How to get mobile analytics right
The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. The short answer to mobile analytics is that it is mostly a sequence of small decisions, not one big one.
Mobile releases are slower to correct than web ones, so the cost of shipping a mistake is higher. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.
Why this earns attention
Session data on mobile is noisier than on the web. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.
The steps
- Establish what you have today before changing anything
- Track flows, not screens
- Respect platform privacy rules or you will be removed
- Write down the decision so the next person does not re-litigate it
Respect platform privacy rules or you will be removed. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. The practical test is whether someone new to the project could tell, in a minute, that it had been handled.
Where to go from here
The short version
You do not control the device, the network, or the operating system version, and the design has to accept that. 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 want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.