What is most valuable?
With software development you want to use the analytics to drive the development roadmap - with this solution we have that capability.
The first thing that really turned me onto AppPulse Mobile was that they had a tag list, which can instantly capture all of the data that end users were creating by interacting with our app, without having to write a single line of code.
How has it helped my organization?
We learned within 24 hours that users were spending 43 seconds on the registration page and 53% were leaving before registration. We had not known this for years, and after we stopped development initiatives, and started using single sign-on, we got the registration down to two seconds, a five-fold increase, and increased completion to 98%.
This was a big improvement because people don’t want to sign up for something new. As soon as we found out the issue, we instantly saw an increase in stars and number of downloads. When we first started the analytics, we had a .4% conversion rate from the free version to the paid one, and after about a year a 1.15% conversion from free to paid, an additional 4% up-sell.
What we learned is that the analytics are more important than the app itself. If you don’t know what users are experiencing, it's like driving at night with no lights, and you can't make the most calculated decisions without the full developer roadmap. It also helps us align the developer road cycle, identify the user experience ahead of ego, etc.
What needs improvement?
In the next release, I would like to see heat-map tracking. The company we use for web analytics has that so I would like to see that added.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Very early on in the beta stage, we had a one-time crash in the app and we couldn’t figure out the cause. Other than that, we've had no issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very robust. I especially like that the business model is based per device and not per transaction, which means less cost. That wasn't the business model for all the other companies we considered. I can control the costs.
The success is based on our long term success so we're working together: measure, focus and improve based on analytics.
How are customer service and technical support?
Customer Service:
We got a fast response and reaction time.
Technical Support:
Once we narrowed down the stability problem, we were able to fix it in the next version. We got a fast response and reaction time. They fixed the problem, and it has never happened again.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We had our own built-in analytics and it was only capturing a small iota of interactions our users were having with our app. We’re a small company so we didn’t know how to capture all the analytics and tag them manually. We needed to have more metrics, know where to store the metrics, and what to do with those metrics.
How was the initial setup?
Extremely straightforward – step 1, 2, and 3.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
It was a mixed panel, basically the other vendors’ attempts were to have them instrument our tags. That was four to five one-hour sessions, which did not even accomplish what we wanted. It didn’t give us the data AppPulse Mobile does, like the refresh rate, registration page time, and how many users are closing the app before completing registration.
What other advice do I have?
It has to be a SaaS solution, self-learning, and easy to implement. It should give you suggestions based on the data and tell you where to focus, rather than have the data sitting there requiring you to figure out what to do with it. There should be a logical dashboard.
I’d say that having a mobile app without a solution like AppPulse Mobile is like driving a car without headlights at night. The instant gratification you get when you see actionable data from the dashboard, giving you intelligence based on statistics and not on intuition, will allow you to develop a five star app. This gives you happy customers and happy developers. It also gives the developers greater focus.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Thanks Idan for your review. We are working to integrate with many other HP offers, I am sure you'll find a lot value in that, as an HP partner.