Localytics Adds Features To Complete The Picture For Mobile App Developers And Marketers

Boston-based Localytics is fleshing out its mobile app analytics and marketing platform in a major way today with a variety of new features to help not just with customer acquisition, but also with monitoring and maintaining customer relationships over the lifetime of an app. The three big new areas Localytics now addresses with its platform are Lifetime Value Tracking, Customer Acquisition Management and Real-Time Funnel Management, all of which serve to help determine long-term engagement value.

Localytics is introducing these new features based on the theory that most marketers spend all their time and money on the front end of the sales cycle, getting people to download the app, and then aren’t really concerned about whether that person will become a quality user over the long term. If you’re used to web marketing trends, it’s like the difference between a low value visitor who comes in from search traffic and doesn’t stay long, and one who is referred by a trusted source and has a much higher chance of becoming a repeat customer. Most web properties, including our own, now value metrics like time spent on page whereas before they cared only about getting page views.

Paying attention to the entire cycle is a key competitive advantage for Localytics, according to CEO Raj Aggarwal, who explained in an interview how it helps his company offers something that mobile marketers won’t be able to find at most of its significant competitors.

“Unlike other vendors in this space, the latest additions to our platform allow our customers to close the loop of the entire customer lifecycle within apps – from acquisition, to funnel optimization to tracking the total customer lifetime value,” he said. “App developers can then leverage that insight to interact with users in a personalized manner and customize the content they receive. No other vendor can deliver the combination of deep insight and action within apps.”

The new features help Localytics users identify which customer segments are driving the most revenue and profit, target the most valuable users with tailored advertising and acquisition outreach efforts, and provide in-app messages aimed at those users. It can also bring in Facebook advertising spend data, and provide long-term looks at how marketing campaigns are shaking out. Finally, there’s more information about how conversion funnels are working to turn people into paying customers, with real-time insights and long-term tracking of the efficacy of any changes made to the process.

This isn’t just good for companies, Localytics argues, but ultimately benefits the consumer, too, since it enables developers to create a better app experience that’s more likely to meet a user’s needs. “The benefit to the end user is that the user will receive a much better experience as the developers can tailor and personalize the app based on a granular understanding of the user’s preferences,” Aggarwal says.

Localytics is essentially trying to move away from a siloed approach to analytics, and providing a more thorough look at an app’s marketing life style is just the first step. Ultimately, the company says that its goal is to help mobile analytics drive real action throughout an organization, not just as it relates to apps, and helping to turn data into a more holistic picture of how a mobile experience can affect a business at the macro level.