{
    "version" : "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1",
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    "title" : "Using Pirate Metrics to Analyze Your Mobile Application’s Audience |Digital.gov",
    "description": "Using Pirate Metrics to Analyze Your Mobile Application’s Audience",
    "home_page_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/","feed_url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2016/05/12/using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience/index.json","item" : [
    {"title" :"Using Pirate Metrics to Analyze Your Mobile Application\u0026#8217;s Audience","summary" : "There are over 200 native applications in the federal government with various download numbers. Are the ones with the most downloads the most successful?","date" : "2016-05-12T10:00:28-04:00","date_modified" : "2025-01-27T19:42:55-05:00","authors" : {"jparcell" : "Jacob Parcell"},"topics" : {
        
            "analytics" : "Analytics",
            "design" : "Design",
            "mobile" : "Mobile"
            },"branch" : "bc-archive-content-3",
      "filename" :"2016-05-12-using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience.md",
      
      "filepath" :"news/2016/05/2016-05-12-using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience.md",
      "filepathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/blob/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2016/05/2016-05-12-using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience.md",
      "editpathURL" :"https://github.com/GSA/digitalgov.gov/edit/bc-archive-content-3/content/news/2016/05/2016-05-12-using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience.md","slug" : "using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience","url" : "/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2016/05/12/using-pirate-metrics-to-analyze-your-mobile-applications-audience/","content" :"\u003cp\u003eWhat Makes a Native App Successful?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere are over 200 native applications in the federal government with various download numbers. Are the ones with the most downloads the most successful? Is the one with fewer users who are more engaged more successful? It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDavid Cooper, the \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2015/06/25/using-apps-for-mental-healthcare/\"\u003eMobile Application Development Lead\u003c/a\u003e with the National Center for Telehealth and Technology (T2) and member of the \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/communities/\"\u003eMobileGov Community of Practice\u003c/a\u003e, said during a recent DigitalGov University (DGU) webinar, that while vanity metrics such as page views for websites and downloads for apps make you feel good, they don’t tell you anything about how users like your app or site. For that, you need actionable metrics, ones that provide you with the information you need to help improve your app. Downloads won’t give you that information.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"image\"\u003e\n  \u003cimg\n    src=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/digitalgov/_legacy-img/2016/05/600-x-400-Pirate-Lady_Reiterlied_flickr_CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0_21900258113_db59a364a7_o.jpg\"\n    alt=\"A colorful lady pirate LEGO toy against a black background\"/\u003e\u003cp\u003eflickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe pirate metrics framework, according to Cooper, is a good way to understand how your product is performing. Coined by \u003ca href=\"http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version\"\u003eDavid McClure\u003c/a\u003e, the “pirate” in the metrics comes from the first letters of the lifecycle stages of the framework.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA – Acquisition\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eA – Activation\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eR – Retention\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eR – Revenue\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eR – Referral\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the things Cooper likes about Pirate Metrics is that it does focus on actionable metrics. Cooper walked listeners through the five stages of the Pirate Metric framework and applied his native app use cases to each of them. I’ve provided the stages and some of the examples he gave below.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"acquisition\"\u003eAcquisition\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHow are people finding your product? Promotions are a good to let people know about your product. Facebook or Google ads, blogs and social media are all ways to promote your product. You can use campaign URLs to track who comes in via which method.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"activation\"\u003eActivation\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow do you get people to convert from being a browser to a user?\u003c/strong\u003e Onboarding, the term the private sector uses to refer to the process of getting people to sign up for your app cannot be too clunky, otherwise you’ll lose them as repeat customers. Common ways to track activation are through installs/opens per week or how many people are signing up for accounts.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"retention\"\u003eRetention\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNow that you have customers/users, how do you keep them engaged?\u003c/strong\u003e How many of the users that initially downloaded your app are still using it 7 days, 30 days later? The variation in users from one month to the next is referred to as your churn rate and you can find hints for why people may not be continuing to use your app by looking at bug/error reports, and the most/least used features in your app.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"revenue\"\u003eRevenue\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat is the monetization behavior?\u003c/strong\u003e This can be difficult to measure in the government; considering a lot of our apps are informational in nature; so maybe track the cost of providing the information via an app versus the cost of printing and distributing information via booklets. You also need to take into account the lifetime value of the customer. Cooper decided to remove on of his apps because it cost too much per user to justify the expense of keeping it up to date.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 id=\"referral\"\u003eReferral\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDo people tell others about your product?\u003c/strong\u003e Does it go viral via word of mouth? You need to find your super users and make it easy for them to tell others about your product. As it turns out some of Cooper’s best promotion efforts aren’t digital—they partnered with frontline health professionals to recommend their apps as part of veterans treatment programs, and so developed a “prescription pad.” The apps were downloaded much more frequently once doctors were able to include a prescription to download a mobile app rather than try to remember and recite the URL to a patient.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo, how do you accomplish all of this on a government budget? Luckily, with many of the analytics tools you can set up dashboards and then forget about it in the sense that they will automatically collect statistics over time. Cooper also mentioned low/no cost usability techniques such as \u003ca href=\"/preview/gsa/digitalgov.gov/bc-archive-content-3/2014/05/22/how-to-make-a-mobile-paper-prototype/\"\u003epaper prototyping\u003c/a\u003e to gather data.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs Cooper, a psychologist by training, pointed out you can find many low cost and free online training resources as well as various books and YouTube videos (Google Analytics, Google Ventures, etc.) As he pointed out in his concluding remarks, “other people are writing mobile app and websites and are sharing their experiences like I am with you. That is how I learned. A lot of trial and error.”\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWatch the webinar to see how you can learn how to use pirate metrics in your agency!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHelpful Training Links Cooper mentioned in his slides:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"http://pragmaticmarketing.com/resources/webinars\"\u003ePragmatic Marketing Webinars\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://generalassemb.ly/blog/category/digital-marketing-2/\"\u003eGeneral Assembly Marketing\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https://www.udemy.com/courses/marketing/all-courses/?price=price-free\u0026amp;lang=en\"\u003eUdemy Marketing Courses\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eGoogle \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/user/googleanalytics\"\u003eAnalytics\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleVentures\"\u003eVentures\u003c/a\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLearn more about \u003ca href=\"https://digital.gov/digitalgov-university/\"\u003eDigitalGov University\u003c/a\u003e and \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleVentures\"\u003eregister for an upcoming event\u003c/a\u003e today!\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n"}
  ]
}