Build Heatmaps for Mobile Apps

April 29, 2016 | Raj Srivastav

Build Heatmaps for Mobile Apps
Build Heatmaps for Mobile Apps

A website is one of the most useful tools for any entrepreneur or business owner. Whether you’re trying to sell a product or just build a brand, a clean, simple website will help drive business and grow your digital presence. Even more importantly in our mobile-first society, the same is also true for Mobile apps. But in order for either to be useful, they need to to be monitored, studied, and analyzed.

The good news is that we live in the world of Big Data and tools like MixPanel and Google Analytics help us make sense of all the numbers being thrown at us. But this is modern marketing; just like other industries, we base our decisions on a plethora of statistics we gather from the traffic on our app or website. And we do mean a lot of statistics here. A good web marketer studies:

♦ Search engine and App store traffic: Is your SEO/ASO working? Why or why not?

♦ The flow of traffic from screen to screen: Is the UI/UX cohesive and users are guided in a logical manner through your mobile app? Or are your visitors getting confused and leaving before you can convert them?

♦ Bounce rates: Where are people leaving your website? Why? What changes need to be made?

♦ Conversion rates: The exact opposite of the previous point, but a little more accurate because you can ask converted visitors what led them to you.

That’s about as brief a list as can be of what a good app admin collects, but you get the point. The idea is that analytics can study how visitors use your app from page to page or within a single page itself. At SDI, we study dozens of numbers and look at the traffic of thousands of people who visit our website on a daily basis. So when we say that we understand the plight of the modern day web marketer you can believe us!

With all of these numbers floating around, we run the risk of “getting lost in the infinite,” to borrow from the great philosopher Kierkegaard. In other words, digital marketers run the risk of being overwhelmed by too much information and being incapable of making an effective, timely decision. So how do we avoid this problem and make good, sound business decisions designed to grow app downloads – and a revenue?

Well, one thing any designer will gladly tell you is that humans are a visually-oriented species. We like things that look pretty, things that convey a lot of information in a minimalistic fashion as possible. Generally, this means pictures, videos, interactive elements, and so on. This preference towards the visual is no different for marketers; we benefit just as much for displaying data visually as the next. Which brings us to a new trend in the world of digital marketing: Heatmaps.

Heatmaps for Mobile Apps

Heatmaps for mobile apps track haptic data (where people touch on the screen) and display it in a highly visual and easily understood manner. This allows app owners to see what interactive elements are effective and what are not. This also works for websites by the way – instead of tracking haptic feedback it tracks mouse movement on the website (if you’re on top of the ball, your website is mobile so a heatmap will work in the same way as it does for an app).

This is everything from what the user actually taps, to every other place on your app screen that user touched. For a digital marketer, a heat map is the motherlode of information. It lets us see what users do in the app, from gestures to navigation. It tells an app marketer if the design is working. As far as an analytic tool, this is possibly the most invaluable tool out there for iOS and Android app designers.

Designers can see what parts of an app are the most engaging to their users and attempt to emulate that design element elsewhere. We can tell if a Call to Action button (read more about Android App Marketing techniques here) is being ignored entirely, or if it’s attracting some interest but people are quite ready to make the final leap.

Heatmaps for apps take the much of the guesswork out of app analytics. Earlier analytics provided lots of very general data; it told us where app users were going when they left/converted, and other such general features. A heat map specifically provides lets us drill down into the data and see exactly what individual elements on each app screen is working. The value that this tool provides to app analytics is extensive and undeniable.

With heatmaps, app designers and developers can determine where they should locate ads to be the least intrusive without sacrificing effectiveness. It helps nail down exactly where to start pushing in-app purchases without chasing off users – or preventing users from easily purchasing products they want!

How to Build a Heat Map App

That’s easy – give SDI a call at 408.805.0495. We have 200 developers and over 30 marketers and designers. We don’t just build apps. We refine ideas into apps, we design and develop them – and then we create ways for you to continually refine your app. We provide support for mobile apps at each step along an app’s lifecycle, from conception to post-launch activities. Don’t believe us? Take a look at one of our many popular blogs that have influenced the industry.

With a heat map app, app owners can reach a new level of control over their product. They allow us to develop better strategies, informed by more accurate information and it leads to a shorter path to monetization and success.

Send us an email at team@sdi.la today to get started on your project. Request for a free quote and an NDA and we will send one right away. Hurry to take advantage of our current offer – 30% off your first project.

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