Facebook Upgrades Analytics For App Developers

Facebook announced the launch of some new analytics features for app developers aimed at improving performance measurement and better tracking user retention.

For one, they’ve added “label cohorts,” which let you categorize groups of people who use your app, and measure revenue, time spent on app, etc. As the company notes, you can use these for A/B testing purposes.

“With label cohorts you can test different tactics with two different groups and then measure which performs best,” says Facebook’s Ravi Grover. “For example, you can provide 10 percent of people with a free item within your app, and then measure whether that group spends more than people who didn’t get the free item. This is just one of the many strategies this new insight can unlock – it gives you the flexibility to define your own cohorts, which makes App Insights more powerful in building your apps and measuring growth.”

Grover lists the following examples of label cohorts a developer could use: install source, action-based, time-based, story-based, or of course creating your own.

Facebook is also giving developers new App Event retention charts to show what percentage of people took an action for any number of days after installing an up up to 14 weeks.

“With this data, you can determine if certain changes you made to your app resulted in a significant change in engagement,” says Grover. “From there, you have the option to run ads or make other changes as a result of knowing this granular, time-specific information. In order to take advantage of this feature, you must be logging App Events with Facebook.”

The charts are available for all events you log.

By Chris Crum · September 16, 2014