（每付费用户收益）仅能让你快速查看当时的收益情况，而这只是一小部分。因为ARPU涉及一系列不同因素，这些因素每天都有所变化，它处于不稳定状态。所以你无法以此预测未来收益。与其查看ARPU，不如考虑用户的预期终身价值。

5.留存率：留存率只是理解用户留存的一个方面，它不能成为你通过营销活动和内容提升留存率的唯一考虑因素。当你了解用户如何与应用互动时，就更有可能影响用户留存率。你还应该知道用户返回频率，体验时长，流失可能性，将此计入你的整体粘性积分中。

引导一款应用从发布走向成功时，不但要看看你昨天和今天的用户数据，还要考虑这些用户未来的预期表现。这有助于你制定用户获取决策，并以有利于延长应用寿命的沟通措施来鼓励用户的关键行为。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Top 5 mobile marketing metrics that matter in 2014 — and 5 that don’t

Juan Pablo Costanzo

This sponsored post is produced by Chethan Ramachandran, the CEO of Playnomics.

The world of mobile marketing moves fast, so why use outdated metrics that are no longer accurate representations of your application’s health? Here are five metrics you should be focusing on — and five you should lay to rest.
Five metrics that matter

1. User engagement: There are many different ways of measuring user engagement: return rate, session frequency, session length, time lapsed between sessions, intensity of play, average number of days played per week, etc. Regardless of app type or genre, when calculating user engagement, you should consider each of these submetrics and weigh them based upon what is most important to your business. For example, at Playnomics we developed the concept of an overall “Engagement Score,” which averages three subscores looking at attention, loyalty, and intensity. Marketers using our platform can quickly look at these scores for each application and understand how it’s performing.

2. Payback Days: Acquiring new users, organically or through acquisition buys, is an absolute must for any mobile developer. Even when spending thousands or millions of advertising budget on acquiring new users, knowing your cost per install (CPI) and optimizing channel performance, you can’t forecast what the exact return of investment (ROI) of each user will be. Enter the concept of “payback days.” When acquiring a new user, it’s important to know, within their first days of use, how soon that user will provide ROI. At a basic level this is calculated by looking at cost per user (or install) versus predicted user lifetime value (LTV). By knowing this piece of information, you will be able to make more intelligent decisions about which networks to continue to acquire new users from, and which networks you should avoid.

3. Predicted churn: User retention is a hot topic within the mobile industry because knowing when a group of users is at risk of churning not only gives you an idea of how your application is performing over all (is the content engaging), but it also shows how well your marketing efforts are working. After identifying a group of users with a high likelihood of churning, target them with content designed to increase their engagement and extend their lifetime.

4. Remaining lifetime: Going hand-in-hand with predicted churn, knowing a user’s predicted remaining lifetime, how many more days of use or play that user has left, provides you with an idea at how “sticky” your application is and offers you intelligent insights that can help inform decisions regarding additional content to provide to keep that person engaged. In certain instances, it can help with game design choices, identifying parts of the game where players are more likely to churn out.

5. Predicted lifetime value: Knowing how much value a user is going to add to the application over their lifetime is the holy grail of marketing metrics. It not only helps to inform acquisition buys but also game design choices, and marketing decisions. For example, if you identify a user as being low value, you can cross-promote them into another application where they may be more likely to monetize or serve them ads to monetize them. And it helps you provide VIP treatment and content that will increase engagement and retention to users that have been identified as high value — or have the potential to become high value.
Five metrics marketers should rethink or retire

1. App store ranking: With the constant changes in the way applications are ranked, and the increasing difficulty that lies in knocking a long-standing top 10 application off the charts, it no longer makes sense to focus heavily on how an app ranks. Increasingly, apps outside of the top 10, within any category, can develop a large user-base and perform strongly.

2. DAU and MAU: Daily and monthly active users (DAU, MAU) are the two metrics that have been around since the beginning of time. Though valuable in providing a snapshot at what your server load may be and a high level look at an application’s potential, they are not the only indicators of application longevity and success. DAU and MAU can fluctuate daily and monthly. Additionally, if an application has a high churn rate, but it isn’t receiving a consistent influx of new users, the app will quickly die out. On the flip side, an application can have a smaller DAU and MAU, but with a very low churn rate and high spend rate, it results more revenue than an application with twice the number of users.

3. Cost per install: A vital part of the user acquisition process, cost per install (CPI) is important, but only when looked at in reference to a user’s ROI and payback days. Which is better? Spending 25 cents on a user with a 10 percent ROI over 14 days, or purchasing a user for $1.50 with a 110 percent ROI over seven days? While the initial cost is going to be six times more, the payout is larger and more immediate.

4. Average revenue per user: Looking at ARPU or ARPPU (average revenue per paying user) only provides a snapshot of revenue at that moment, which is a very small part of the story. Because ARPU is based on a number of different factors, all of which can change day-to-day, it’s constantly in flux. With this being the case, calculating future revenue will be a shot in the dark. Instead of looking at ARPU, consider a user’s predicted lifetime value.

5. Retention rate: Retention rate is just one aspect of understanding user retention, and it should not be your only consideration when looking to improve retention through marketing campaigns and content. The story — and understanding it — becomes deeper, and the capability to affect a user’s retention becomes greater, when you know how users interact with the application. You should be asking in addition how often they return, how long they play for, and what the likelihood is of a user churning, and as noted before, folding this into your overall engagement score.

When guiding an application post launch to success, it’s important to look not only at the data of your users yesterday and today but also at how these users are predicted to perform in the future. This enables you to then make intelligent decisions about the type of users you should continue to acquire, and how you should communicate to encourage key behaviors for the longevity of your application.（source：venturebeat）