Getting started with mobile analytics
Every audit we run turns up some version of this. A short on-ramp to mobile analytics for teams who have not touched it before.
You do not control the device, the network, or the operating system version, and the design has to accept that. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.
Why it matters
Session data on mobile is noisier than on the web. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Track flows, not screens
- Change one thing and measure it
Respect platform privacy rules or you will be removed. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.
How to tell if yours is fine
Mobile releases are slower to correct than web ones, so the cost of shipping a mistake is higher. Three things worth confirming about mobile analytics before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Session data on mobile is noisier than on the web — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.